R084 Eltecs 2005 P675 A/W - Zona CLIL · CLIL at primary level 23 Lithuania: Human rights...

ELTeCSinfo2004–05English Language Teaching Contacts Scheme

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Editorial

3 Foreword by Tessa Woodward, Vice-President IATEFL

4 ELTeCS: past, present and future by Mike Solly, Manager ELTeCS

Special features

Electronic forums and web resources

6 More than an interest group: ELTeCS Self-access Latin America

6 Take your pick! British Council web resources for ELT practitioners

7 Welcome to the new ELTeCS website

Teachers’ associations

8 Where continents and teachers’ associations meet: RENTA in Istanbul

10 Moroccan Association for Teachers of English (MATE) in its twenties: a sustainable commitment to TEFL

12 British Council Seminar: ‘Strength in numbers’

Using film and literature in the classroom

14 Czech Republic, Germany, India and Russia:Viewing British films critically

18 Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda: Regional workshop on teachingliterature in East Africa

20 Slovenia: Animating literature

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)

21 Italy: Including non-language colleagues in CLIL teacher development

22 Latvia: CLIL at primary level

23 Lithuania: Human rights 2004–05: CLIL is coming

23 Lithuania: Multilingual CLIL

Regional reports: how ELTeCS members are making a difference

Africa and the Middle East

25 Iraq: The birth of a team

26 Israel: Reaching greater heights in language teaching

27 Libya, Morocco and Tunisia: Sharing good practice in ICT for ELT in North Africa

28 Sudan: ‘Sharing for Success’, East Africa ELT Conference, 2004

EDITORIAL

SPECIALFEATURES

REGIONAL REPORTS

AFRICA AND THEMIDDLE EAST

EAST ASIA

EUROPE ANDCENTRAL ASIA

INDIA

LATIN AMERICA

SOUTH ASIA

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Contents

ELTeCS helps ELT

professionals work together across

borders to strengthen skills and

to improve practice. The Scheme

enables practitioners to share

information, create partnerships

and initiate projects. It offers

opportunities to connect with and

participate in ELT activity with fellow

professionals regionally. It is a free

community run by its members and

supported by the British Council.

I’ve been a member of the ELTeCS networkfor some years. ‘Oh ELTeCS! How do I findthee useful? Let me count the ways . . . thedepth and breadth and height.’ *

Depth

Being on the ELTeCS network means I canget really deeply into a special topic such asContent and Language Integrated Learning(CLIL) via Keith Kelly’s CLIL list. I can find outwho is involved, what they are discussing andproducing. I can get detailed reports of CLILinitiatives and of conferences that I could not get to in person. I can also access thearchives of all the postings on the ELTeCSwebsite if I mistakenly wipe them from myown computer files.

Breadth

Via ELTeCS I can be in touch with 12,000 ELT professionals – teachers, trainers, andacademics – all around the world. I can readabout projects that bring ideas togetheracross borders. I can send out a notice orrequest for information in my region and knowthat interested, helpful people all around theregion will send me their thoughts.

Height

Set up by the British Council, ELTeCS isnevertheless co-run and managed by non-Council members. The whole idea is to develop the teaching profession. As anexample, at the last IATEFL conference inLiverpool, in April 2004, two roving ELTeCSreporters, one from Croatia and one fromArmenia, zoomed around the conferenceasking questions of the mighty and the mere!

The fit between ELTeCS, with its aim ofhelping teachers to network and develop,and IATEFL, with its aim of linking, developingand supporting ELT professionals worldwide,is a natural one. Many members of IATEFLare in ELTeCS and many ELTeCS membersare in IATEFL.

Teachers are enjoying productiveprofessional contacts around the world . . .contacts of depth, breadth and height.And, can you believe it? It’s free!

* I have two excuses for borrowing andbending the words of Elizabeth BarrettBrowning. First, I want to eulogise. Second, there is a poet’s corner onwww.britishcouncil.org/learning/eltecs

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Foreword

Tessa Woodward, Vice-President IATEFL

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East Asia

29 China: Teaching science through English

30 Malaysia: Mondialogo.org

31 Singapore: Report from STETS

32 Thailand: ELTeCS East Asia IT and ELT workshop

Europe and Central Asia

33 Bulgaria: Quality in Foreign Language Teaching (QIFLT) project

34 Czech Republic: A project that took off – a manual for teachers

35 Czech Republic: Report on the Hornby Regional School

36 Hungary: LEXINFO – the new ESP examination

37 Hungary: TEMOLAYOLE – a research project for teachers of modern languages

38 Lithuania: Teaching English to young learners 2002–05

38 Lithuania: Kaleidoscope – teachers’ voices 2004

39 Romania: BETA for better: the 12th annual conference

40 Slovenia: Problem-based learning in teaching ESP

41 Slovenia: LABICUM – bridging intercultural communication and understanding

India

42 English Teachers’ Clubs – a novel experiment

43 The Hornby India Alumni regional project – Phases II and III

44 Improving communication skills in English – an Indian experience

Latin America

45 Bolivia: Some thoughts on teaching materials

46 Brazil: Partnerships and collaboration in researching EFL in initialteacher education

47 Brazil: English language teacher training in Rio de Janeiro

48 Brazil: Web-based ELT materials seminar

49 Brazil: A collaborative pedagogical environment

49 Cuba: Summer course in Cienfuegos – Cuba and Brazil exchange ideas

50 Mexico: CEI-UAS – 20 years of language teaching

South Asia

51 Pakistan: Networks – the key to developing an effective ELT sector

52 Pakistan: CEL launches its advanced diploma in TEFL programme

Membership activity

Although ELTeCS is supported by the British Council it could not function withoutthe hard work of the membership – from the editors and the ELTeCS project teams, to the members who contribute to thediscussion lists and take part in the day-to-day knowledge sharing and mutual supportthat typifies the scheme. There have beensome particularly interesting debates on the discussion lists in 2004, for example the exchanges about teaching grammar and ‘native v. non-native speaker teachers’.These have contributed a great deal to the lists in terms of content, and have alsobeen characterised by a professional, good-humoured approach, which reflects the spiritof ELTeCS. I would like to encourage moremembers to post queries and findings, and to respond to others’ postings on the lists aswell as off.

New challenges

As the activity and membership of ELTeCSgrows it becomes important to examine new ways of working. So, what of the future?One challenge for ELTeCS is how to make themost of the regionality of the network, whilemaintaining a global identity. In May 2004 a meeting was held in Paris between BritishCouncil ELT staff and some experiencedELTeCS members, to look at how we couldchart a future for ELTeCS and other BritishCouncil ELT networks that would best servethe needs of the members. It was an excellentopportunity to look at our understanding of the first principles of good networking asmuch as to discuss possible scenarios andpartnerships for the future. Over the next few

years the British Council is moving to a much more regionally structured way ofworking. We anticipate that this will be a greatopportunity – after all, this is how the ELTeCSnetwork is already organised. I look forwardto new regional innovations in the ELTeCScommunity in the coming years as a result.

Planning for 2005

A number of initiatives are already under way for 2005, and we are holding the first of what we hope will be a series of ELTeCScelebratory events. This will be in Berlin in March, although we plan on havingrepresentation from all the regions. And what of ELTeCS info? Membership feedbackon the handbook via the online and hardcopy questionnaire, early in 2004, was verypositive, and it is clear that members wouldlike the publication to continue. During 2005we will be encouraging people to send inarticles, at any point during the year. You can find our contact details on the insideback cover.

ELTeCS continues to grow as a knowledge-sharing and face-to-face network. Over12,000 people have been connected virtuallyand literally from all over the globe. Each daymore people join and benefit from it. Thanksagain to all those that make this happen, andplease remember that all members can playan active part!

I hope you enjoy this edition of ELTeCS info,and I wish you all the best in the coming year.

Mike Solly December 2004

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Welcome to ELTeCS info 2004–05. For thefirst time, the publication covers a two-yearspan. ELTeCS members’ feedback indicatedthat you would prefer the handbook to reviewthe work of the year just gone, and also lookforward to the next. We’ve also included apullout leaflet that we hope you will finduseful. This brings together much essentialELTeCS information: contacts, project criteria– and an application form for offline members.

Networking in 2004

There has been much more collaboration and sharing of knowledge with other networksin 2004, both inside and outside the BritishCouncil, and this issue reflects that. We aredelighted that Tessa Woodward (Vice-Presidentof IATEFL) has written the foreword, whichhighlights the close links between IATEFL and ELTeCS. There is a special feature onteachers’ associations, and a number ofarticles reflect the way several ELTeCSprojects have emerged from Hornby Schoolsin the last 12 months. There are now regularupdates on the ELTeCS discussion lists aboutthe British Council’s websites: teaching English,SearchEnglish, LearnEnglish and LanguageAssistant. And finally, ELTeCS has hadrepresentation at many international events.

ELTeCS in cyberspace

ELTeCS members again had the opportunity to‘virtually’ attend the annual IATEFL conferencein Liverpool, thanks to this year’s two rovingreporters, Visnja Pavicic (Croatia) andChristina Sargsyan (Armenia). Their excellentreports can still be found on the teachingEnglish website (www.teachingenglish.org.uk).We look forward to ELTeCS members’ virtualinvolvement next year at the conference,

which will be in Cardiff. Our own ELTeCS site (www.britishcouncil.org/learning/eltecs)has also had the IT version of a total physical workout – no, more than that:major reconstruction surgery! Feedback on the result has been very promising.

ELTeCS projects in 2004–05

There are a number of articles and reportson successful ELTeCS projects in this edition, including a special feature on Using films and literature in the classroom.During 2004 we received 39 projectproposals from all regions and 12 of thesehave been successfully funded. Two projectsfrom 2002–03 (‘Cascading ICT in ELT’, and‘Developing Materials for a Special Purpose’)were presented with the ELTeCS award at theprestigious ELT Innovation Awards ceremonyin London in March 2004. The team leadersand deputies for both projects attended inperson. We are looking forward to one of the successful projects from the 12 monthsfrom autumn 2003 to summer 2004 beingselected for the 2005 award.

Growing membership

The ELTeCS network of experienced ELTprofessionals continues to expand in allregions, and over the last year there has beenparticular growth in Western Europe, LatinAmerica and some areas of sub-SaharanAfrica. We extend a particularly warm welcometo the increasing number of members fromAfghanistan and Iraq as they reconnect tointernational ELT networks. We have recentlyreceived a project proposal involving Afghanmembers and we are delighted to have anarticle on the newly formed Iraqi TeacherDevelopment team in this ELTeCS info.

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Mike Solly, Manager ELTeCS, ELT Group, British Council, UK([email protected])

The ELTeCS website was relaunched at the beginning of September this year. Thepages have been reorganised, rewritten and refreshed.

What’s the difference?

The first difference you can see is that thereare more photos, more colour and a varietyof ‘slots’ for information. The hope is that youwill find the design stimulating, and that youwill find the information you need as quicklyas possible.

The pages include many items written byELTeCS members. For example, if you gointo the Projects and funding pages, you willfind links to reports on completed projects.And you can read members’ poems, as wellas articles in past issues of ELTeCS info online.

How the lists and website work together

The aim is that the lists and website should complement each other. The e-maildiscussion lists will continue to be wheremembers can exchange information directlyand quickly. The website is where you canfind essential, signposted, global informationon opportunities, deadlines, ELTeCS projects,events, contacts and partnership withteachers’ associations.

The lists and website are closely linked. Forexample, project reports generally appearfirst in the lists and are then published on the website. The latter enables you to easily cite the reports, compare completedprojects, and keep track of project activity in each region. In addition, you can accessthe searchable archives for each list from thewebsite, where you can look for discussionson many issues, such as citizenship, dyslexia,grammar, etc. – some of which have beenaddressed by ELTeCS projects.

What about offline members?

Despite the rapidly increasing numbers of ELTeCS members connected to theinternet, the ELTeCS management team(British Council staff, discussion list editors,and project committees) continue to thinkabout the needs of ‘offline’ members, i.e.those who don’t have ready access to e-mailor the web. We hope that the information in the printed copies of this ELTeCS info willreach as many offline members as possibleand help them to participate in the ELTeCSnetworks. We know that members are alreadydoing what they can to share informationthrough events such as workshops andteachers’ association meetings. This combinedeffort and community spirit is what makesELTeCS members succeed. After all, ELTeCSisn’t about being online – it’s about workingtogether to bring about improvement in skillsand practice.

If you have any comments about orsuggestions regarding the website, pleasecontact me (see full address details on theinside back cover).

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Welcome to the new ELTeCS website(www.britishcouncil.org/learning/eltecs)Penny Trigg, ELTeCS web editor, British Council, UK ([email protected])

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ELTeCS Self-access Latin America is anelectronic forum which, as its name suggests,promotes discussion around the variouslyfaceted topic of self-access languagelearning centres. Issues for discussioninclude setting up and maintaining a centre,facilitating learner autonomy, linking the self-access centre and the classroom, etc.The forum was first conceived during anELTeCS Latin America workshop held at theBritish Council in Mexico City in February2001. The result was an e-mail based forumwhich can also be accessed via the internetat http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ELTeCS_SelfAccess_LatinAmerica/

At present, the forum has 99 members,mainly from across Latin America, but alsoother parts of the world. Group activity ishighly fluctuating, with thought-provokingpostings sporadically triggering floods ofresponses which illustrate well the diversityof enthusiasts for self-access in the region,and the multiplicity of contexts in which self-access is set up. The forum has also proveduseful in spreading the word effectively about regional self-access centres’ meetingsand events.

ELTeCS Self-access Latin America continuesto serve well its purpose of providing amultidirectional communication channel for ELT professionals involved in self-accesswho are interested in sharing their thoughtsand concerns. Yet its paramount strengthcontinues to lie in its potential for providingthe basis for a true self-access networkcapable of organising itself and of issuingjoint initiatives and projects to promotebest practice in its area of concern.

SearchEnglish, teaching English and LanguageAssistant are three of the British Council’smain websites for teachers. Through thesewe offer a range of services, from teachingtips, articles and lesson plans to links tothe most recent news and journal articles on developments in ELT and educationaltechnology. Communicating with our targetusers, and trying to provide appropriatematerials and resources to meet their needsand interests, is a constant – and rewarding –challenge.

