What's happening in June and July 2024?
This page gives you an overview of all the activity happening across our TeachingEnglish channels in June and July 2024.
For teachers, we'll be focusing on the theme of Understanding educational policies and practices. For teacher educators, the focus is Adopting inclusive practices. Below you'll find free online training courses, live webinars and other online events, podcast episodes and research – all related to the bimonthly themes. You'll also find training and resources related to our evergreen themes of Gender, Inclusion, Climate and Assessment throughout the year.
Our theme workbook for teachers is designed to help you develop your understanding of our main theme through reflection and extra resources.
In addition to our themed events and content, we also have hundreds of lesson plans and classroom resources. Below we've selected some lesson plans to help you engage students with topical issues and special United Nations days in June and July.
Online training courses
We have a range of courses running connected to the theme of Understanding educational policies and practices and our evergreen themes. Live events and discussions related to these courses are hosted in our Courses for teachers community on Facebook. Find out more about all courses running in June and July below.
- Safeguarding learners online – enrol before 24 July
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Make your classroom a safe space for online learning. Help your learners to feel confident, be successful and recognise when they may need help.
In this free online course, you will learn about the following:
- Understanding safeguarding
- Digital citizen identity
- Digital privacy and security.
Find out more and enrol on this free course
Download the Safeguarding learners online workbook - Building understanding through dialogue – enrol before 24 July
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Create positive relationships and effective communication in your classroom by exploring techniques to develop empathy, critical thinking and intercultural competence.
In this free online course, you will learn about the following:
- Dialogue and intercultural competence
- Dialogue, trust and empathy
- Dialogue and critical thinking.
Find out more and enrol on this free course
Download the Building understanding through dialogue workbook - Helping teachers to learn – enrol before 23 November
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This free course is for teacher educators and teachers considering becoming a teacher educator. Discover how to support teachers in their professional development by planning and delivering effective training. Find out how to set up and support communities of practice to facilitate collaboration, and learn how to encourage all types of self-directed learning.
In this free online course, you will learn about the following:
- Understanding teacher learning and training
- Facilitating collaborative learning
- Supporting teacher autonomy and self-directed learning.
Find out more and enrol on this free course
Download the Helping teachers to learn workbook - Teaching English to refugees and displaced learners – enrol before 23 September
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Make your classroom a trauma-sensitive learning environment. Help your learners to shine by working creatively with limited resources and by managing challenging behaviour positively.
In this free online course, you will learn about the following:
- An introduction to trauma and its effects on the classroom
- Teaching with minimal resources
- Dealing with very challenging behaviour
Find out more and enrol on this free course
Download the Teaching English to refugees and displaced learners workbook - TeachingEnglish: Inclusive classrooms – enrol before 21 September
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Make your classes inclusive learning spaces by identifying barriers that can affect learning and practical strategies to overcome them.
In this free online course, you will learn about the following:
- Introduction to inclusion
- Creating an inclusive classroom environment
- Making your school culture more inclusive.
Find out more and enrol on this free course
Download the Inclusive classrooms workbook - Gender in language education – enrol before 21 September
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Learn to recognise different kinds of gender bias and stereotypes, some of the barriers learners face in gender equality and equity, and how to help overcome them in your context.
In this free online course, you will learn about the following:
- Gender representation in teaching materials
- Understanding gender equality in teaching practice
- Working with gender equality in education.
Find out more and enrol on this free course
Download the Gender in language education workbook
Online events and webinars
See our free online events and webinars for teachers and teacher educators below.
- Breaking down barriers – mini event (19 June)
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This event on Wednesday June 19, 2024 will feature three practical webinars from specialists in equality, diversity and inclusion. The webinars will give you insights into the experiences of teachers and students who face unjustified discrimination and suggest ways you can reduce barriers through your teaching. The webinars will focus on disability, LGBTQIA+ issues and race, and help you promote tolerance, respect and anti-racism in your classroom. These will be followed by a panel of expert teachers from around the world sharing activity ideas for fostering safe, respectful and inclusive learning environments. The event is for teachers of primary, secondary and adult English language learners.
Schedule and speakers
13.15–18.00 (UK time)
13.15–14.15: Being a teacher with disabilities: perspectives, practices and opportunities (Nidhi Singal, UK)
14.30–15.30: Raising awareness of LGBTQIA+ issues in the classroom (Katherine Reilly, Greece)
15.45–16.45: Localising anti-racism: what you can do in the classroom (Amina Douidi, UK)
17.00–18.00: How can you break down barriers in your classrooms? (panel discussion)
Find out more and register for this online event. - Valuing multilingualism – mini event (18 July)
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These sessions look at how we can use learners' home languages as a valuable resource to help learners learn and give practical ideas about how to make the most of the linguistic diversity in your classes.
