Teacher training, education and professional development for practitioners and volunteers
Our approach is always to tailor our provision to the needs and interest of the organisations and individuals we are working with, and the demands of their local contexts of practice. We take a socially situated view of learning, so our training is always centred on the real-world contexts of participants and the learners they are working with. Where training is about language and literacy, we especially take full account of participants’ (and their learners’) current and desired linguistic contexts of use. This means we prefer in the terminology below to use ‘English’ to cover the full range of UK mainstream English language and literacy contexts (such as ‘ESOL’, ‘TESOL’, EFL, EAP, migrant learning, etcetera). All our training can be situated within each of these, and other contexts. ‘English’ always refers to language and literacy and never to nationality in the below. It is omitted in cases where the training is also relevant to teachers and learners of languages other than English.
We can deliver training online or face to face, or in blended combinations of both. Our training courses, workshops, webinars and events are built around interactive activities, engaging practical tasks and group discussion and feedback. We are extremely proud of our reputation for supporting practitioners with both up to date theoretical understandings and innovative and effective practice.
Our training offer:
Teaching English Language and Literacy learners (TELLs)
The TELLs course is aimed at all those teaching, working with, or supporting learners of English language who have no or very limited literacy skills (in any language). It is ideal for those who have taken an initial TEFL/TESOL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language/ Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) training course which, although it may have covered many aspects of teaching and learning English, did not include a focus on the acquisition and development of initial literacy. This course is also available in self-access form.
Participatory photography and language learning
This flexible course explores the use of participatory photography in language learning contexts. Taking and sharing smartphone photos can be an extraordinary language learning tool, a way of building community and support to creativity and wellbeing. It can give learners a voice and an opportunity to be heard at every level including beginners, unlocking personal expression along with hidden narratives and perspectives.
How to run English conversation clubs and classes
This interactive training covers all the basics in running a conversation club for migrant (and other) English learners including: understanding the role of the facilitator/volunteer; how to negotiate topics; strategies for getting the conversation going; focussing on facilitating conversation rather than ‘teaching’ language; keeping planning simple; approaches and activities to actively involve participants; using published resources, images and everyday objects; what to do if things go wrong.
Digital literacies – texting, touching, talking and teaching
Literacy isn’t what it was. The impact of digital devices, technologies and apps on our daily lives has resulted in vastly more pluralistic and diverse experiences of literacy and an explosion of new literacy practices. This training explores the significance of this for language and literacy learners and literacy education, and provides the opportunity to consider the implications for our teaching and learning practices.
Integrating phonics into English language and literacy teaching
What is phonics? Is it the same as teaching pronunciation? What is the best way of using phonics in teaching English literacy learners? This training reviews the pros and cons of different phonics approaches and considers how phonics can help literacy learners to decode and spell new words. It explores ideas and strategies to help teachers integrate phonics into their teaching and learning practices.
Making writing fun! (Beginners and above)
Do you ever feel that your writing lessons are solitary, stale and silent? In this interactive webinar we look at how to integrate creative and collaborative activities into the writing process as well as building learners’ confidence and skills. We will share ideas and experiences, and you’ll leave the session with practical ideas on how to make writing interactive and fun.
Practical techniques for teaching English language and literacy learners
What are the best methods and techniques for teaching emergent readers? How can we move our learners on to writing independently? This training provides an opportunity to explore some strategies and activities to help develop our learners’ literacy sub-skills and confidence in expressing themselves in writing.
Literacy, ‘literacies’ and language identities
What are the connections between our experiences of literacy, culture and identity? Why do literacy theorists talk about ‘literacies’ rather than ‘literacy’? What does this mean for language teaching generally, and literacy learning in particular? What implications does it have for working with migrant learners? This training provides the opportunity for teachers to explore concepts of literacy from a theoretical perspective and relate this to their language and literacy teaching practices.
The naked teacher – working without pre-planned materials
This interactive training explores resourceless teaching for language and literacy teachers. Aside from taking up so much planning time, pre-prepared materials and resources can often have the effect of closing down or narrowing learners’ participation and agency in how and what they learn. How can a more ‘naked’ approach address some of these challenges? This training explores the influential ‘Dogme’ and related approaches – borrowed from cinema, and applied to language teaching.
Working with emergent language
Emergent language is any unplanned language item that arises naturally in a learning context. As a teaching approach closely linked to the ‘naked’ or mostly resource-free approaches referred to above, working with emergent language has many benefits for learners and teachers alike. This training explores the responsive and language skills practitioners need to adopt this very learner-centred, participative and increasingly recognised methodology.
Assessing English language and literacy learners
What is the best way to assess the skills of emergent readers and writers? Which assessment materials are best? This training provides an opportunity to explore theory and practice in relation to assessing English language and literacy learners, and to explore ideas and resources to use in your teaching practice.
Teach like a pagan: how to help learners make sense of the English verb
Early grammars of English were heavily influenced by the Latin of the Catholic Church, particularly in relation to the tense system. But the English tense system in reality is nothing like Latin, and worse, our tenses are very misleadingly named. This training reveals how the English tense system really works, and how to support learners’ understanding of this – and it’s nothing to do with time!
Teach like a nomad: the deep role of systematic metaphor in grammar, vocabulary and meaning-making
Metaphor is often understood as a ‘poetic’ device. But culturally and spatially based metaphors systematically structure languages, and understanding these can help learners use what they already know to generate and access new meanings, and also use patterns from their expert language(s). This training shows how practitioners can support deep learning of these patterns of structural and orientational metaphor.
Decolonising language and literacy teaching: Colonial tropes and how to avoid them
This interactive training explores how the ideologies of colonialism live on through aspects of mainstream English language and literacy practice. It identifies and explores recognisable ‘tropes’ in aspects of methodology, language analysis and underlying beliefs about language and language users, and explores practical ways in which teachers can support learners’ critical awareness through alternative approaches to, and perspectives on language and literacy.
English and Maths
The aim of this session is to raise awareness of language and literacy issues relating to maths teaching and learning, and to identify some strategies for addressing them. We will explore the issues and identify a number of strategies and techniques to help address them, for example, analysing the level of language/literacy required to successfully answer numerical questions and the vocabulary knowledge required. There will be an opportunity to share ideas and review some resources which aim to develop language, literacy and maths skills.
Using graded readers with English literacy learners
What is the best way to use graded readers with English literacy learners? How can you exploit the text for vocabulary and reading development? What kind of activities provide good practice? We will explore these questions (and others) in this interactive training in which you’ll be able to share ideas and look at practical ways readers can be used to support literacy development.
Missing in action: sociolinguistics for language and literacy teaching
Mainstream approaches to language and literacy teaching often foreground idealised models of language and language users, and spend little time considering real language use in real social contexts. This training explores how ESOL practitioners can incorporate vital sociolinguistic insights into their practice, highlighting powerful elements of real-world language use such as the roles of culture, gender, social class and power relationships.
Trauma-informed practice for language and literacy teachers
This training considers the challenges of working with learners who may be suffering from PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) in language and literacy learning contexts. It explores current thinking around trauma along with its possible causes and effects, including how it may manifest in learning contexts, and considers the most effective and supportive ways of working with learners who may be survivors of deeply traumatic events.
We’re always developing new ideas and new content, so don’t hesitate to talk to us.