Over the past year we have been working hardto collaborate with ELTeCS. The ELTeCS listsare an invaluable way of keeping membersinformed of what’s happening on our websites.The increase in our user statistics shows thatELTeCS members have made ample use of our resources.

We’ve been working together to involveELTeCS members in the sites by getting their feedback, and by co-funding two ELTeCSmembers on a trip to the IATEFL conferencethis year, which they reported on for us (seeIATEFL blog 2004 www.teachingenglish.org.uk/iatefl2004/reporters.shtml).

We are always interested in hearing fromthose who would like to publish their work on one of our sites, or who have feedback onhow we can improve the sites or develop thecontent. We hope that, with your continuedhelp and support, we can provide a usefulrange of support materials for all teachers,whatever their experience. This covers thespectrum from those newly qualified rightthrough to those involved in sharing theirexpertise and making the important decisionsthat will inform policy in the rapidly changinglandscape of technical and pedagogicaldevelopment that is ELT.


More than an interestgroup: ELTeCS Self-accessLatin America Francisco Barron, Self-Access Centre Co-ordinator, Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico([email protected])

Take your pick! BritishCouncil web resources for ELT practitionersNik Peachey, Manager, Teaching Websites,British Council, UK ([email protected])

Designing two projects

On the last day of the seminar the participantsdiscussed the possibility of running two jointprojects. One was regional teacher training,where it is intended to train five teachersfrom each association as trainer trainers, sothat the teachers’ associations can involvethem in their future training, conferences or summer schools instead of wasting timelooking for trainers.

The second intended project is websitetraining for the teachers’ associations. Thiswill build the capacity of the associations to design and update their own websites.Having professionally designed websites will foster the exchange of information,experiences and documentation among the RENTA associations.

Project outcomes

These projects are expected to provide the following advantages:

■ rather than each association acting inisolation, the websites will enable them to communicate with each other and share common features

■ the sense of regional identity will bestrengthened, and teachers from onecountry will be encouraged to find outwhat is happening in neighbouringcountries

■ a permanent resource of web skills will be created in the associations, which will allow them to embark on other webprojects and, more importantly perhaps,offer web skills training to their members,thus widening the teachers’ associations’services and expertise and helpingteachers improve their IT skills

■ a regular regional newsletter will be aforum where the RENTA associations canpublish information about their projectsand forthcoming events, strengthening co-operation among associations in the process.

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8

Istanbul workshop of the Regional EnglishTeachers’ Association of Central Asia, Caucasus and the Russian Federation

RENTA – the start

RENTA, the Regional English Teachers’Association, was informally established in2003 at the meeting of Hornby EducationalTrust Alumni and teachers’ associations’representatives held in Tbilisi, Georgia, from20 to 23 March 2003. RENTA is composed of eight teachers’ associations’ of SouthCaucasus, Central Asia and the RussianFederation, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan,Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia,Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The aim is to shareexperience and expertise, and carry out jointprojects in the field of ELT.

Following Tbilisi

The advantage of RENTA is that it iscomposed of teachers’ associations withdifferent skills. Metaphorically speaking, there are teachers’ associations that are at beginners, intermediate or advanced level. Sharing information, experience and expertise helps teachers’ associationsdevelop as professional organisations. After the Tbilisi meeting, the associations of Azerbaijan and Tajikistan carried out a joint project on study tours where thePresident and Branch Director of theTajikistan association visited AzETA (theAzerbaijan English Teachers’ Association) to learn from the latter’s experiences. Issuescovered included providing services, branchmanagement, and co-operation with other

ELT-related local and internationalorganisations. Following the visit, theTajikistan association extended its activity by opening regional branches, while AzETAbenefited from Tajik colleagues’ commentson how to improve certain services.

The Istanbul workshop

RENTA held its second seminar in Istanbul,Turkey from 9 to 11 May 2004 with thefinancial support of the British Council-managed Hornby Educational Trustprogramme.

At the seminar, the teachers’ associationsrepresented in RENTA briefed each other on the activities carried out after the Tbilisimeeting; discussed needs and requirements,and future plans of individual associations;and sought ways to further co-operation.

‘We have to think more about looking foralternative ways of organising things, to makethem webby and not cobwebby’

This workshop was very fruitful; again, more experienced associations could sharetheir experience with the comparatively newassociations. The common areas of interestwere local and international conferences,teacher training (in-service, pre-service),newsletters, textbook writing, assessmentissues, and online forums. Reflecting on the potential power of networking, JeremyJacobson (Deputy Director of the BritishCouncil’s English Language Teaching Group)said: ‘We have to think more about looking for alternative ways of organising things, tomake them webby and not cobwebby’.


Where continents and teachers’ associations meetRagsana Mammadova, Executive Director AzETA (Azerbaijan English Teachers’ Association)([email protected])

Marina Tevzaia, English Language Teaching Co-ordinator at ESM (European School ofManagement), Tbilisi, Georgia ([email protected])

Bridge over the Bosphorus, Istanbul © Andy Huggett

Throughout its existence, MATE has grown inmany ways:

■ Besides running national conferences, ithas organised regional and internationalprofessional gatherings.

■ Since the 1990s, it has reached teacherseven in remote regions of Moroccothrough ‘MATE Days’.

■ Since the beginning of the current decade,it has focused on specific areas of interestby creating special interest groups (SIGs).Some of these SIGs run their own colloquiaon a regular basis.

■ It has improved its services by training its officers and members in NGOmanagement, presentation skills, and ICT skills.

■ It has widened its scope of work by (a) transferring its know-how to otherassociations to enable them to organisethemselves better, and (b) offering Englishcourses to underprivileged students ataffordable fees.

MATE has fostered creativity and imaginationon the Moroccan ELT scene. Thesetestimonials speak for themselves:

‘. . . the Moroccan Association of Teachers of English, is an impressive and very active body. The teachers’ questions andreferences to their own reading kept me on my toes, and I learned at least as muchfrom them as they did from me.’ (Low, 1999,http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/low0799.htm)

‘As in most countries, few ESP teachers weregiven ESP training as part of their universitytraining. However, once in service, Moroccan

teachers benefit from the work of their well-organised, dynamic professional group:MATE.’ (Hall, 2002, http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/hal0202.htm)

‘Overall, I found Moroccan secondary-schooland tertiary-level teachers and supervisors to be a well-informed group. They are ahighly professional group as evidenced bythe success of their local affiliate, MoroccanAssociation of English Language Teachers(MATE).’ (Coombe, 2002, http://exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/coo0702.htm)

Its stimulating input and interesting incentiveshave motivated practising teachers toconduct action research and use MATE as aforum for sharing their findings. Not only this,MATE has successfully attracted scholarsfrom abroad, including the gurus of appliedlinguistics and language teaching.

MATE’s achievements clearly show that it hasattained its objectives. MATE has accumulatedvarious good practices and has thus won aconsultancy status in the Ministry of Education.Its short-, medium-, and long-term planstestify to its perseverance, commitment, andsustainability. Its President, Mr Said Berdouz,declared that he considers the Worldawareaward ‘to be more a commitment than a reward’.

Some useful sites:

Worldaware Business Awards:www.worldaware.org.uk/awards

MATE brochure on:www.worldaware.org.uk/awards/awards2004/mate.html

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Since its creation in 1979, MATE has never failed to hold its yearly nationalconference. It has done so in different partsof Morocco so that teachers from the hostarea can attend and thus benefit from itsservices. Its high-quality conferences haveattracted national as well as internationalpractitioners and scholars.

The transfer of skills constitutes a vitalcomponent of MATE objectives, as itsconstitution stipulates:

‘The aims of the Association are:

■ to contribute to the improvement of the teaching of English in Morocco

■ to encourage contacts among teachers in Morocco on the one hand, and betweenthese teachers and teachers of English in other countries on the other hand

■ to encourage research in the field ofteaching English as a foreign language(TEFL) in Morocco.’

In addition to its effective mechanisms for such a transfer such as colloquia andconferences, MATE shares its know-howthrough its website and publications:

■ the website, www.mate.org.ma, includesMATE’s activities, news, and somepublications

■ MATE Newsletter: a quarterly publicationthat covers topics of interest to practising teachers and includes valuable contributions from researchers(see samples on the website)

■ MATE Proceedings contain papers and workshops delivered in annualconferences. Many of them are out of printand MATE has compiled them in a CD-ROM

■ MATE ESP SIG Newsletter (issues areavailable on the website)

■ MATE Teacher Supervision and Training SIG Newsletter (see website)

■ books (including one in the memory of thelate Abu Talib, one of the MATE foundersand supporters), NGO management issues,teacher supervision resource books (1 and2, see website).

MATE’s main asset is its members. It hasgathered together committed people who work continuously to serve the ELTcommunity. Its members are unpaid, nomatter how hard they work, because ofMATE’s limited financial resources(membership fees are less than £4 a year!).Their high professionalism has helped themgain very reliable national and internationalpartners who contribute enormously tomaking MATE’s projects attainable, includingsome very ambitious ones that are generallyfunded by various parties.

The secret of MATE’s sustainability and longexistence lies in its democratic approach. Its officers are elected every two years at the general assembly. The latter isconsidered the highest institution in theassociation and therefore can discuss evenminute MATE matters. Also, the variouschannels of communication put at themembers’ disposal facilitate vertical andhorizontal interaction. The local branchescreated in different regions of Moroccoprovide more opportunities for networking.


Moroccan Association of Teachers of English (MATE) in its twenties: a sustainable commitment to TEFLDr Abdelmajid Bouziane, MATE webmaster and project manager; Editor ELTeCS Africa and theMiddle East discussion list ([email protected])

MATE was the winner of the Worldaware Award for the Effective Transfer of English LanguageSkills (2004), sponsored by the British Council

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Teachers’ association representatives from 21 countries and four continents cametogether in Bournemouth, UK from 20 to 25 June 2004, to attend the British CouncilSeminar ‘Strength in numbers: increasing the impact of English language teachers’associations’.

A special note of appreciation goes to ourtwo colleagues from Iraq who travelled forover 20 hours to join us.

The seminar was designed to enableparticipants to share and spread goodpractice in order to improve the effectivenessof their traditional menu of services, as wellas helping them to develop new resourcessuch as websites and discussion lists.

Sandra Burford, event manager, and GeorgePickering, course director, welcomed us tothe seminar: ‘Welcome to Bournemouth,English seaside with its four glorious seasonsin one day!’

Contributors included: Adrian Underhill(Consultant and professional developmenttrainer, past president of IATEFL, founder ofIATEFL Teacher Development SIG), Magali deMoraes Menti (Past President of APIRS andAPLIAL and general Co-ordinator of APIRS),Margit Szesztay (President of IATEFL Hungary,IATEFL Associates Co-ordinator and teachertrainer), Gavin Dudeney (Co-director of theConsultants-E and Co-ordinator IATEFLComputer SIG and in charge of PAL – theAssociates Yahoo group) and Simon Fenn(IATEFL Wider Membership Scheme).

George got us started by presenting anoverview of the topics to be covered. Heshowed us a cartoon of an elephant trying toget on a double-decker bus to represent thedifficulty of covering all of the topics in four

and a half days! Topics included: missions of teachers’ associations, leadership andmanagement, change management frame-works, project management, products andservices, newsletters, new services, websites,discussion lists, teachers’ associations and bestpractice, marketing and membership, financeand resources, networking, regional links,strategic partnerships, and the role ofteachers’ associations in reform anddevelopment programmes.

Several messages and ideas emerged fromthe sessions:

1 No association should fall into the trap of trying to be all things to all members.Mission statements should inform, inspireand make sure they do this in a few words.

2 Teachers’ association representativesshould aim to develop leader andmanager roles for themselves andencourage members to follow suit.

3 Much as we like those who are likeourselves, our teams should include adiversity of people: different people toperform the different roles needed tomake the teachers’ association successful.

4 As far as change is concerned, onequestion should always come first: is thischange necessary?

5 Two questions to have in mind regardingconferences: How to have conferencesrecognised by the Ministries of Education?And how to make them memorable?

6 Jigsaw articles for newsletters. These are collections of short texts (answers,comments, tips) about a specific topicfrom various people. Easy to put togetherand interesting to read. A few topics forjigsaw articles: What makes you angry as


British Council Seminar: ‘Strength in numbers’Ana Falcão, EFL teacher, Brazil; Hornby Educational Trust Alumnus 2003–04([email protected])

a teacher? How do you start yourlessons? Most memorable conference andwhy. Most important thing you take withyou to the classroom, etc.

7 Services should aim to provide memberswith a sense of belonging. Personalisingmessages (Dear Gavin) is one way to dothis. Software that does it automatically is available at reasonable prices.

8 Although interactive, dynamic andresourceful websites are desirable,websites that contain essential, updatedinformation about the association doperform a valuable service.

9 Fielded discussions, i.e. discussionsaround a theme of interest to thecommunity. These are produced by themembers for the members and help tocreate a sense of belonging. (These canbe set up through Yahoo Groups.)

10 The concept of Communities of Practice(groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do andwho interact regularly to learn how to doit better – see www.ewenger.com – hasmany nuances and implications, butseems to fit in perfectly with teachers’association practices.

11 ‘A project is a dream with a deadline.’Important words to remember are: time,cost and quality.

12 Comparing good practice for growth: findout who does what and how they do it.

13 Marketing. There were opposing viewshere: some of us felt strongly about usingbusiness frameworks and words to talkabout our teachers’ associations. Othersseemed quite uneasy about it. A third

group went for conciliation, as theconcept of Relationship Marketing has been around in education for a few years now; and several roles arepossible and needed, including the role of disseminating information about theassociation among potential members,which is in essence a marketing function.

14 When seeking sponsors: don’t getdiscouraged. This is not personal. Don’t be afraid to ask. We need to ask and ask.

15 Committee members need commitment,time, task clarity, skills, team-mindedness,and responsibility. Teachers’ associationsneed achievement, recognition, reward,team spirit and learning to keep going.

