The UK offers a wide range of courses to develop teachers of English. These cater for teachers with different needs, interests and levels of experience. They fall into two categories:
- short courses for teacher training and development, lasting up to 4 weeks
- graduate and postgraduate courses
Short teacher training and teacher development courses
The UK has an excellent reputation and long tradition of providing short teacher training and teacher development courses. These courses vary in terms of:
- content
- degree of specialisation
- mode of delivery
- time in the year when delivered
- whether they are open or closed courses
- type of course provider
- location
Over the past few years courses have become more specialised (see list below). Some courses are now targeted at specific sectors e.g. primary and secondary, or at teachers with specific teaching and learning needs e.g. CLIL and materials development. Specialist courses include:
- Business English
- Content and language integrated learning (CLIL)
- Cross-cultural issues
- Curriculum design
- English for academic purposes (EAP)
- English for specific purposes (ESP)
- ELT management
- Literature
- Materials design
- New learning technologies
- Pronunciation
- Teacher education
- Testing, evaluation and assessment
- Young learners
Many courses continue to combine teacher development modules with language improvement sessions. Most courses have been traditionally delivered face to face, but an increasing number of current courses involve mixed mode or distance learning delivery.
Many institutions run open courses at specific times of the year particularly during the summer. A significant number of providers also deliver bespoke closed group courses to institutional and educational ministry clients. Many providers will also deliver training courses outside the UK for specific clients.
Short teacher training courses are run by a range of private sector institutions including some for whom teacher education comprises a significant proportion of their business e.g. Bell International, International House London, NILE, Pilgrims. Other private sector operators offer a smaller range of open and closed courses. Many tertiary institutions offer short courses in subjects that they specialise in e.g. materials development, EAP. Some idea of the scale of the provision can be gained from the fact that over 140 member centres of English UK offer Courses for Teachers of English in the 2008 English in the UK guide.
The Accreditation UK Scheme, which the British Council manages, covers teacher development courses which include English language improvement as an aim, and which do not lead to formal ELT/TESOL qualifications and are not validated by a recognised validating or examining body.
Courses can be located via the Education UK website www.educationuk.org and English UK's website www.englishuk.com and its English in the UK guide.
