Training Consultant(s): English Language Teaching Courses

About the projects

The Peacekeeping English Project (PEP) has been in existence since 2009 and has played a significant role in Ethiopia becoming the world’s largest contributor of peacekeepers on multinational Peace Support Missions as it has ensured Ethiopians are deployed with sufficient English skills to interact with peacekeepers from other nations. We work with the Ethiopian Ministry of National Defence and the Ethiopian Federal Police Commission to develop a sustainable system of English language training for both institutions. The project runs 250-hour intensive courses based on the NATO STANAG 6001 levels 1 – 3, as well as niche courses. The 54 civilian teachers receive several short training courses whilst working on PEP, with more experienced teachers trained as materials writers and mentors.

The Language for Resilience (L4R) programme has been working in five refugee and host community primary schools near the borders with Sudan and South Sudan since 2017. It supports improvements in education through teacher development. Although we focus on education rather than English per se, there are several factors contributing to the high demand for English in this region, including the diversity of languages in the camps which makes English a lingua franca amongst different nationalities and organisations working in the camps.

About the role

The consultant(s) will lead on two teacher training courses, both with eight contact days, one following the other. The PEP course will be on Materials Development, the L4R course will train a new cohort of Teacher Educators.

The Materials Development course will be practical in nature, ensuring that teachers design tasks and activities that are related to multinational peacekeeping missions. Materials produced as part of the course will be distributed amongst all PEP teachers. Trainees will be expected to continue developing their materials after the course, and some will be more experienced teachers who have produced materials and will be expected to co-train, so there is an element of training trainers.

The Teacher Educator course will consist of refugees and Ethiopian teachers, the former usually with no qualification for and little experience of teaching. It will combine appropriate primary methodology and the improvement of teachers’ English, using and adapting the British Council’s English for Teaching series. The course will also include peer microteaching based on the Ethiopian primary coursebooks which have been translated into English and are used in the early years of refugee primary schools. However, the introduction of these coursebooks was not accompanied by any training about how to use them, and there are no teachers’ books. The course will involve working with a team of four local consultants who have worked on this project for two years. This will involve collaboration on the planning details, working with them as co-trainers and on the future follow up.

The consultant(s) will produce:

• A rationale for both courses and an outline of the proposed sessions, both of which will be discussed with the Head of English for Educational Systems (Ethiopia). The suggested sessions should focus on the practical requirements of the courses.
• After the courses two short reports, to include the participants’ progress and an assessment of their ability to implement the principles and techniques covered.
• A plan to follow up on the courses, using the co-trainers.

The British Council will provide a daily fee (to be negotiated) for 16 contact days’ work, a negotiated daily fee for work on preparation and report writing, return economy air tickets from the consultants’ home country to Addis Ababa, reasonable costs between the consultants’ home and the airport for the flight(s) to/from Addis Ababa, hotel accommodation in Ethiopia and transport within Ethiopia if required. Please note that there will be no subsistence during the consultancy, but that on course days breakfast and lunch will be provided.

Qualifications and experience required

Applicants

• must be experienced teacher trainers with a proven record of work in one of the above two areas (essential) and ideally in both (desirable), preferably in an African context (desirable).
• have experience of using the British Council’s English for Teaching and the Campaign series of coursebooks (both essential).

If you are interested, please send your CV tailored to the above requirements to information@et.britishcouncil.org  with the title EES Ethiopia Teacher Training Consultancy.

Please note we will respond to successful applicants within five working days of the application submission.