16 Teachers’ associations can be seen asvital stakeholders in any ELT project, and as channels for raising self-esteemamong teachers. However, they also needentrepreneurship and management skills,a vision and visionaries.

At the end of the week, George presented an overview of the seminar. The elephant had been successfully pushed into the busand we needed to take it back to our homesand make good use of it. We then presenteda draft action list of projects we were goingto implement back home.

One absence was felt, though. Owing to other work commitments, Jeremy Jacobson,Deputy Director British Council ELT Group,could not join us. Jeremy initiated and hasbeen leading the British Council project forstrengthening teachers’ associations’ workfor a number of years now. A big thank youfrom all teachers’ associations goes to him.

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pluralistic nature of modern British societyand sharpen their critical cultural awarenesstowards their own cultural backgrounds (andalso the UK).

In some ways our methodological approachwas quite traditional, consisting as it did of amix of pre-, while-, and post-viewing tasks.The exact nature of these varied enormouslybetween countries and from film to film, partlybecause of our preferred ways of working,partly because of a desire to experiment, andpartly because of circumstances; evensomething as theoretically simple as gettingthe same films to people at the same timeproved impossible and what we had hopedwould be a synchronous experience turnedout to be anything but. While the Czechstudents were doing their course, theGermans were on teaching practice, theRussians were on holiday, and the Indianswere still waiting for their films to arrive!

Pre-viewing tasks included discussion of thebackground to the films and the issues theyraised, and searching for information, reviewsetc., on the web. While-viewing tasks werevery open: basically the students wererequested to keep their eyes and ears andminds open and to be willing to share theirimpressions afterwards, so that post-viewingtasks chiefly comprised open-ended andhighly unpredictable face-to-face discussionswith their classmates, and virtual ones withtheir colleagues in the other countriesthrough the dedicated e-group in the Yahoo!domain, i.e. the cross-cultural clashes aboutcross-cultural clashes already mentioned inDennis’s report (above).

This last was the bit that really excited us andthat we think has immense potential as a

template for adaptation in other areas; I’d liketo let one of my students speak for us here:

‘I wonder, why are some teachers afraid toask students their opinion? Their premisemight be – students have no opinions, or theydo not want to share them. Our Critical FilmViewing Seminar proved this premisecompletely wrong. I was really surprised thatthose people (my classmates) had someimmensely interesting things to say. And thatthey were willing to say them. I was surprisedmainly because I have already resigned, lostany hope that the day with the “What do youthink?” question would ever come. But then ithappened and I was happy.

‘Extremely positive is the international e-dimension of the seminar. Most of myclassmates (and a lot of the other e-groupmembers) admit that it is somethingcompletely new for them. Living in a globalvillage, it is decent to ask your neighbours todrop in for a little chat. The good thing is –you don’t need to clean your house :-).’

Report 3: Amol Padwad, India([email protected])

I would now like to report on the students’responses to the films and their implications.Here is a brief summary of the stimulatingand often very creative exchanges betweenthe students so far.

Almost everyone was struck by the novelty of the experience. Several said that both thefilms and the way they were being viewedwere new for them.

The students identified and discussed somesignificant issues raised in various films.Perhaps as a reflection of their teen-age,

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The following are edited excerpts from fourpostings to the ELTeCS discussion lists duringsummer 2004, made by the four teamleaders of the ELTeCS project, ‘Viewing Britishfilms critically’. These four extracts provide arecord of a very exciting and innovativeproject in development. The model – of usingfilms and the internet to inspire Englishlanguage students to explore interculturalissues across borders and regions, and in theprocess, to experience learning English in apersonally meaningful way – is one that canbe adapted by other ELTeCS members foruse in their own institutions. The ‘ViewingBritish films critically’ team have plans to taketheir project to the next stage, and they willcontinue to share their findings via the lists.The full versions of the following reports canbe found in the list archives (go to:www.britishcouncil.org/learning/eltecs/eltecs-discussion-lists-how-they-work.htm)

Report 1: Dennis Newson, Germany([email protected])

An important part of the project was thecreation of a dedicated e-mail discussion listfor the students. Members of the team readall messages but, as a matter of policy, do not post messages or intervene. We have notbeen concerned with producing a course onfilm criticism, a history of recent British filmsor even with providing materials foradvanced skills in listening comprehension.As the initiator of the project, RadislavMillrood (Russia), wrote recently to membersof the team:

‘We have focused on the cultural clashes asthey are presented in the films and invitedour students to clash online about clashes.We have created a cross-cultural audienceand immersed our students in the cross-cultural context of co-viewers.

We have been developing in our students notonly reasoning but also argumentative skillsbased on acceptance, tolerance and thesharing of views. This has been a debatingsociety online with the debaters broughttogether by their involvement in the criticalviewing of British films.’

It fell to me to be largely responsible forselecting the films which were to act asgenerators of cross-cultural studentdiscussion. Attempting to give a balancedview of modern Britain by an act of selectionis a tricky and responsible business. Whatimpression of life in modern Britain was theproject’s selection of films conveying touniversity students in Russia, the CzechRepublic, India and Germany?

Here is a list of the titles of the films weeventually chose. One thing to note: filmsshould preferably be available on DVD withEnglish subtitles for the hearing impaired. I’mEnglish and my hearing is fine, but I wasfrequently jolly glad to read what the actorswere saying!

The chosen films are: My Beautiful Laundrette,The Buddha of Surburbia, Bend it likeBeckham, East is East, The Full Monty, Little Voice, Bhaji on the Beach, Twin Town,Dirty Pretty Things, My Name is Joe, TheCommitments, Calendar Girls, Billy Elliot.

Report 2: Simon Gill, Czech Republic([email protected])

Although the films were in English and therewas inevitably some incidental languagedevelopment, that was by no means ourmajor goal. What we were after was to getstudents to reflect on what they saw and todiscuss their feelings with other students inthe other countries involved and thus both toarrive at a deeper understanding of the

Czech Republic, Germany, India and Russia: Viewing British films criticallyDennis Newson, Simon Gill, Amol Padwad and Radislav Millrood, ELTeCS project managers

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there was more focus on issues likegeneration gap, humiliation and isolation in the family, ‘ability to rebel, to stand up for yourself’ and effects of unemployment on individuals. But the common thread ofclash of cultures, problems of ethnic relationsand cultural assimilation was not missed byanyone either.

The students tried to relate the films to their own cultures, often subconsciously. The comments of this kind are an interesting glimpse into how differentcultural perspectives were at work. In adiscussion on the generation gap, a Russianstudent commented, ‘The same situationrepeats in 75 per cent of Russian families.Parents or divorced mothers do not haveenough time for their children.’ To which aGerman student responded, ‘. . . In Germanywe are on our best way to that. I just wantedto point out that the believed differences canturn out to be things we have in common.’

The postings showed that the students weresensitive to some deeper layers in the films –for example, the symbolism in Little Voice,humour and optimism in The Full Montyor psycho-social implications of severalcharacters.

And then there were some interesting takeson British culture: ‘Again, the British provedmore open in art than in real life.’ Or anotherone: ‘Laura’s mother [Little Voice] was givinga different picture of the British woman – and I liked the collapse of the stereotype“reserved snobbish Englishmen.”’

The discussions were passionate, often with people strongly taking sides, andstimulating. Sometimes they went beyond the films to touch upon issues like whether

one’s nationality conditions the content andstyle of one’s response. They were also oftenvery creative.

Report 4: Radislav Millrood([email protected])

Drawing a perspective for the future

The project has now lived through theidea and team development stages, thefilms have been selected, though not without controversy, the methodology is still maturing, and empirical data (students’and tutors’ voices from Russia, Germany, the Czech Republic and India) are pouring in.With these accomplishments in mind, let metake the risk of drawing together the project’sprospective lines of development.

We will have to further crystallise the missionof this project to generate among studentsattitudes of understanding, tolerance, andacceptance towards issues of cultural diversityraised in and triggered by British films.

We will make it our priority to expand theteam of trainers, as well as to extend thestudent audiences in a variety of culturalenvironments. We are looking for trainers and students who share our mission and arewilling to explore British films as vehicles ofideas and messages contributing towardsbetter cross-cultural communication and asafer environment.

We are in the process of developing ahomepage that will function as a portal to our course, ‘Viewing British films critically in a variety of cultural contexts’. This site willmake a clear statement on who this course is for; how one can join; why one should join;how one can do this either as a universitystudent or as an individual; what films have


been selected for the course and how thesecan be obtained; and how participants canjoin the discussion groups.

We consider it will be important todisseminate the results of this projectthrough a series of publications, a number ofvirtual venues run by the British Council, andlive presentations at conferences. It is alsoour intention to submit accounts of our workto a number of professional publications,including the ELT Journal. It is even possiblethat at some time in the future a book will bepublished sharing project materials.

We are discussing holding a summer campentitled ‘British Films – towardsunderstanding, tolerance and acceptance’.The camp might be held in Russia and wouldbring together students who have alreadygot to know each other on a ‘Viewing Britishfilms critically’ course online. This forum willbe able to take the agenda and mission ofthis project further afield and give it a new,live, face-to-face (not only virtual) dimension.

We hope to obtain further funding for thisproject, to create a professionally designedhomepage; to improve team members’ film demonstration and material-processingfacilities; to give support to the new membersof the team joining us at some later stage(cost-sharing will be most welcome); and to assist us in realising our plans for asummer camp.

Our overall aims are twofold:

■ to make the best British films better known and appreciated by a wider student audience

■ to explore further ways in which thesefilms can be used to bring about attitudinalchanges and alter how students from avariety of cultural contexts see each other.Through so doing, we hope and believe,young people living in this small world maycome to feel even closer to each other.

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Left to right: Radislav Millrood, Dennis Newson, Amol Padwad and Simon Gill at the 10th NATE (Russia) Conference in Tambov, Russia, 2004

6 Learners’ poor language backgroundThis can be solved by encouraginglearners to read both for leisure andpleasure and they should start early in theschool system. The idea of reading forexamination only makes learning a bitmechanical and the learners don’t enjoy it.In fact some don’t even understand whatliterature is.

7 Examination-oriented teaching Theschool system is targeted at makinglearners pass examinations but in theprocess this kills appreciation of thebeauty (aesthetic value) of literature. Theway out of this is to create interest in thelearner by organising the way they read.This should be two-pronged: reading forexamination and leisure.

Teaching poetry and using poems in the classroomThe participants considered some of thefollowing questions: What is a poem? Whatare we teaching poetry for? What skills are you supposed to develop when usingpoems in the classroom? They discussed and conducted lesson demonstrations onhow to teach the following poems: ‘NextMorning’ by Jim Chaplain, ‘A Freedom Song’by M. O. Mcgoye, and ‘A sudden storm’ by P. Oleghe.

Teaching the novelThe main focus was on how to teach A man of the people by Chinua Achebe as a literary text.

Establishing a teacher development group (TDG)The participants came up with ideas on how to start and sustain TDGs in East Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda).

Formation of the East Africa ELT GroupThe participants agreed to form anAssociation called ‘East Africa ELT Group’.

Donation (A. S. Hornby Award)

Books were donated to BETA-Siaya ELT Group by the former chairman Daniel Oloo, a Hornby Educational Trust alumnus. Hedonated his Welcome Home Award moneyfrom the Hornby Trust to buy class readersand other textbooks that can be used tostrengthen the teaching of English in schools.The BETA-Siaya ELT Group Resource Centrewas started at Agoro Oyombe SecondarySchool as a result.

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The regional workshop for TeacherDevelopment Group Co-ordinators, ‘Teaching literature in the classroom in EastAfrica’ (Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda) tookplace in Siaya, Kenya, 15–19 June 2004. It was funded by ELTeCS and facilitated by Dr Billy Ng’onga’h of Maseno University,Kenya, assisted by Fredrick Odhiambo, theorganiser. It was attended by 42 participants.The workshop was a follow-up to the onefunded by ELTeCS in March 2003. The aim of the workshop was to enable teachers of English in East Africa to acquire anddevelop skills in teaching literature inEnglish in the classroom.

The specific objectives were to:

■ enhance regional co-operation amongEnglish language teachers in East Africa

■ encourage and give professional support to teachers working in isolatedenvironments

■ help teachers acquire the knowledge andskills necessary to teach literature inEnglish in the classroom

■ integrate the teaching of English languageand literature in English

■ help ELT teachers pool their resources,share responsibilities and ideas, identify theproblems they face in teaching literature inEnglish, and search for solutions.

The activities of the workshop includedthe following:

BrainstormingThe participants cited the problems they facein teaching literature in the classroom andtheir possible solutions:

1 Lack of resources It was suggested that this could be solved by interventionby the Government, contributions from the parents of students, and the schoolbudgeting appropriately.

2 Negative attitude by the learnercontributes to poor reading habits. It wasresolved that the teaching should be madelearner-friendly to enable learners to startreading at an early age.

3 Integration of language and literature Itwas suggested that literature be separatedfrom language and made compulsory. Thereason behind this is that, given a choice,the students prefer language to literatureand this in the long run would lead to thedemise of literature.

4 Scarcity of personnel More teachersshould be employed.

5 Lack of clear guidelines in teachingliterature The set books are given toteachers but there are no guidelines. Thus,the solution was to request the curriculumdesigners to revise the syllabus to maketeaching systematic.


Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda: Regional workshop on teaching literature in East Africa Fredrick Odhiambo, Chairman-Co-ordinator, BETA-Siaya ELT Group, Kenya ([email protected])

I would like to share with all colleagues the enthusiastic experience we are havinghere in Gorizia, a small town on the borderwith Slovenia.

Some teachers of English at the localsecondary schools decided to set up a CLILgroup, inviting non-language teachers to jointhe long (and winding) road which is basedon the principle of lifelong learning. In short,these eager Italian teachers decided to trynew teaching methods and strategies byattending training classes whose content wasbased on both English language developmentand CLIL methodology. The courses were run by Carla Tosoratti and Eva Zigon, twoteachers of English who are trying to spreadCLIL methodology and practice in their area.

