Engaging with teachers is one of the three main areas British Council is working on under its English for Impact Programme. British Council reaches out to English Language teachers and professionals across Pakistan to share techniques and latest development taking place in English Language Teaching around the globe.
British Council has also been engaged with more than 270 government school teachers from the far flung areas across Pakistan including the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). These ambitious teachers have then transferred their skills to their peers in their respective areas reaching out to more than 5,000 teachers across Pakistan. In addition to that, more than 25,000 have also been reached through different trainings and presentations by these 5,000 teachers creating a ripple effect.
Click here to get more information about our activities under the ETTE project.
The British Council engaged with more than 2,400 teachers from all over Pakistan in the 27th International Society of Pakistan English Language Teachers (SPELT) conference held in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad in October 2011. The theme of this conference was “English Language Teaching (ELT): Building Bridges” under which various workshops and presentations were organised.
Global demand for English is continuing to grow. Governments increasingly recognise the importance of English to their economies and societies, and individuals see English as a tool that can help them fulfil personal aspirations. However, there are still complex issues and challenges associated with this scenario.
To examine these issues, British Council produced a book called “Dreams and Realities: Developing Countries and the English Language” which was launched at the 2-day conference. The book took seven months to compile and brings together work from contributors with a wide range of backgrounds and origins, covering various aspects of learning English in developing countries. The book was edited by Hywel Coleman.
Read this report on Express Tribune about the Book Launch:
Apart from the book launch, British Council staff and associates had conducted several sessions across the country for the English language teachers. British Council also setup an IT village to brief the participants about the wide range of Digital English Language Learning Products of British Council available online. The teachers took great interest in these resources and found them effective and compatible with their local conditions.
Ishrat Rani, a teacher from the Government Girls’ High School, Kasur said she had attended the British Council’s workshop on IT resources, which she found very helpful. “I am confident that I can use these activities in my classrooms”, she said.
Due to the increasing trend of mobile usage in Pakistan, Ray Brown, English language adviser to the British Council, talked about the feasibility of investing in English learning applications for mobile users. He asked the participants to make groups of 10 and pen down their suggestions for problems faced by the people in learning English and how to overcome them.
For the past 27 years, SPELT conference has been an annual event celebrated by English Language Teachers from across the country. SPELT, a successful country-wide professional body committed to the training of teachers for effective English teaching, was established with the help and support of the British Council in 1984.
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