Schedule and speakers
09.00–12.30 (UK time)
09.00–10.00: L1 in the classroom (Adrienn Szlapak, Malaysia)
10.15–11.15: Multilingual lessons from my classes (Huma Hasna, UAE)
11.30–12.30: How can we celebrate multilingualism in our classes? (panel discussion)
Find out more and register for this online event. - The role of leadership and teacher professional development programmes in creating inclusive schooling (27 June)
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Please note, the content of this webinar is not aimed at teachers and is specifically for teacher educators who have a role in supporting the professional development of teachers.
This event will explore strategies for empowering school leaders and embedding inclusive education techniques into teacher education programmes, focusing on advocacy, mindset change, and equitable education practices.
12.00–13.15 (UK time)
Find out more and register for this online event - Language and inclusion in a refugee setting (16 July)
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Please note, the content of this webinar is not aimed at teachers and is specifically for teacher educators who have a role in supporting the professional development of teachers.
Rod Hicks, Regional Education Lead Advisor for Sub Saharan Africa for the Education Development Trust and co-author Lucy Maina discuss strategies that are offered to teachers in Ugandan schools impacted by refugees to ensure language is used in a way that allows all to learn and achieve their potential.
12.00–13.15 (UK time)
Find out more and register for this online event - Facebook and Instagram Live events in June and July 2024
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Join our online community of more than four million teachers worldwide. We will be hosting weekly events throughout June and July via our Facebook and Instagram channels.
These 30-minute 'live' sessions are a great opportunity for you to join teachers from around the world.
Engage with English language teaching experts and community members on a range of topics and themes to help you develop your teaching skills, and share ideas and questions with a vibrant global online community.
See what's happening in our community on Facebook
See what's happening in our community on Instagram
For the classroom
See a selection of lesson plans below that you can use to focus on United Nations special days in June and July in your language teaching classrooms.
- World Bicycle Day (03 June)
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Title of lesson plan: Cycling
Age group: Secondary
Level: B1 and above
Use this lesson with secondary learners to discuss cycling and cycling habits. - World Environment Day (05 June)
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Title of lesson plan: The Climate Connection – Making our school green
Age group: Secondary
Level: B1 and above
Use this lesson with your learners to highlight environmental initiatives that can be implemented in your school.
Title of lesson plan: The Climate Connection – Power to change
Age group: Secondary
Level: B1 and above
Use this lesson with your learners to highlight environmental initiatives that can be implemented in your school.
Title of lesson plan: Buy. Use. Toss.
Age group: Secondary
Level: B1 and above
Use this lesson with secondary learners at CEFR level B1 to look at the issue of plastic waste.
Title of lesson plan: Family footprint
Age group: Secondary
Level: B2 and above
Use this lesson with secondary learners to consider the environmental impacts of our families and homes. - World Oceans Day (08 June)
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Title of lesson plan: My sea creature
Age group: Primary
Level: A1 and above
Use this lesson in face-to-face or online teaching to explore life under the sea with your primary learners. - International Day for Countering Hate Speech (18 June)
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Title of lesson plan: The school that tried to end racism
Age group: Secondary
Level: B2 and above
Use this lesson to explore race equality and unconscious bias with your secondary and adult learners at CEFR B2 and above. - World Refugee Day (20 June)
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Title of lesson plan: Refugee poster project
Age group: Secondary
Level: B1 and above
Use this lesson to raise your learners' awareness of the situation of refugees throughout the world.
Title of lesson plan: The Windrush generation
Age group: Secondary
Level: B1 and above
This lesson uses a very simple poem to convey the feelings of the Caribbean immigrants who arrived in Britain in the 1940s and 50s. - Nelson Mandela International Day (18 July)
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Title of lesson plan: Mandela Day
Age group: Secondary
Level: B1 and aboveMandela Day is celebrated every year on 18 July. This integrated skills lesson plan for upper-secondary students looks at Nelson Mandela's life and explores some of the themes surrounding South Africa during apartheid.
- International Day of Friendship (30 July)
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Title of lesson plan: Friendship
Age group: Primary
Level: A1 and aboveCelebrate friends and friendship with this lesson for primary learners.
Title of lesson plan: My grandfriend
Age group: Primary
Level: A1 and aboveUse this lesson to explore the theme of friends from an older generation in face-to-face classrooms or online teaching with your primary learners.
Podcast episodes
See all our podcast episodes connected to June and July's themes below.