Teachers were divided into two groups andfollowed a 60-hour course, at the end ofwhich most of the trainees received a

Socrates bursary to attend an intensiveEnglish language/CLIL methodology coursein Oxford. Needless to say, all participantsenjoyed the course greatly and are going totake Trinity or Cambridge exams in order toget an official certification of their proficiencyin English.

Scarcity of funds to sustain the project andfinance further initiatives have not preventedthe start of another CLIL training course, which will be open to junior school teachers.The two co-ordinators do believe that CLIL can open up new frontiers to all ‘non-language’teachers and motivate both students andteachers, thanks to the interactive andenthralling classroom atmosphere it creates.

For further information, materials and tips, do not hesitate to contact me.

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Italy: Including non-language colleagues in CLIL teacher developmentCarla Tosoratti, English language teacher, Istituto tecnico per geometri ‘Pacassi’, Gorizia, Italy([email protected])

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Developing tolerance of diversity is theunderlying theme of the many BritishCouncil activities in Slovenia related to newwriting from the UK. The backbone of theproject, which started in September 2003, isa literature corner in the new British Councilpremises in Ljubljana and the production ofan anthology of creative writing, publishedin Slovene translation.

The literature corner consists of a number ofBritish novels published in the last ten years.The anthology, due out in the autumn of 2004,is partially based on the British Councilanthology, New Writing 12, and has a jointSlovene–English editorship. As well as giving a sample of the breadth and wealth of recentnew fiction to the Slovene reader, the anthologyaims to explore issues of diversity and provideopportunities for intercultural reflection.

At the foreground is our reading group,meeting fortnightly, to discuss writingpublished in anthologies and other sources.Study notes are provided in advance of eachmeeting and a collection is available on ourwebsite at www.britishcouncil.org/slovenia-explore-uk-info-centre-reading-group.htm. Thesediscussions are complemented by visits from lecturers, writers, poets and editors, all representative of different aspects ofdiversity and whose texts the group will have discussed prior to the visit.

Our students’ programme is based aroundspecial readings for secondary and universitystudents, where extracts, agreed with the

writer, are distributed to teachers in schoolsand universities, with supporting notes. Thisenables students to acquaint themselves with the writer and the text in advance.

In co-operation with the Slovene IATEFLliterature special interest group, we exploredlinking tolerance, literature and film by usingthe short story My Son the Fanatic, by HanifKureishi (with his permission). We providedsupporting ideas for work in the classroom in time for the Hanif Kureishi retrospective at the Ljubljana International Film Festival.Students were then able to compare theshort story with the film and explore the two media. Over 600 students were involved.

Building on this success we have startedworking with a group of teachers to developmaterials for schools using contemporary UK writing with a very specific objective: todevelop cultural awareness and exploreaspects of citizenship. These are importantissues for Slovenia as it needs to adjust to amore multicultural society as a new memberof the European Union.

And what are we planning for the future?More readings and visits of authorsrepresented in the anthology, more creativewriting events, crowned by a final poetry/short story competition for students arounddiversity topics.


Slovenia: Animating literature Danila Beloglavec, Projects Manager, British Council Slovenia([email protected])

ELTeCS people Han Jing Mei, China

ELTeCS people

teach English and cultures

English and cultures

help communication and understanding

communication and understanding

cause tolerance and reflection

tolerance and reflection

promote co-operation and harmony

co-operation and harmony

create peace and prosperity

peace and prosperity

need ELTeCS people!

English and social sciences teachers fromEstonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland gatheredtogether in a small resort town of Druskininkaiin the south of Lithuania in January 2004 to participate in the Human Rights seminarorganised by the British Council. It was one of the first steps in bringing together subjectand language teachers. You will ask why? And the answer is simple: just to offer new approaches and ideas for teaching.

Why is language knowledge still so important?Does CLIL have a future in countries such as Lithuania? I would say yes. The recentpolitical changes in Europe and the worldhave created new demands and ambitions.Young people want to study at Europeanuniversities and work for internationalcompanies. What they lack is ‘the language of learning’ and ‘the language of working’.This is exactly what CLIL projects can offer.

I would like to say that the British Counciloffers teachers opportunities to moveforward in developing their professional skills, chances to ‘stretch intellectually’ andpossibilities to learn new things. That is thebiggest value of events such as the HumanRights seminar.

The Lithuanian Ministry of Education and the British Council are co-ordinating trainingfor subject and language teachers aroundLithuania as part of a multilingual projectincluding French, German and English as wellas a wide range of subjects taught throughthe medium of these languages. In October2004, I provided input to a two-day seminarfor 70 teachers from this project from 35schools around Lithuania along with colleagueand teacher trainer Lilija Vilkanciene.

Dr Loreta Zadeikaite ([email protected]),Head of Basic and Secondary EducationDivision at the Ministry of Education andScience in Lithuania, suggested possibilitiesfor follow-up including: collecting anddisseminating CLIL materials developed by practising teachers; documenting goodpractice (course writing for CLIL teachertraining); planning for a Forum for CLILteachers in Lithuania (and the region) possiblyin April 2005; setting up an electronic group;and peer support (the British Council is toplay a role in helping this process work).

Additionally, all participants were offered asubscription to the Science Across the Worldprogramme of exchange projects and all 70 were enthusiastic about signing up to theFACTWorld network (www.yahoogroups.com)of 1,300 CLIL teachers in 40 countries. Youcan see more of this report and pictures fromthe event at our website (www.factworld.info).

A special aspect of this initiative is thecollaboration of the partners involved: the British Council, the French Embassy, theGoethe Institut, and the Lithuanian Ministry of Education.

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Lithuania: Human rights2004–05: CLIL is comingLilija Vilkanciene, English language teacherand teacher trainer, International ManagementSchool, Vilnius, Lithuania ([email protected])

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Primary school is a rapidly developing stageof education in many countries. A new CLILproject uniting seven European countries has recently been started in this field.

The CLIL philosophy is rooted in the holisticnature of children’s learning. The idea is toprovide young learners with challenging and meaningful activities in English,integrating various spheres of knowledge and experience. According to Diana Hicks,the CLIL characteristics are the following: ‘it uses English as a medium to teach someparts of other curriculum subjects; it alsouses songs, rhymes, games and stories butemphasis [is] on curriculum content; it doesnot usually follow a structural syllabus, it isfluency based; [it provides] practice in all fourskills; it downplays interest in UK culture.’

It is noteworthy that the purpose of usingEnglish for teaching a wide range of elementsfrom other subjects is not that of repeatingthe same content in a foreign language, but extending a child’s knowledge andexperience by using a foreign language as another medium of learning. For CLIL,careful joint planning and close co-operationbetween the teachers of one class is crucial.

The project initiators are primary schoolteachers and course book writers, SilvanaRampone from Italy (Roletto, ElementarySchool ‘J. Rodari’) and Gunta Krigere fromLatvia (Aizkraukle Village Primary School).

Silvana is also the project co-ordinator. The project participants have been foundthrough ELTeCS. They represent the followingcountries: Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania,Romania, Slovakia and Spain. There is anexternal partner from Poland (AnnetaSadowska), who is teaching in both primaryschool and university and is interested in the implementation of the CLIL ideas. Oneassociated partner from university level(Larisa Sardiko) will monitor the process andinterpret the results. In each country’s teamthere is a primary school teacher of Englishand a teacher of other subjects from thesame school. Having such people in theproject team ensures the realisation of CLILideas by close co-operation between theteachers of English and other subjects.

The first meeting of the CLIL project teamtook place from 8 to 12 September 2004 inItaly (Turin). The participants discussed theplan of work for the first project year. Theywill work on one theme across the countriesand regularly communicate and exchangethe devised materials through a virtual classsystem. The joint theme planning will allowthe participants in all the project countries to integrate the content from other primaryschool curriculum subjects with learningEnglish through a range of activities, whichwill differ from school to school. The nextmeeting of the project team is planned forJune 2005 in Latvia.


Latvia: CLIL at primary levelLarisa Sardiko, Methodologist, Daugavpils University, Latvia ([email protected])

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Lithuania: Multilingual CLILKeith Kelly, Language Education Consultant,FACTWorld Co-ordinator (www.factworld.info),NILE Associate Trainer (www.nile-elt.com), SAWConsultant (www.scienceacross.org)([email protected])

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The Ministry of Education in Iraq, in co-operation with the British Council, hassucceeded in forming an ELT DevelopmentTeam (ELTDT). The criteria for selecting themembers included:

■ originality of thinking■ creativity■ flexibility■ tolerance■ language proficiency.

The team is composed of 18 membersincluding a four-member Steering Group.They represent a wide range of areasincluding the Kurdistan region. The teamadequately represents ELT professionals inIraq and has been carefully selected with thehelp of a British Council consultant.

Major tasks

During the introductory and team-buildingworkshop held in Amman by the BritishCouncil and Leeds University, team membersagreed on the following major tasks for the team:

■ selecting new textbooks as a short-termmeasure

■ helping in developing teachers andsupervisors

■ offering help to reform the testing andevaluation system

■ undertaking research projects to identifythe real needs of students and teachers

■ developing means of communication so asto keep in touch as a team and with otherinterested parties

■ designing and producing new materials forthe longer term

■ giving advice to the Ministry of Educationon how to activate the TrainingDepartments in the Directorates General ofEducation in each province and on how toprovide them with qualified teacher trainersand the necessary training materials.

Guiding principles

The team also agreed on the followingprinciples as guidelines for achieving theabove tasks:

■ taking into consideration the diversity of Iraqi society and its customs, values,traditions, and needs

■ working in a transparent way

■ adopting a bottom-up approach, involvingand consulting teachers, learners,supervisors and society at large in everystage of the project

■ making use of foreign expertise wherenecessary, taking into consideration thelatest developments in ELT

■ making use of the experience of othercountries in ELT where appropriate.

The team participated in a tailor-madeprogramme with the University of LeedsSchool of Education, in late November andDecember 2004.

Iraq has been cut off from the rest of theworld for a long time and this has reflected on the status of ELT in the country. We hopethat the forming of this team is the first stepin a long process of fruitful co-operationbetween the Ministry of Education in Iraq andthe British Council, and that at last we shallbegin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.


Iraq: The birth of a teamWritten by the Iraq ELTDT steering group

Regional reports: how ELTeCS members are making a difference


East Asia


India

Latin America

South Asia

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A regional (North Africa) workshop was held from 8 to 11 March 2004 in Tunis, toconsider the potential use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in language teaching/learning, and thepossibility of creating a regional network of ELT trainers.

Eleven people took part: three from Libya,four from Morocco, and four from Tunisia.The workshop was led by me. It was partlyfunded by an ELTeCS bid and the funds werematched by the British Council offices of therepresented countries.

The workshop covered four issues which hadbeen raised in previous ELTeCS events in theregion (Rabat, Alexandria and Tripoli). Theyinclude:

■ Curriculum design: problems relating to use of textbooks and lack ofsupplementary materials are common

■ Teacher training: upgrading teachers’knowledge is needed in all three countries

■ Evaluation: there is a need for training inthe principles of testing and in alternativeassessment

■ Information dissemination: there mightbe very good ideas in different parts of the region but unless an effective networkis created, people will keep reinventing the wheel.

In the light of the above, the workshop aimed to:

■ provide participants with skills to create a solid network

■ facilitate exchange of ideas and goodpractice

■ create regional co-operation by building an active network of trainers and advisers

■ investigate the needs of the region interms of ELT (and ICT) for future planning.

The workshop achieved its objectives and the participants’ very positive feedbacktestified to its success. The participants seemdetermined to keep in contact through the e-group they created. They will also continuenetworking in order to discuss the contentsof the distributed CD-ROM and hopefully start joint-venture projects. Furthermore, theyexpressed their interest in a follow-up event.Should this take place, it is recommendedthat it should:

■ map the participants’ needs in ICT using an ICT Skills Inventory so as to tailor theprogramme to these needs

■ negotiate the curriculum well before theevent to ensure the participants’ activerole in the workshops

■ include all the parties involved in ELT(teachers, inspectors, university teachersetc.) to focus on (one or more of) the fourissues mentioned above as they are stillproblematic.

Many in-progress projects in the region were mentioned during the workshop, and it is recommended that the projectteams should get together to benefit fromone another’s experiences and share goodpractice. For example, there are teams incharge of developing e-resources in Egypt,Morocco and Tunisia, and their meetingwould enable them to investigate ways ofimplementing ICT in the three countries.

Many thanks are due to the British CouncilTunis staff for their help in organising theevent and to the British Council offices inLondon and the North Africa region for theirfinancial and moral support.


Libya, Morocco and Tunisia: Sharing good practice in ICT for ELT in North AfricaDr Abdelmajid Bouziane, Teacher-researcher in TEFL and ICT in ELT, Morocco([email protected])

Linking, developing and supporting. Thesethree words are IATEFL’s motto and I wouldlike to borrow them to begin my report on Israel’s recent international conference held in conjunction with INGED-Turkey andBETA-Romania. How does a joint conferencebegin? How can countries co-operate? How can the gargantuan logistics of multiplecommittees co-operating be realised? Theanswers to these questions are: vision, hardwork, goodwill, and flexibility.

In our case, the initial vision came fromTurkey. Dilek Hancioglu asked me if ETAIwould be willing to be part of Turkey’sinternational conference. It is easy to say yes. But then what follows? Hard work,goodwill and flexibility. The truth is that thehard work, the goodwill and the flexibility aremainly on the shoulders of the host country.Israel came to Ankara in 2002 to attend‘Interchanges and Exchanges: Current Trendsin ELT’. This was Israel’s first participation in a regional event and our hosts excelledthemselves in organisation, hospitality and in creating a programme that offeredprofessional enrichment and stimulation. A special feature that Turkey initiated was

featuring local plenary speakers, celebratinghomegrown expertise and knowledge.

INGED invited us back a second time, and in2003 ETAI-Israel returned to Ankara to shareofficially in the organisation of ‘Multiculturalismin ELT Practices: Unity and Diversity’. Theycontinued their tradition of excellence andwe came to be friends as well as partners.

