TeachingEnglish - Classroom Language is a programme of in-service training to help teachers of English use English with more confidence in the classroom.

In many countries in the world the demand for English language education has outstripped the capacity to provide fully trained English teachers. A significant number of teachers of English round the world are teaching with low levels of English language competence and professional training, and this can impact on their confidence and ability to teach effectively.

TeachingEnglish Classroom Language provides a core resource of materials for programmes developing the English classroom language skills of EL teachers. The focus is on English for the classroom. Training aims to develop participants' confidence and skills in using more English in their lessons, and gives them opportunities to reflect on and develop their ELT methodology. The principle behind the materials is that development begins with what the teachers actually do in the classroom.

The teacher training materials are intended to be delivered by local trainers, who will be trained to deliver the workshops and to adapt and add to the materials in response to the specific local circumstances of teachers. Some discussion activities may also be run in the local language to encourage a better level of debate.

The training materials have been developed by British Council materials developers and quality-assured by external experts.

The training programme has three elements:

• A programme of 5 3-hour trainer-training workshop plans to prepare local trainers to deliver Classroom Language training
• A programme of 10 3-hour teacher-training workshop plans for teachers of English with less than CEF B1 level of English who wish to improve their classroom English language skills  
• A programme of 5 3-hour mentor-preparation workshop plans to prepare mentors to support teachers of English involved in the Classroom Language programme

Each workshop has notes for the workshop leader and worksheets for the participants.

The training workshops for teachers deal with the following topics:

• Starting and Finishing a Lesson
• Presenting New Language
• Giving Instructions
• Asking Questions and Eliciting
• General Classroom Management
• Correcting Learners
• Developing Confidence in using English in the Classroom
• Pronunciation
• Giving an Accurate, Clear Spoken Model for Learners
• Using L1 in the English Classroom

The materials are designed to be used flexibly according to the local context. They can be:

• Delivered as an intensive course, or as a semi-intensive course; and as regular sessions over a longer period, or as individual stand-alone workshops
• Delivered in any order, according to the needs and wants of participants
• Adapted and/or added to by local trainers to suit the specific contexts they are working in

Have a look at some sample Classroom Language materials for the trainers and teachers.

For more information contact our Online Teacher Training team