Following a successful professional development training programme for teachers of English in Hue last year, this year the British Council continues our cooperation to support a new group of 75 Primary, Lower secondary and Upper secondary teachers to expand their knowledge of both the English language and teaching methodology through four weeks of face-to-face training sessions delivered by British Council trainers. These professional development workshops have been developed from the British Council global teaching methodology course materials – English for Teaching level 2 and level 3, Certificate in Primary English Language Teaching (CIPELT) and Certificate in Secondary English Language Teaching (CISELT). Both CIPELT and CISELT courses have been adapted to meet the specific needs of teachers in the Vietnamese context.
During the four weeks of training, teachers develop their teaching and language skills, study new methods, approaches and techniques; experiment with and implement new ideas in micro-teaching sessions; and share their professional experiences, doubts, insecurities, successes and failures through collaboration and reflective practice. The aim of these courses is to nurture and promote professional growth, fostering development of English language and teaching skills in order to make a lasting impact on teachers and ultimately improve learner outcomes.
The training is, by nature, practical rather than theoretical, giving teachers ideas, activities and skills which are directly relevant to their classroom contexts. Among the many benefits cited by teachers involved in the training is the emphasis on these practical aspects of the sessions:
‘I can apply many new good methods for students and know how to motivate learners.’
‘Through this training I can get more new and effective teaching methods and get interesting activities.’
‘I was able to apply what I learned at the workshop to my teaching class’.
(comments by teachers in the Lower Secondary group, January 2016)
As the three groups of teachers, with 75 participating teachers, draw to a close next month, they are being asked to consider their continuing professional development and tasked with writing an action plan to reflect on what they can directly use from their training courses in their classes and how they can continue their professional development.
For a number of years now, the British Council Vietnam has been successfully delivering in-service training programmes to teachers as well as trainer-training programmes, such as Primary Innovations to train up Primary trainers to both teachers and trainers in provinces and institutions throughout the country. These programmes help to support Ministry of Education and Training (MoET) 2020 National Foreign Language project to improve the teaching and learning of English in Vietnam to prepare Vietnamese learners to become better at English language communication.
While the courses are still at the pilot stage and will continue to be developed and improved to meet the needs of English teachers in Vietnam. One of the participating teachers said “I expect to learn new teaching methods to make English classes in Vietnam more communicative so that students can use English to effectively communicate not only to pass present exams in Vietnam”.
For more information, please contact English for Education Systems Department of the British Council Vietnam