In July 2004, INGED and BETA-Romania(also a partner with INGED in 2003) joinedETAI in Jerusalem for ETAI’s fifth internationalconference. I truly believe that we achievedour conference theme, ‘Reaching greaterheights in language teaching’. Englishlanguage professionals from Israel, Turkey,and Romania and from the US, Azerbaijan,and the UK came together in Jerusalem for lectures, workshops, panels, plenarysessions, sightseeing, and socialising.

I would like to close with sincere thanks toour partners and sincere wishes to continueto participate in regional efforts with Turkey,Romania and any others who would wish to join a group sharing high professionalstandards and genuine friendship.


Israel: Reaching greater heights in language teachingSusan Holzman, Chair, English Teachers’ Association of Israel (ETAI) ([email protected])

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The British Council, which operates in Chinaas the Cultural and Education Section of theBritish Embassy (CES), has been assisting theteaching of English in China for over 20years. We stimulate educational co-operationbetween the UK and China through projectsthat contribute to China’s education reformsat school, college and university level.

Aiming to promote the learning of English,strengthen communication and shareexpertise between the UK and China, the CES organised the ‘Teaching sciencethrough English’ project in 2004.

The whole project began with a series ofseminars in March 2004, attended by around130 teachers from Beijing. The seminarshelped to establish a network of Chineseteachers who are interested in bilingualeducation. One of the Chinese teachers had been sent to the UK for training beforethe seminar.

On 10 and 11 July 2004, the CES and theBeijing Academy of Education Sciencesorganised a series of demonstration classesand lectures to promote the teaching ofscience through English. More than 40teachers and 150 students from middle

schools in Beijing participated in theactivities. The activities included twodemonstration classes, one lecture andseveral experimental classes. Together with Keith Kelly from Science Across theWorld, Dong Changhua, from the High Schoolaffiliated to Beijing Normal University, gave a demonstration class on physics. Anotherdemonstration class on biology was given by Zhang Jin from the Guangqumen HighSchool. Following the classes, Keith Kellyshared expertise and resources for teachingscience in English at a workshop for Chineseteachers. On Sunday 11 July, Lida Schoen,another expert, visiting from Holland, led 75 Chinese students through a series ofchemical experiments and taught them how to make cosmetics. Meanwhile, the CES invited two Chinese teachers to Pakistanto attend seminars and training on teachingother subjects in English.

Following a consultative meeting in October2004 and, based on the suggestions from the Chinese participants, more training,demonstration classes and seminars will be held on teaching English across thecurriculum in the future.

East Asia

China: Teaching science through EnglishLi Jia, Education Officer, British Council Beijing, China ([email protected])

A British Council forum and networking eventin collaboration with ELTeCS and the HornbyEducational Trust, 22–23 March 2004

This was British Council Sudan’s third annualELT conference. The aim was to explore ways to share good practice for Englishlanguage teaching in an environment poor in resources and communication technologyand, in particular, to foster relations betweenteachers in other countries of East Africa,who share similar problems of a lack ofresources and training. This is reflected in the title of the conference, ‘Sharing forSuccess’. The two-day conference involved a keynote speech and 18 one-hour sessionsfrom speakers from Canada, Eritrea, Ethiopia,Sudan and the UK.

The event provided the opportunity toparticipate in a number of presentations and workshops and to meet others involvedin teaching at secondary and tertiary levels,in teacher-training and in other aspects ofEnglish language teaching. Topics coveredranged from teaching English through

interactive games to demonstrating a modelfor cascade training to 140,000 teachers in Ethiopia. The event was attended byapproximately 300 people on both days.(This was more than three times the numberof participants in 2003.)

The event brought together a wide range of institutions involved with English languagetraining. These included the Ministries of Education and Higher Education, SELTI(Sudan national centre for languages), DawHajooj Training Institute, university facultiesof education including heads of departmentand teaching assistants, colleges andschools, organisations delivering Englishlanguage training and other organisationsincluding the Sudan Volunteer programme.

Follow-up activities already carried outinclude a very productive two-day Teachers’Association workshop held at the BritishCouncil Khartoum with participants fromEthiopia, Eritrea and Sudan; and action plans for ELT activity in all three of the above countries as a result of this workshop.


Sudan: ‘Sharing for Success’, East Africa ELT Conference, 2004Alan Rutt, formerly ELT Manager, British Council Sudan

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When last year’s Singapore Tertiary EnglishTeachers Society (STETS) contribution toELTeCS info was written, we were lookingforward to a dinner at the end of November2003 to celebrate our 21st birthday. Thespecial guest at this was David Nunan fromthe University of Hong Kong, who was inSingapore to conduct a workshop for us onmaterials development. David not only ran anexcellent workshop but offered us a bonus atthe dinner: a tuneful rendition of items fromthe Rolling Stones songbook. Organisers offuture events at which David speaks, pleasetake note!

Thankfully we were back to our normalmonthly programme of talks this year afterlast year’s SARS disruptions. Events haveincluded sessions on varieties of English;strategies for e-lecturing, and teachers’ and students’ perceptions of that mode of delivery; the processes and patterns of team learning; the effects of explicitreading strategy instruction on readingperformance; good ELT websites; theinfluence of Indian English on usageworldwide; and an introduction to using the interactive whiteboard in the languageclassroom. The 2004 STETS workshop on‘Teachers, learners and computers in currentlanguage and communication teaching’ willbe conducted at the end of November by Phil Towndrow from Singapore’s NationalInstitute of Education.

Several recent issues of the STETS Languageand Communication Review are now availableonline to all readers worldwide, and all futureissues will similarly be accessible on ourwebsite. Contents lists for all the earlierissues back to 1987 have now been digitisedand placed online, and offprints from theirarticles are available from the library of the SEAMEO Regional Language Centre. We continue to welcome unpublishedmaterial concerning aspects of the teachingand learning of English proficiency andcommunication skills, the only proviso being that it should be relevant to tertiaryinstitutions in Singapore and South-east Asia. Further information at www.stets.org.sg/stetspublications.htm

The STETS website has continued to developin the hands of our energetic webmaster Lee Kooi Cheng. Apart from the electronicversions of the journal, other new featuresinclude recommended links relevant to (andsuggested by) our members, and a clickablelist of conferences in our region.

One other event which must not gounrecorded is the end of the four-year term of our President, Manee Lugg, who left our executive committee this year on her retirement from Singapore Polytechnic.However, we shall not lose the benefit of her long and invaluable experience of STETSaffairs, as she remains an associate memberand is an active member of the SpecialProjects Committee.

East Asia

Singapore: Report from STETSRichard Slessor, President STETS ([email protected])

In December 2003, DaimlerChrysler and UNESCO (United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization) launched a project entitled ‘Mondialogo’ to get students in schools all over the world to exchange ideas in a culturaldialogue between countries.

A total of 1,478 schools took part in thisinternational online competition. Each school was paired with a partner from adifferent continent. My school had a team of eight Form 4 students. We were paired up with an institute of 25 students fromStuttgart, Germany.

All our instructions were sent to us in afile in early February. From then on we had to get into contact with our partnerschool and discuss a topic and prepare aproject, touching on the subject of ‘Culture’.

After four months of internet chat, e-mailsand snail mail, the students from the twoteams came up with the idea of preparinga four-page newsletter that would give a view of the traditions and cultures of both our nations. By the end of May, we had tocomplete the project and post it to the judgesin France. The judges would ponder and select25 participating teams and their respectivepartners to go on a trip to Barcelona, Spain for a prize presentation ceremony.

Well, the project has been handed in. On 3 September 2004 the local DaimlerChryslerbranch congratulated the schools here and gave prizes to all participating teachersand students.

So what did my students learn?

According to them:

■ it was fun chatting to their partners and getting responses from them

■ they learnt more English than they wouldhave done at school

■ they were eager to go online and chat

■ they managed to improve in their Englishlanguage studies

■ all in all, they had a great time learningabout other people’s cultures.

In my opinion, as a teacher and guide, I feelmy students are now more exposed to thedemands of the IT world. They are keen toventure into new territory and try out theirlistening, reading, speaking and writing skills.

East Asia

Malaysia: Mondialogo.orgSaras Singam, Secondary school teacher, SMK Taman Dato’ Harun, Malaysia

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This project emerged as a follow-up from asurvey into pre-service English languageteacher education in Bulgaria (ELTeCSpostings in 2002, published report: ThomasD., Dimitrova S., Geshev G. & Tashevska S.(eds.), A Baseline Survey of English LanguageTeacher Education in Bulgaria, 2001–02,British Council Bulgaria, 2002).

Among the findings of the survey was theneed for joint work by universities andinspectorates of education in the area ofmaintaining quality in teaching foreignlanguages. One of the ways forward was bycreating a set of unified criteria for evaluatingteacher-trainees’ teaching practice atuniversities and practising teachers’ work atschools. It was also agreed to widen thescope of the project including pre- and in-service teachers of other foreign languagesfor higher product validity and recognition.

The core team, which set itself the task ofprogressing the baseline survey findings,consists of 11 professionals: Bulgarianteachers of English, teacher trainers, expertsat the Ministry of Education. It also relies on work by many other colleagues, bothBulgarian and international. The project,supported by the British Council, spans theperiod October 2003 to May 2006. This iswhat has been done so far:

■ During the first stage a range of existingdocuments for evaluating foreign languageteaching were compiled and analysed.

■ The next stage saw the drafting of apreliminary set of assessment criteria with our good friend Dr Desmond Thomas (University of London) acting as our consultant.

■ Then we did some initial piloting and arenow working on redrafting the criteria inthe light of feedback.

■ We have also started video-recordinglessons in English, German and Russian for further piloting and standardising.

■ At our last workshop we consulted expertsof German and French; valuable ideas forimprovement arose from this experience.

For broadening the scope of the project, we planned a conference for 5–6 November2004, at which the project was presented. We aim to pilot the subsequent draft ofcriteria in different foreign languageclassrooms, so that wider experience feedsinto their improvement. We would like toinvite colleagues who have done similar work to share their experience with us. Evenif you haven’t worked in this field, we will stillappreciate your ideas and questions.

You can contact our team [email protected]


Bulgaria: Quality in Foreign Language Teaching (QIFLT) projectSvetla Tashevska, Teacher trainer, Applied Linguistics Department, New Bulgarian University,Sofia, Bulgaria ([email protected])

The IT and ELT Special Interest Group ofELTeCS East Asia held a workshop from 22 to 24 July 2004 in Bangkok, Thailand.The workshop was entitled ‘Sustaining IT-Links and Taking It a Step Further’.Twenty-two participants from six countries(China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwanand Thailand) shared very practical andenriching ideas for sustaining onlineinteraction among members and ensuringthe continued publication of the e-journal,IT-Links.

Vanessa Lee (Head of British CouncilMarsiling, Singapore) began by briefing us on the background of IT-Links. To date, the ITand ELT SIG of ELTeCS East Asia has publishedfour issues with IT-related articles, ‘bytes forteachers’ and reviews. Peter Gu (NanyangTechnological University, Singapore) sharedhis analysis of the breakdown of contributionsto the past four issues of IT-Links, i.e. mostlyfrom universities and the British Council.

There were many useful presentations,including the following:

Yoshimasa Awaji (Chubu University, Japan)talked about faster online meetings through schMOOze University(http://schmooze.hunter.cuny.edu). WangTong (The National Research Center forForeign Language Education, Beijing ForeignStudies University, China) gave a presentationon learner and tutor support in web-baseddegree programmes. Tazneen Abdullah(Victoria School, Singapore) explored fusingIT and National Education in English languageteaching. Wichian Sunitham, WatchareeSarikabutr and Preeya Kornkaew (Chiang Mai

University, Thailand) presented their ‘Key-palCollaborative Learning Project’ involving 30secondary and university students through e-mail exchanges.

Sylvia Lee and Jasmine Huang Shu-min(Municipal Kaohsiung Senior VocationalIndustrial High School, Taiwan) elaborated on a course to investigate the application of computer assistance to language learning.David Mathias (British Council Bangkok)introduced participants to @ccessEnglishand Dreams + Teams, two British Council web-portals for teachers and students respectively.

Finally, Sonthida Keyuravong and Sarah AbediAbdullah concluded the seminar by askingparticipants to reflect on the Action Pointsdrawn up for the next four years (2004–07).To sustain the e-journal, it was agreed that all member countries of IT-Links (China,Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore,Taiwan and Thailand) will establish their own country teams. Each has to draw up alist of objectives and members’ responsibilities.For each issue of IT-Links, each team has tocontribute two articles, two bytes for teachersand two reviews. The Malaysian team led by Lee Boon Hua will form the EditorialCommittee for IT-Links for 2004–05. For thenext two years (2006–07), the editorial workwill rest with the Thailand team. There is a callto make IT-Links more user-friendly with theaddition of graphics, chat and forum features.Members of the Technical Team will look into the upgrades which need to be made.Furthermore, a more focused marketingstrategy has to be formulated to reach out toa wider readership among ELT practitionersand educators.

East Asia

Thailand: ELTeCS East Asia IT and ELT workshopSarah Abedi Abdullah, Lecturer, INTEC, UiTM Shah Alam, Malaysia ([email protected])

Sonthida Keyuravong, Senior lecturer, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Thailandand Editor, ELTeCS East Asia discussion list ([email protected])

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Teaching Young Learners for a EuropeanFuture, Jánské Lázně, Czech Republic, 11–23 July 2004

There were two Hornby Regional Schools inthe Czech Republic this summer. Here is myshort report about one of them: a school forteachers of young learners.

The school was held in a very beautifulvenue: a school for disabled Business Studiesstudents in the Krkonoše mountains. Theparticipants, from other Central and EasternEuropean countries as well as from the Czech Republic, gathered there on 11 July2004 and spent 12 working days together.The course was planned as a process-syllabus programme, i.e. the content andmode of delivery could be gradually adjustedand modified to the needs of participants.

The team of trainers included Ana Iordachescu(Romania), Tatjana Kriliuvienė (Lithuania) andNad’a Vojtková (Czech Republic) and was ledby Zoltán Poór from Hungary. They identifiedthe following areas as new trends of teachingfuture European citizens:

■ story-based syllabus■ cross-curricular links

■ personality-centred■ task-based■ creativity-oriented■ multilingual and multicultural learning.