- TeachingEnglish podcast: The Climate Connection – Episode 1: Taking the temperature
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The opening episode of The Climate Connection considers what the ELT community is already doing – and what it should be doing – about the climate crisis.
The first interview is with Harry Kuchah Kuchah, President of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, who provides some general guidance on this issue while also talking specifically about his work in Cameroon and with young learners. Picking up some of Harry's main themes, Deepa Mirchandani and Chris Graham talk about their forthcoming report Climate Action in Language Education, which brings together the reflections and ideas of hundreds of professionals working in the ELT sector. In between, in From the Field, we visit the coastal city of Gabes in Tunisia, where we discover how one school is not only directly involving itself in environmental clean-up campaigns of the heavily-polluted beaches but is using the waste materials they find to learn English. And finally, in The Green Glossary, the term ‘climate emergency’ – the 2019 Oxford Word of the Year – will be explained by an editor from the Oxford English Dictionary.
Listen to the episode and download the show notes - TeachingEnglish podcast: Do I need to sound like a 'native speaker'?
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In this episode, we ask the question: do I need to sound like a 'native speaker'? After discussing what we mean by native and non-native speakers of English, we have a conversation with Professor Jenny Jenkins, emeritus professor of Global Englishes. Jenny argues that 'native English' is a loaded and problematic term and she draws on her experience of ELF – English as a lingua franca – to provide a more useful understanding of English proficiency. Later in the episode, we hear from some of our TeachingEnglish Facebook community members, who give their opinions on the topic. Thanks to Maria Glazunova, Fajarudin Akbar and Cristiana Osana for their contributions. Finally, we speak with Ana Jović, English language teacher and consultant, about native speakerism and its impact on language learning and teaching. Ana highlights the need for educating parents, learners and teachers about the myths surrounding English speakers in ELT.
Listen to the episode and download the show notes
Publications, research and insight
See publications related to June and July's themes below.
- Understanding educational policies and practices self-study booklet
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This self-study guide for teachers and teacher educators looks at Understanding educational policies and practices. It forms part of a series of self-study booklets, in which teachers and teacher educators will find useful theory and practice for teaching English effectively, including short case studies and professional development activities to do individually and with colleagues.
Understanding educational policies and practices self-study booklet - Gender equality in English language teaching practice: A resource book for teacher education
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Gender equality in English language teaching practice: A resource book for teacher education contributes to a reconceptualisation of English language teacher education by drawing teacher educators' and student teachers' attention to the importance of gender equality from an early stage of professional development. It is one of the outcomes of the international research project 'Gender-ing ELT: International perspectives, practices, policies', which investigated the socially relevant contribution that English language teaching (ELT) can make towards gender equality and the empowerment of woman and girls.
Gender equality in English language teaching practice: A resource book for teacher education - Creating an inclusive school environment
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The settings brought to life here reveal the work of teachers, leaders and policymakers in geographically and culturally diverse situations. In each of the chapters we see the challenges they face and the significant efforts they make to ensure access to, and engagement with, a quality education for all children. The collection includes 15 case studies.
Creating an inclusive school environment - Equal opportunity and diversity: The handbook for teachers of English
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This 96-page handbook has been produced for English teachers, by English teachers. The book is a showcase of best practice from a variety of teaching contexts around the world, where colleagues have successfully embedded equality and diversity in English language teaching.
Equal opportunity and diversity: The handbook for teachers of English - Guide for teacher educators: Supporting teachers in teaching English to learners with special educational needs and disabilities
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This guide will support teacher educators working with teachers engaged in teaching English as a subject or teaching through the medium of English, providing support for a better understanding of approaches to inclusive education practice. While the focus is on English language teaching and learning communities, this 'How to' guide is also relevant for teachers of other subjects.
Guide for teacher educators: Supporting teachers in teaching English to learners with special educational needs and disabilities - Preparing future teachers for CLIL: An in-depth investigation of three cases
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This research used questionnaires, interviews, classroom observation and a detailed analysis of the teacher educators' teaching materials as well as their student-teachers' learning artefacts. Three teacher educators and their student-teachers based in Argentina, Colombia and Spain participated in the investigation. The report presents an overview of CLIL as well as details about the participants' practices and views on CLIL.
Preparing future teachers for CLIL: An in-depth investigation of three cases - Global practices in teaching English to young learners: Ten years on
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This research was funded in partnership with the British Council and compares the data collected in 2010 in the Global Practices in Teaching English to Young Learners project (Garton et al., 2011) with similar data collected in 2020.
Global practices in teaching English to young learners: Ten years on