TeachingEnglish: Focus on professional development
How will the course help you?
By the end of Focus on professional development, you’ll be able to:
- identify the most appropriate professional development tools for your context
- select reflective tools appropriately to help develop your teaching practice
describe the skills involved in peer observation.
How can you enrol on the course?
Register for a free TeachingEnglish account or log in to your account.
Enrol on this free course
What resources can you access at any time?
- A free workbook with extra learning content and resources connected to the course contents
- A dedicated Facebook community of course participants with up-to-date insight, resources and innovative teaching ideas for you to try out (Facebook account required)
- Learning content related to our courses on Facebook and YouTube
- Live events and recordings with course tutors and language teaching experts on Facebook and YouTube
- Teaching resources on the TeachingEnglish website
- Sign up for our newsletter to keep up to date on when our courses open
What are the self-study modules in Focus on professional development?
- Module 1 – Understanding professional development
The aim of this module is to introduce you to the concept of professional development and how it applies to you in your teaching career. You will define the term 'professional development’, identify the most appropriate professional development tools based on your teaching and learning context as well as write a professional development plan based on your short-term goals.
- Module 2 – Engaging with reflective practice
The aim of this module is to increase your understanding of reflective practice; the process of thinking about, evaluating, analysing and reviewing what takes place in the classroom. You will explain what reflection is and how to do it, select reflective tools appropriately to help develop your teaching practice as well as write a reflective action plan related to your own professional development.
- Module 3 – Engaging with peer observation
The aim of this module is to increase your awareness of the importance of peer observation as a professional development tool and how you can use it effectively. You will recognise the importance and value of peer observation in your own professional development, describe the skills involved in peer observation as well as begin to plan a peer observation.
Course reviews
What have other teachers said about how Focus on professional development helped them?
"I’ve tried the pop in observation method and peer observation method which was a great push for me and my colleagues to try to improve our teaching skills, It has put us into the right path."
Course participant, Egypt
"I am conducting a research on teachers’ self assessment so I found very important information about reflective teaching . next week I am going to visit many teachers for their professional development so the module about observation is very beneficial. thanks to British Council, I am a lifelong learner. Thank you"
Course participant, Morocco
"I started peer observations with my colleagues to model and get used to this type of observation. I hope next year each teacher will choose their partner and the way they want to do it"
Course participant, Paraguay
It's very helpfull for me