The course was planned in the frame of the story ‘The discovery and creation of Hornbyland’. Participants were invited and encouraged to take part and contributeto the joint creation of the story. Thus theparticipants had hands-on experience of project work and other techniques andmethods used in young learners’ classes. The production by the participants of videonewsreels that were screened every morningwas a form of project work designed to sum up the events of the previous day as an essential component of the story. As various linguistic and non-linguistic skillsand competences were learnt and activatedthroughout the ‘story’, the participants hadthe chance to experience cross-curricularaspects of education.

The final projects of the participantsillustrated their will and enthusiasm to make use of their new knowledge and skillsand continue international co-operation inthe future.


Czech Republic: Report on the Hornby Regional SchoolNad’a Vojtková, Teacher trainer and Hornby Regional School tutor ([email protected])


Czech Republic: A project that took off – a manual for teachers Barbora Budíková, ESP teacher and teacher trainer, Department of Foreign Languages, MasarykUniversity, Brno, Czech Republic ([email protected])

Jan Chovanec, Editor of Flight into the Land of ESP; Department of English and American Studies,Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic ([email protected])

Left to right: TatjanaKriliuvienė, Ana Iordachescu,Zoltán Poór, Nad’a Vojtková,Young Learners tutors at the Hornby Regional Schoolin the Czech Republic, July 2004

At a meeting in spring 2003, a group ofCzech teacher trainers, all members of aBritish Council ESP training team since 1997,conceived a new project for ESP teachers at secondary level. A needs analysis hadpreviously identified that both materials andtraining for this target group had been scarce.

As a result, the team decided to create a much-needed new handbook and prepare a series of training sessions for ESP teachers at secondary level. With 12co-authors and one editor, the handbooktook an enormous amount of work: meetings,e-mail communication, research, writing and re-writing, editing and re-editing. For the project to hatch successfully, originalillustrations – featuring a bird guiding thereaders through the colour-coded sections of the book – were made and a professionalgraphic artist was enlisted on the team.

Now, fresh from the printers, the book Flightinto the Land of ESP is ready to be flown to its audience and used at training sessionswhere it will, hopefully, become an intellectualnest egg, helping to breed ideas and promotegood and creative teaching practice.

The book consists of eight units, eachdealing with a different topic: task chaining,text-based authentic materials, audio andvideo authentic materials, speaking skills,writing, genre analysis, pronunciation, and teaching ESP vocabulary. All units arelogically ordered into four segments – Lead-in, Setting the Scene, Practical Focus, andReflection – and supplemented with the Keyand Photocopiables.

The fledgling project would probably havenever flown the nest without the inspiration,encouragement and support of MalcolmGriffiths, the man behind the ESP teachertraining, and Olga Kolovratova, the presentELT Co-ordinator at British Council CzechRepublic. We are really glad that this projectfinally took off – may it fly high!

Images from Flight into the Land of ESP by Barbora Budíková

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LEXINFO is a new ESP language examinationpackage that we have been developing overthe past three years. It has now beenaccredited by the Hungarian authorities.

The LEXINFO programme assesses IT English,that is the professional English needed by ITprofessionals such as system administrators,programmers, computer engineers, webdesigners or just ordinary people with an interest in the internet, new technicaldevices and the latest in high-tech progress.

The programme includes tasks covering both oral and written skills, and focuses on competences rather than languageknowledge. There is no such thing as agrammar test and the emphasis has been put on the technical lexis and reading

comprehension. The candidates are requiredto prepare a PowerPoint presentation on their favourite IT topic and to present it for the examination committee.

When we started to work on this project we tried to find similar approaches andhoped to consult several examinationcentres, but we couldn’t find any dealing withthis field. (We have found some that covertechnical sciences as a whole, includinginformation technology.) As far as we can see, here in Hungary, there is an increasingdemand for an assessment package like this.

If you are interested, please visit our websiteor contact the examination centre: www.gdf-ri.hu/Lexinfo/index.html

Europe and Central Asia Europe and Central Asia

Hungary: LEXINFO – the new ESP examinationKate Fazekas, English language teacher, Szamalk Post-Secondary School, Budapest, Hungary([email protected])

TEMOLAYOLE is short for ‘Developingteachers of modern languages to younglearners’. The TEMOLAYOLE workshop washeld at the European Centre for ModernLanguages (ECML) in Graz between 29 Juneand 3 July 2004, hosting 22 participants and five members of the project team –Marianne Nikolov (Co-ordinator), JelenaMihaljevic Djigunovic, Gun Lundberg, TanyaFlanagan, and Marina Matthaioudaki – from24 European countries. The five-dayworkshop was the first major event in the life of the four-year TEMOLAYOLE project (for more details see project homepage atwww.ecml.at).

The aims of the project are:

■ to involve teacher educators and their in-service trainees in a developmentalproject over a period of four years

■ to develop, pilot and implement aninnovative programme for teachers ofmodern languages to young learners to promote plurilingualism

■ to encourage systematic collection and analyses of classroom data andreflective practice

■ to establish a functioning network ofteacher educators intrinsically motivatedto participate in the project

■ to integrate classroom observationfocusing on good practice and assessmentinto teachers’ professional development indifferent target languages

■ to organise an international regionalconference

■ to publish an edited volume on the outcomes.

As a result of co-operation between members of the TEMOLAYOLE network ofteacher educators, the following outcomesare expected:

■ a flexible syllabus developed and piloted in different educational contexts

■ adaptable versions for pre- and in-service teachers’ needs in distance or on-site programmes

■ innovative tools and techniques for traditional and computer-baseddistance learning

■ structured and piloted observationschemes, questionnaires, interviews andother instruments for teachers and teachereducators to reflect upon, evaluate, andwhere necessary, use to improve theirown practice

■ a functioning network of researchers onteacher education

■ a structured research database

■ proceedings of an international conference(regional event) in 2007 for teachereducators involved in the project andpractitioners and policy-makers

■ a book on research findings

■ some research projects available on theweb or on CD.

As the next stage in the project, participantsin the network met in Graz on the firstweekend in December 2004. If you wish toknow more about the project, please contactthe website of the European Centre forModern Languages or Marianne Nikolov([email protected]).

Hungary: TEMOLAYOLE – a research project for teachersof modern languagesMarianne Nikolov, Teacher trainer, Hungary ([email protected])

Key ELTeCS facts

When and where did ELTeCS start?

ELTeCS started in Europe in 1990, and the network of ELT practitioners has grown steadily since then.

When were the e-maildiscussion lists set up?

Africa and the Middle East – 2000East Asia – 1999Europe and Central Asia – 1997India – 2000Latin America – 2000South Asia – 2000

How many members are there?

The current estimate is ‘12,000 membersplus’. We include a nominal number of associate members in this total, i.e.those who are represented via theirteachers’ association.

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BETA is the Bucharest Regional Associationfor Teachers of English, one of the fourassociations of RATE, the RomanianAssociation for Teachers of English.

27 March 2004 was a special day: it was abig family reunion for those who wanted tofind opportunities for professional growth, to share ideas and experience and to findsupport and advice.

The morning plenary set the tone for all theactivities that followed: Stephanie Richards,Teacher Training Manager at OxfordUniversity Press looked at the challenges and benefits of continuous development inour working lives. ‘What would you do againand why?’, ’What would you not do again andwhy?’, ‘What will you do to improve it?’ werefood for thought.

The hints and materials were considered notonly helpful or amusing but also stimulating,challenging and action-oriented. The idea ofthe virtuous circle (Plan1 – teach – collectevidence – reflect/explore; Plan 2 . . .) andthe answers to the vital question ‘How?’ (by experimentation and reflection, dialogues with our students, from each other,visiting websites, and last but not least, bycoming to conferences and giving a talk at a conference!) made the participantsreconsider the importance of their job andthe fact that we call ourselves professionals.

In the afternoon plenary Mark Dilks, EuroExam Centre Educational Co-ordinator,introduced us to the Euro Exam, the ‘can-do’exam. Based on the idea that exams aremeant ‘to make you not to break you’, he pointed out that using a different kind of test, based on real-world needs and acommunicative approach, could make a

dramatic positive change to teaching and learning.

Mihai Laurentiu Ganj, Managing Director ofInternational House Bucharest, gave valuableinformation about this organisation, whichdevelops and runs courses and educationalmanagement programmes. It also offersconsultancy services in areas such as teachertraining and development, recruitment ofteachers, materials development, academicmanagement, e-learning strategies anddistance training courses. When asked if they would be interested in becoming a Euro-assessor, many of those present respondedaffirmatively, which proves the interest thisplenary aroused.

The workshop presentations offered a varietyof topics for students belonging to differentage groups, but all participants agreed thatthey had something in common: attractiveideas and activities, good presentation,materials, humour and partnership, usefuladvice. The relaxed atmosphere made itpossible to talk and try to offer solutions to the real problems teachers have to facein class. Still, there was one drawback: onecouldn’t attend more workshops at the same time!

Our reliable partner, the British Council in Bucharest, was represented by MarionHughes, who informed the participants about the A. S. Hornby Educational TrustProgramme for Europe 2004 and the factthat applicants could benefit from financialassistance from the British Council.

The BETA event this year made us experiencethe same nice feeling: that we belong to aspecial community.


Romania: BETA for better: the 12th annual conferenceMelania Guta, Secretary of BETA/RATECristiana Faur, BETA/RATE Chair ([email protected])

I decided to take part in the Teaching Englishto Young Learners project, organised by the British Council in Lithuania, without anyhesitation. And I have never regretted it.

During the course we had a wonderfulchance to share our experiences and takethe best from each other. We became onefamily, and now it is pleasant to realise that I have very close friends in different schoolsof Lithuania, whom I can rely on and where I can get advice any time.

Another advantage of the project is thepossibility of getting news about the eventsheld in and by the British Council which might interest teachers working with younglearners. I took the offered chance to applyfor a grant (and got it!) to be a participant atthe Hornby Educational Trust Regional Schoolin Croatia last year – and met the challengeto work as a tutor in a similar school in theCzech Republic this summer. That was a smallstep towards the higher level of involvement.Therefore it wasn’t difficult to go on and jointhe trainer-training course in Klaipėda inAugust 2004. Now I have to learn more andmore because I want to become as good asmy tutors were.

Now I know for sure that nothing and nobodycan stop me from going on and on. I havegained confidence as a teacher and I seehow my young learners’ eyes are shiningwhen I start a lesson. It is really rewarding.

Teachers working with the BritishCouncil in Lithuania

Alina (secondary school teacher, Kaunas)

Being a Professional DevelopmentProgramme participant is a broaderinvolvement in teaching. It means that you are a teacher not only to yourstudents, but also to your colleagues.

We offered teachers a variety of seminarsand workshops on all possible topics, and the teachers in our regions knew theycould contact us personally for advice.

Lione (pre-service teacher trainer,Marijampole)

The most important thing is that wedecided to participate because we really felt that we needed new ideas and development.

We were very well supported by the British Council. Our range of interests has expanded, and we have startedparticipating in different projects. At thesame time, we feel more responsibility for the quality of the seminars.

Ruta (secondary school teacher, Birstonas)

The British Council had a tremendousimpact on our professional and personaldevelopment. And being here, preparingfor and running the seminars feels as if we have finished at one more university.

Egle (language school director, Vilnius)

Now other important institutions such as the Lithuanian Language Commission are interested in us, asking to share ourexperiences on how we teach English.They want to implement this in teachingother languages.


Lithuania: Teaching Englishto young learners 2002–05Tatjana Kriliuvienė, English language teacher,Laurynas Ivinskis Gymnasium, Kuršėnai,Lithuania ([email protected])

Lithuania: Kaleidoscope– teachers’ voices 2004

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A new project, fostering interculturalcommunication competence (ICC) by thedevelopment of interdisciplinary teachingmodules for different languages, has begunto take shape at the University of Primorskaunder the auspices of British CouncilSlovenia. The project is entitled LABICUM, or ‘Language as a Bridge to InterculturalCommunication and Understanding’. Co-operation between the two institutionswithin the LABICUM project has roots in anearlier project, CCBC (Cross-Cultural BusinessCommunication – www.2cbc.net), initiallysupported and promoted by ELTeCS (seearticle in ELTeCS info 2003, page 39).

The teaching modules, introducing ICC andcitizenship topics in L2 and LSP teaching arebeing developed for English, Italian, French,German and Slovene. Structured as a contentsubject taught in a second language orneighbouring languages, the teaching moduleswill be included in the study courses either asa language of communication (lingua franca)or a foreign language of choice, and as suchoffered to students following a number of study programmes within the University of Primorska.

The project draws insights from within twoEuropean cultural circles, namely CentralEurope and the UK, both a fine mixture ofcultures, subcultures and micro-cultures, but emerging from different historical,sociolinguistic and political backgrounds.Combining knowledge and expertise fromboth these cultural and academic circles willhelp us integrate into the teaching modulesthe most relevant insights, best teachingpractices and promote better interculturalunderstanding.

In order to achieve our objectives, Britishscholars and experts in ICC, citizenship topicsand ESP, Dr Michael Byram, Dr Hugh Starkeyand Dr Rod Bolitho, have been invited to participate in the LABICUM project asconsultants, working with a team of languageteachers at the University of Primorska withinworkshops and in a distance-learning mode.

The individual units of the LABICUM teachingmodules are being piloted and evaluatedwithin the various colleges forming theUniversity of Primorska, so that a frameworkfor teaching ICC in different professionalenvironments, comprising teaching modulesand the underpinning research, can bepresented to an international audience withinthe ICC conference, planned in June 2005.


A group of ESP teachers from Slovenia haveimplemented problem-based learning (PBL)as a new model of teaching ESP, whichsuccessfully combines professionalknowledge with the knowledge of foreignlanguages, and is in fact a form of teachingforeign languages across the curriculum.

