Professional development

Professional development is vital for all. TeachingEnglish supports your growth in English language teaching, whether you are a teacher, teacher educator, academic manager, researcher or materials writer.

Here you will find free, self-access, online training and resources designed to develop the skills and knowledge you need as an English language professional.

Our professional development resources are organised by audience (teachers or teacher educators), professional practices and professional development level. The professional practices and professional development levels align with the British Council’s Continuing Professional Development Frameworks for teachers and teacher educators. These two unique frameworks, and the professional practices within them, address the skills and knowledge English language professionals need in their day-to-day working lives and throughout their careers.

Developing teachers of refugees

Do you have refugees in your class? Do you work as a teacher trainer for refugee contexts? Or are you just interested in this major issue in the troubled world we live in?

A group of learners from different ethnicities writing on a chalkboard, with some wearing hijabs or burkas.

Language learning and social cohesion in a multicultural classroom with vulnerable learners

This piece seeks to answer questions related to the correlation between language learning and social cohesion in the context of a multicultural/multilingual classroom with more focus on refugee and recent migrant learners.

A man holding a baby, with a woman in a hijab standing nearby.

How to address the effects of trauma in the English language classroom

This article looks at working with learners who have suffered trauma and suggests ways in which teachers can address this in the English language classroom.

A woman wearing a hijab leaning over, helping three young learners to paint pictures using green paint

How language affects refugees’ abilities to access education, training and employment

The importance of language in schools, training centres and workplaces cannot be underestimated in refugee communities, especially given that so often they find themselves economically, socially and politically marginalised.

Disabled Access Friendly campaign: Using ELT to raise social awareness about mobility disability

Katie Quartano and Paul Shaw’s practical talk shows how Disabled Access Friendly’s award-winning resources can help teachers explore mobility disability issues, develop students’ social conscience, make lessons meaningful, and encourage critical thinking.

Teaching English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

If you already work in the EAP sector, or are interested in starting to work in the sector, there is information here to help you.

Andy Hockley: Peer observation - how can we make it work?

Based on research into peer observation systems that work (and ones that don’t) this webinar seeks to present some ideas for helping make your school’s peer observation system as successful and useful as possible, thereby developing both the school itself and the teachers in it.

A group of young adult learners gathered around their teacher, who is presenting to the class

Teaching resources