Following the success of the LENTEC(Leonardo) project, which was a springboardfor our project, PBL was first introduced toSlovenia in 2000. The project group consistedof 13 foreign language teachers, employed at various faculties and colleges of theUniversities of Ljubljana, Primorska andMaribor. All project group members aremembers of the Slovene Association ofTeachers of Languages for Specific Purposes.The project could not have been completedwithout the support of the British CouncilSlovenia. In the first phase it was carried outin co-operation with the University of Aston(UK). The PBL model was further upgradedand adapted to the needs of teaching ESP at tertiary level, for various professionaldisciplines.

The essence of the PBL model is thatstudents work in small groups and are given a real-life problem to be solved within a professional context. Students explore theproblem, identify what they already know and what they need to learn, and by research,using modern technology, integrate theirideas and present a solution to the problem.The results are then presented in two forms:a written report and a public presentation.

Ideally, co-operation with subject teachers isestablished. In such a teaching situation therole of the language teacher changes: theteacher becomes a facilitator and adviser.The model offers a flexible framework intowhich the language teacher can incorporateall the necessary language knowledge thestudents need.

The results of our project have shown thatstudents acquire not only linguistic skills (i.e.reading, writing, listening and speaking) butalso other, so-called transferable, skills thatcan be used in other contexts (e.g. makingpresentations, working in a team, usingmodern technology for finding information,autonomous learning, etc.).

We believe that PBL, by simulating real-jobsituations and by using a student-centredapproach, enhances the development oflanguage skills and other practical andcognitive skills that are becoming vital in aperiod when increased job marketability hasbecome a significant competitive advantagefor our students.

In 2003 the project team organised aninternational workshop, thus disseminatingthe results to other teachers from Sloveniaand nine other countries. We are planning to offer another workshop for internationalparticipants in June 2005. Further informationon this event will be posted on the Europeand Central Asia ELTeCS e-mail discussion listand all teachers interested are welcome tocontact us at [email protected].


Slovenia: LABICUM – bridging intercultural communication and understandingNeva Cebron, Lecturer in ESP, Faculty of Humanities, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia([email protected])

Slovenia: Problem-based learning in teaching ESPNada Vukadinovic, ESP teacher; on behalf of the PBL team, Slovenia ([email protected])

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Phase I of the regional project in India on‘Effective Use of Materials in the EnglishLanguage Classroom’ (see report in ELTeCS info 2003, page 52), resulted in the development of a common minimumprogramme that could guide a cluster oflocal teacher development programmeswithin the larger regional project.

Phase II

This phase (September 2003 to April 2004)involved teacher development programmesheld in nine locations in various parts of India. These workshops included teachersfrom a wide range of contexts – from primaryto senior secondary levels, located in urban,semi-urban and remote rural settingsincluding those teaching slum children andtribal children as well. Many of these teacherswork in extremely difficult circumstancesrelating to learners, the system, infrastructureand even teachers themselves.

This phase included the following stages:

■ Training: Trainers, in collaboration withlocal partners, organised workshops indifferent locations

■ Implementation: Participating teacherstrialled/implemented in their classroomsactivities discussed in the above workshops

■ Observation: Trainers observed classes of their participants followed by structuredinterviews to record any changes inteaching practice

■ Feedback: Trainers met the participantsagain for a feedback workshop.

Phase III

This phase began with a trainers’ workshopheld in Pune from 5 to 7 May 2004. Thetrainers provided feedback on Phase II,

accompanied by an evaluation of outcomesof that phase vis-à-vis the objectives of the project. This was followed by thedevelopment of a format for the projectreport and a skeleton structure for themanual. The 12 participants (including sixalumni) present at this meeting constitutedthe writing team, and they were divided intothree groups of four each, responsible forvarious chapters. The members agreed towork individually from their own locations,exchanging drafts over e-mail. But it seemedessential to have another meeting of thewhole group to evolve a coherent text. Asmaller group of four members was formedto do the editing work at the final stages. This plan of action was then discussed withand approved by Dr Prabhu, distinguishedELT academic, in Bangalore.

The 12 participants met again in Hyderabadfrom 30 September to 4 October 2004.Members worked intensively – and well past midnight – to put their work together.And then they were right there for breakfastat eight o’clock next morning, raring to go allover again! Individual groupwork interspersedwith brief, whole group meetings resulted in arough first draft at the end of the first threedays. This was followed by everyone readingthe rough first draft, receiving feedback onthe chapters, and revising the chapters byincorporating the feedback received. Thisdraft was to be further developed and refinedwithin about a month to have it ready for theediting group, led by Dr Prabhu, due to meetin late November/early December 2004. Atthe time of writing, we hope to be able tohave the manuscript ready and to finish theproject by the end of January 2005.

India

The Hornby India Alumni regional project – Phases II and IIISarika Chaudhuri, Hornby Educational Trust Alumnus and Teacher trainer; studying for an M.Philin ELT, CIEFL, Hyderabad ([email protected])

In this brief article, I wish to share ourexperience from an ongoing experiment withEnglish Teachers’ Clubs (ETCs). Teachers ofEnglish in India usually work in very difficultconditions. They have to cope with severelyrestricted resources, little support frommanagement and authorities, crowdedclasses, lack of textbooks and supportmaterials, and most importantly, limitedscope for professional growth.

But on the positive side, there are manyteachers who still show resourcefulness,commitment, motivation and initiative, and try to find ways of working better anddeveloping professionally. I have beenwitness (and often party) to several examplesof their initiatives. Colleagues and I noticedthat whenever a crisis loomed, teacherstypically got together in small, close-knitgroups and tried to find solutions. Workingwith such groups we found that the groupsettings provided excellent opportunities for professional interaction and growth, while being very easily manageable.

We are trying to give a more sustainableshape to this phenomenon through EnglishTeachers’ Clubs. Initially we piloted anexperiment with Hornby Educational Trustsupport in one district, where today threeclubs are running very well. Now under anELTeCS-funded project we are trying out the experiment in three states of India.

The main objective of the project is toencourage and support teachers to set upand run ETCs for self-development. Usuallysome teachers from an area take the initiativeand contact their colleagues to set up a club. All the decisions, from membership toactivities to management, are taken by the

club itself. The members themselves raise or contribute money for activities, decide onwhat should be done, when and how, andshare all responsibilities.

From our experience so far with the old andthe new clubs, we have noticed the followingadvantages of the ETCs:

■ small groups, hence better interaction

■ more easily manageable

■ sense of ownership

■ better focused on needs and interests

■ more meaningful and relevant activities

■ flexibility of functioning and approach

■ nodal points for larger networks.

The ETCs have helped the members to findout about developments in the theory andpractice of ELT, to join larger ELT networksand associations and to add to theirknowledge and skills.

We have, however, come to realise someproblems too:

■ limited resources

■ small-scale activities

■ interpersonal problems (e.g. clash of egos!)

■ problems of long-term continuity.

But we can say with confidence that the ETCsare proving a tremendous help to theteachers. The remarkable improvement in theconfidence, competence and attitudes of theclub members is ample evidence of this.

We heartily welcome suggestions andcomments on (and offers to join) this project.

India

English Teachers’ Clubs – a novel experimentAmol Padwad, Editor ELTeCS India discussion list and ELTeCS project manager, India ETCs project([email protected])

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English teaching in Bolivia covers the publicand private sector. At public schools studentsbegin to learn this language at seventh level and finish five years later. Althoughthe curriculum is not updated regularlybecause of administrative difficulties,students in these schools have the possibilityto acquire a certain level in the use of thefour skills. Sometimes books are part of thelearning process and sometimes not. Sincethe introduction of educational reforms, theteaching and learning process has started to change. As part of the reforms, teachers in general were trained in the use of newteaching methodologies.

Private schools generally include English intheir curricula, with eight years at elementarylevel and four years at secondary level. Someof them have intensive courses with everydayclasses, others have a 45-minute class twiceor three times a week. There is no commoncurriculum for these schools; instead eachschool decides on the material to be used,which is usually textbooks.

At university level, in general students haveto follow specialised training programmes. Aseach course has its particular requirements,teachers generally have to design materialsaccording to those needs. The TopographyDepartment at the Technical Faculty at myuniversity includes two English levels in itscurriculum. At the beginning, teachers incharge of those courses used some related

books, others designed their own materialsor adapted existing ones. However, someproblems were identified: lack of continuity inthe programme from the first to the secondlevel; and activities using all four skills insteadof concentrating on one or two, taking intoaccount the type of the course.

To solve this situation, a reading approachescourse was designed with the objective ofdetermining the extent to which it could beuseful for teachers within the TopographyDepartment. A set of reading activities, usedlater with a pilot group, was designed toimprove reading comprehension. Materialswere developed, taking into account thespecialisation area, topography, length and type of the articles and level ofdifficulty in vocabulary and grammarstructures. Variations in the level of readingcomprehension of texts were detected by: comprehension of the implicit meaningof technical texts through the ability topredict at sentence and paragraph level,and comprehension of technical contextand register.

Materials design is a never-ending activity asthere are constantly changes in courses andteaching. Because of this, it is necessary tohave teachers trained in the skills needed to produce their own materials. Sometimes it is not possible to use a textbook – but the possibility of designing our materials isalways open to us.

Latin America

Bolivia: Some thoughts on teaching materialsMaria Cristina Quisbert Quispe, Head of Languages Department, Universidad Pública de El Alto,La Paz, Bolivia ([email protected])

I would like to share with all of you one of my recent experiences in co-ordinating andimplementing a 35-hour intensive course to improve communication skills in English.The course was conducted at the Institute ofEnglish, Calcutta, a West Bengal Government-sponsored teacher training institute where I teach. The course was meant for graduateswho were looking for jobs or were already in middle-level jobs. To suit the convenienceof the target group, we held the classes from5.30 p.m. to 7.00 p.m., three days a week. We were four teachers who took turns toteach on the course.

The syllabus, developed by the facultymembers, was divided into seven themes:

■ sharing experiences

■ describing people, places and things

■ telephone conversation

■ communication for travel purposes

■ applying for courses and jobs

■ communication in one’s environment

■ project work at the workplace.

Sub-themes within each of these themeswere developed according to therequirements of the participants – whichmeant that the teaching team had to be alertto the reasons why the participants wantedto be on the course. We did an initial needsanalysis and adapted the syllabus andmaterials to accommodate aspects that wehad not anticipated earlier. The participantswere given the opportunity to develop allfour language skills – listening, speaking,reading and writing – along with vocabulary

and grammar, both individually and inintegration with more than one skill. Thisobviously required co-ordination between theteachers in order to maintain a link betweenthe classes the participants were taking.

There was a mid-term test after threethemes, where participants had anopportunity to check their progress. Furtherfine-tuning of the syllabus took place at thisstage. After the mid-term, they started ontheir project work. The participants chosetheir areas of interest, ranging from smallsavings in the domestic sector, to midwifery,sex education in schools, awareness ofenvironmental issues and noise pollution – toname a few. They were shown the techniquesof conducting research and surveys and how to develop tools like questionnaires andinterview questions. For the project work theyhad to go beyond the classroom and find outsome genuine information from a sizeablegroup on any subject. The project work tookplace simultaneously with the other themes.The final exam followed the same pattern ofthe mid-term exam.

At the end of the course, the participantswere happy with the progress they had made and wanted an advanced course, which the Institute is considering seriously.The next batch has now started the course,and we have had a good response from the participants.

If you are interested to find out about thesyllabus, or details about the examinationmethod, I would be happy to share this with you.

India

Improving communication skills in English – an Indian experienceVindhya S. Singh, Lecturer, Institute of English, Calcutta ([email protected])

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One of the oldest and most respectedBrazilian universities, Universidade Federal doRio de Janeiro (UFRJ) held its conference forteachers of foreign languages in December2004, organised by undergraduates, graduatestudents and professors. This event, the Third Forum CLAC, springs from a projectfor teacher training that has already inspiredmany other institutions and has been anenormous success since it was reactivatedsome years ago.

This teacher training project, called ProjetoCLAC, was created as an initiative to fill a gap in the university curriculum. Previously,students claimed they had no opportunitiesto gain classroom experience. Most of thementered the job market feeling insecure or even unable to teach a lesson. After the creation of this project, students began to obtain the practical experience that isrequired nowadays by employers.

The difference between this teacher trainingproject and the traditional ones in Rio deJaneiro is that undergraduate students are put in charge of a group of students for a whole semester, with responsibility for

planning lessons, preparing materials,teaching lessons and assessing theirstudents’ performance. This way, theprospective teachers learn what thedifficulties involved in the profession are and how to cope with them. Weeklymeetings with experienced professors,where problems are discussed, aremandatory for all participants throughoutthe semester. As a result of these sessions,most members conduct small researchprojects on language teaching, addressingissues that attract their attention. Theseprojects are sometimes carried on later in graduate school.

However, until 2002, there was no easy wayof circulating the results of these researchprojects. It was then that students realisedthe need for a conference where their ideascould be presented as well as discussedamong fellow trainees and teachers. Thefirst two conferences, as an article in thelast issue of ELTeCS info relates (ELTeCS info 2003, page 55), were a great success,provoking a healthy and fruitful debate, as well as leading to production of a book.

Latin America

Brazil: English language teacher training in Rio de JaneiroMariana Correia Mourente Miguel, Teacher and graduate student, Universidade Federal do Riode Janeiro, Brazil ([email protected])

In 2003, after the completion of a three-yearEFL in-service teacher education project inParaná, teacher educators from almost all the higher education institutions in the stategot together to discuss pre-service teacherpreparation. It was felt that both forms ofteacher development had to be integrated,so that efforts were not wasted.

A first meeting was held in Curitiba, when the curricula of the several participatinginstitutions were discussed along with thecurriculum guidelines issued by the Ministryof Education. Essentially, the guidelines givegreater emphasis to the practical aspects of the profession in courses where the trendis to focus on content subjects. During thisperiod intense discussions about the newcurriculum were held. Regional meetingstook place in different institutions to deepenthe conversations about the strengths andweaknesses of the course programmes. An e-group was set up to enable easycommunication among the participants.

In Londrina, where two of the meetings wereheld, the group decided to carry out a joint

research project within an action researchparadigm. Although co-operative andcollaborative approaches to research have been advocated, there have been few examples of how this might happen,especially when several institutions areinvolved. The objectives are to follow up the practical component of the teacherpreparation courses and their impact, not only on student teachers’ knowledge and skills, but also on schools and theirperceptions of the value of teaching practice. The same research design will be followed by all ten researchers during2005–06, and an intense exchange ofinformation and literature is envisaged. The predicted outcomes include a betterunderstanding of how EFL teacherpreparation is understood and practised byteacher educators, co-operating teachers,school staff and students, and its effects.Also, we aim at strengthening the network of teacher education professionals in the field of English language teaching in Brazil.

Latin America

Brazil: Partnerships and collaboration in researching EFL in initial teacher educationTelma Gimenez, Associate Professor, Universidade Estadual de Londrina, Brazil([email protected])

Members’ favourite websites

OneLook Dictionary

www.onelook.com

This dictionary searches words in 960online dictionaries, encyclopaedias, andother reference sites. Search results aredisplayed and grouped: general meaningcoming first, followed by specific use inother contexts (e.g. medicine, science, art,computing, etc.)

The Why Files

http://whyfiles.org

This is the place to find good articles and pictures. You can browse by subject:Biology, Earth&Space, Environment, SocialScience, etc. Search is possible by themes as well (e.g. food, transportation, energy,sports, etc). Suitable for tertiary level andsecondary level students.

Nada Vukadinovic, Medical Technologyand ELT, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Merriam-Webster Online

www.m-w.com

Apart from being a comprehensivedictionary, this website offers you athesaurus and a direct link to EncyclopaediaBritannica. There’s a link called ‘Word of the Day’ and your students will love theWord Games.

Norton

www.wwnorton.com/nael/

The second URL I’d like to share willquickly turn into a favourite for thoseteaching English through literature.This is an online anthology of Englishliterature from a famous publisher, Norton.

Ragsana Mammadova Executive Director AzETA

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We have heard that schools need reflectiveteachers and teachers capable of working in teams. The Government of Paraná State,Brazil encourages the teachers of schools itsponsors to be reflective and to help theircolleagues to improve teaching. It does this byComputer Supported Collaborative Learning(CSCL). This has been the basis of an onlineeducational portal, Portal Dia-a-Dia Educação,created to be a meeting place where allteachers can exchange ideas and publish their practical knowledge about teaching.

There is a special place in this portal for thecollaborative pedagogical environment – theAmbiente Pedagógico Colaborativo or APC. Asan online tutor, I am in charge of giving Englishteachers the support they need to publish theirwriting. We can discuss the topic by e-mail andI can suggest texts to be read to help maketheir thinking clearer and more consistent.

This professional interaction enabled us to do much more than just think about ourclassroom performance. It has given us theopportunity to talk without prejudice aboutour weaknesses, and it has offered us achance to face them together. Sharing hasbeen a wonderful experience! Even thoughteachers are alone in the classroom and veryoften ashamed to reveal their professionalproblems at school, the portal is where wecan open our hearts and give support toeach other. It does not matter how far from a big city you work, cyber-communicationhas shortened distances and time.

After six months we have had to face the fact that writing is not an easy task forteachers and that some have difficulties withcomputers. However, collaborative learning is not just for language learners, but can be very useful for teachers too.

The third summer course organised by GELI (Group of ELT specialists) in Cuba washosted by the University of Cienfuegos, 5–9 July 2004. The course was attended by 23 teachers, representing 13 differentuniversities and vocational institutionsthroughout central Cuba.

This was the first time that the summercourse was held outside the capital, Havana, and the first to have a specialist fromoverseas to give input to the training event.The British Council enlisted the help of DrDavid Shepherd of the Universidade FederalFluminense of Niteroi in Brazil, who focusedin his sessions on ‘language elements specificfor the organisation of written discourse’.

Input came from eight tutors, all Cubanexcept for Dr Shepherd. The event closed on the Friday with an ‘Open House’ attendedby over 50 teachers from Cienfuegos.

Of several potential outcomes, discussion hasstarted on sharing research findings betweenthe universities in Niteroi and Cienfuegos,especially in the field of researching teacherdiscourse to identify beliefs and valuesrelated to communicative language teaching.

Dr Shepherd wrote on his return to Brazilthat: ‘At all stages of my stay in Cienfuegos I received the most positive professional and personal support, hospitality andencouragement from the superb courseorganisers . . . It was a pleasure and aprivilege to have been part of the GELI event and I very much hope I will have theopportunity of renewing my acquaintancewith my Cuban colleagues in the not-too-distant future.’

Latin America

‘Designing and developing web-based ELTmaterials for intercultural education in state schools’, Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, 8–10 February 2004

There were 45 participants at this thirdseminar on intercultural studies in Brazil.These included state school teachers,language university students from Brazil and Scotland, university teachers linked tothe Academic Support Centres (NAPs) andGlasgow University teachers, the president of the Braz-Tesol Culture SIG and members of the Braz-Tesol Teacher Education SIG,members of the association of teachers from the State of Paraná (APLIEPAR), BritishCouncil members, teachers from privatelanguage institutions and publishers.

One of the greatest achievements of theseminar was the sharing of information and the building up of networks in differentregions of Brazil, Argentina and Scotland. The programme and the materials presented and discussed during the threedays, including lesson plans, are available at www.utp.br/nepri/halu/tesig/index.htm

A materials development plan was developed at the seminar as follows:

■ Up to 10 April 2004 the participants weredue to test the materials already producedand submit their feedback.

■ From 10 April to 28 May 2004, participantsreflected upon their practice and reading,and produced new materials.

■ On 29 May these materials were sent to Susan Holden and John Corbett in Scotland to be revised. There werediscussions between the authors of the materials and those responsible for the revision, until they agreed on a finalversion. This final version is now availableat the TE Braz-Tesol website (www.utp.br/nepri/halu/tesig/studygroup1.htm).

The seminar was sponsored by ELTeCS funds,the British Council, the Federal University of Paraná, Braz-Tesol Teacher Education SIG, Swan Communication, the University of Glasgow and Macmillan Publishers.

Latin America

Brazil: Web-based ELT materials seminarMariza Riva de Almeida, Project manager ([email protected] or [email protected])

Brazil: A collaborativepedagogical environment Adalnice Passos Lima, English teachers’supervisor, Portal Dia-a-Dia Educação,Secretariat of Education of Paraná State,Brazil ([email protected])

Cuba: Summer course in Cienfuegos – Cuba andBrazil exchange ideasAda Chiappy Jhones, GELI General Secretary

Tony Irizar, Summer Course Director([email protected])

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Enquirer: ‘ELT, surely you mean IELTS!’

[British Council’s response]

Enquirer: ‘Ah right – English LanguageTeaching. But you don’t have teachingcentres, the British Council closed down about two years ago.’

These are the most common responses Ireceive when embarking upon a discussionregarding the British Council’s work in the ELT Sector in Pakistan.

‘Why worry about this?’ I hear you say

Well actually . . . In the last two years we havegone from a non-existent entity to a sectorthat has planned and implemented an arrayof projects and events, such as the HornbyRegional Schools 2003 and 2004; ELTeCS-funded projects ‘Human Rights in theLanguage Classroom’ and ‘Study Skills’; aMaster Trainers programme for teachers in rural Sindh; language development andteacher training in the madrassahs (religiousIslamic schools); as well as various other forafor the exchange of ideas and good practiceacross the globe. We are also working closelywith the government sector, reviewing theprovision of English in higher education.

How do you do this?

Admittedly, the way we work is very differentand a colleague of mine coined the perfectphrase to describe our operating context:

‘Behind closed doors’. Not only have we had to change the focus of our work but also the audiences who we work for. Thisstrategic shift from learners of English toteachers of English has paved the way for the development of a huge British CouncilELT presence both in Pakistan and the region,very aptly supported by our own InformationServices department. This would have beenimpossible had we not tapped into the local/regional networks already present, such asthe national teacher association (SPELT), the Beaconhouse School System network, the Agha Khan Centre for English, our ownnetwork of 3,500 Information Alert Servicessubscribers, our own British Council networkand, of course, ELTeCS.

In fact, both of the ELTeCS projects were the culmination of various British Councilnetworking mechanisms such as BritishCouncil Seminars, a Hornby Regional Schooland the ELTeCS network.

So what’s the point of this article?

The point is to share our experience of how – drawing on existing networking tools, established networks of interest andprofessional organisations – as an externalorganisation we can have a deep impact onthe development of English at an individual,organisational and governmental level.

South Asia

Pakistan: Networks – the key to developing an effective ELT sectorSaima Satti, ELT Manager, British Council, Pakistan ([email protected])

The Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa (UAS)is a higher educational institution founded in the late 1800s, which became the first and,up to now, the most important university in Sinaloa, a mainly agricultural and fishingstate in north-west Mexico. Since then, theseveral campuses throughout the state havebuilt up educational opportunities aimed atcontributing to the social, economic andhuman development of the people of Sinaloa.

In 1984, a group of university teachers from Los Mochis, a centennial young city in the north-west of Sinaloa, concerned with providing students with more and betterlearning opportunities, decided to open alanguage centre in this city. Consequently,Centro de Estudio de Idiomas (CEI, which isthe Spanish abbreviation for Language StudyCentre) developed into a place that offerslanguage learning for communication, betterworking and studying opportunities, andcultural enrichment.

CEI is now celebrating 20 years of providinghigh-quality language education, includingSpanish, English, Italian and French, forteenagers and adults. Furthermore, asuccessful Saturday programme for children(PISI) is offered, where 8- to 12-year-oldsattend four hours of English instruction every Saturday. As a response to society’sgrowing interest in English language learning,

many schools have been established recently,increasing the need for qualified Englishteachers. To meet this requirement, CEI offersa diploma in English Language Teaching andLearning, aimed at promoting best practice inELT in our region.

Interestingly, now that we have set ourattention back in time to celebrate thefounding of our Language Centre, we seehow our own history reflects the history of foreign language teaching. Pioneerteachers started teaching the way they were taught, without any background training in pedagogy or didactics. Eventually,new trends permeated our classrooms asteacher training and development became a necessity and a possibility in Mexico.Nowadays, our staff is formed by well-trainedand experienced teachers who either hold a BA or MEd in Language Teaching, or havestudied COTE (Cambridge Overseas TeachersExamination).

CEI views language and education asconstantly changing issues that requirecontinuous updating on the part of theeducator. Therefore, celebrating 20 years of language instruction implies 20 years offacing new challenges, and achieving newgoals; 20 years being agents of change; and 20 years being ready and committed to constant learning and development.

Latin America

Mexico: CEI-UAS – 20 years of language teachingMaría Teresa Guevara Beltrán, Academic Co-ordinator, Centro de Estudio de Idiomas,Universidad Autónoma de Sinaloa, Los Mochis, Sinaloa, México ([email protected])

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Manager ELTeCS: Mike [email protected]

ELTeCS Co-ordinator (web editor andproject funding information): Penny [email protected]

Membership enquiries:Your local British Council office orELTeCS, British Council, 10 Spring GardensLondon SW1A 2BN, UK

Telephone +44 (0)20 7389 4336Fax +44 (0)20 7389 [email protected]

Contact details

© British Council 2004Design Department/R084/CHPCover photographs: Chris Tribble, SNAPS; Zoltán Poór; British CouncilPhotographs on pages 17 and 35: Dennis Newson and Zoltán Poór

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.

The Centre of English Language (CEL) at theAga Khan University (AKU) is at the forefrontof academic and professional development inthe field of English language teaching. A majorstep in this direction was the launching of thedepartment’s first-ever postgraduate diplomaprogamme on 6 September 2004. TheAdvanced Diploma in Teaching of English as a Foreign Language in Higher Education is aone-year academic programme for collegeand university teachers and others involved in teaching English to adults, from both publicand private sectors. It aims to improve thestandards of English language teaching inhigher education in Pakistan andsubsequently to raise the English languageproficiency of university graduates.

The new students were welcomed on theirOrientation Day by Dr David Taylor, Provost,AKU. Dr Sabiha Mansoor, Head, CEL, providedan overview of the programme and introducedthe CEL faculty to the audience, while LailaAkberali, Manager, Student Affairs Department,introduced the entrants. The participants werealso given a briefing on the Advanced DiplomaProgramme (ADP) in TEFL by the ProgrammeCo-ordinator, Nasreen Hussain.

The ADP in TEFL is a timely response tothe increasing need to prepare the Englishlanguage teachers in higher education tomeet new challenges, with the help of asound theoretical background and propertraining. It endeavours to provide an under-standing of the theoretical foundation oflanguage teaching and to study ways inwhich theory can be applied to differentaspects of language teaching in theparticipants’ own context, in order to bring about improvement in practice.

The core courses of the programme include Applied Linguistics, ELT Methodology,Professional Practice I and II, Grammar andPhonology, English for Specific Purposes, and Research Methodology. For their optionalcourses, participants can choose, dependingon their interests, from Testing, ComputerBased Teaching/Learning Methodology,Bilingual Education and Language Planning,and ELT Management. The programme alsooffers an English Language Developmentcourse which is specifically designed toprovide the participants with the languageand study skills needed to cope effectivelywith the demands of the postgraduate study programme.

In the first year, after a rigorous selectionprocess, a total of 21 English languageteachers have been enrolled in theprogramme, ten of whom belong to thepublic sector and have been sponsored by the Higher Education Commission (HEC). This is in keeping with the recentgovernment policy of education thatemphasises collaboration between the public and the private sector in the country.In addition, an English language teacher from Syria has also joined the programme.

CEL is offering the Advanced DiplomaProgramme with support from the BritishCouncil through the Higher Education Links (HEL) scheme with the University ofWarwick, UK. This support will be providedthrough the HEL project over a period ofthree years in terms of annual exchangevisits, short training programmes, andresearch collaboration.

South Asia

Pakistan: CEL launches its advanced diploma in TEFL programmeAsjaeen Masooma, Lecturer, Centre of English Language, Aga Khan University, Pakistan([email protected])

R084 Eltecs 2005 P675 A/W - Zona CLIL · CLIL at primary level 23 Lithuania: Human rights...

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