Secondary teacher training in the context of the refugee population in Palestine

Watch the recording of a webinar held on World Refugee Day (20 June) describing how the British Council's Certificate in Secondary English Language Teaching course is being used with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) trainers and teachers working with the refugee population in Palestine.

About the webinar

On 20 June, we are supporting World Refugee Day with a webinar describing how the British Council's Certificate in Secondary English Language Teaching course is being used with United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) trainers and teachers working with the refugee population in Palestine.

We describe the context and use of the British Council’s Certificate in Secondary ELT course with UNRWA’s trainers and teachers in Palestine. Communication, scaffolding and reflection are widely regarded as important components of language development. To what extent should such ingredients also be incorporated into the staging of teacher development programmes?

Reflecting on the CiSELT trainer training course for teacher trainers, Nick Bilbrough proposes PEP (Practice - Evaluation - Personalisation) as a possible framework for planning context-specific teacher development. Shireen describes the impact the training has had on teaching practices, referring to experiences which teachers identified, what they tried out with their students, their reflections and the adaptations they made.

About the speakers

Shireen Irziqat - UNRWA Education Office, Hebron, West Bank, Palestine. Shireen is a Palestinian English teacher and currently acting education specialist at UNRWA West Bank’s Southern Area. She has eleven years’ experience of teaching and three-years of teacher supervision, during which she has trained teachers of students aged from 6 to 14.

Nick Bilbrough - Hands Up Project, UK. Nick has over 20 years of teaching and training experience in diverse contexts and continents, including Palestine. His publications include Dialogue Activities (CUP, 2007) Memory Activities for Language Learning (CUP, 2011) and Stories Alive! A resource book of story based language learning activities (British Council, 2015).

Andrew Foster, British Council. Andrew has been the English Project Manager in Palestine since 2011, working on teacher development for the schools of Palestine’s Ministry of Education and UNRWA, and on self-access learning resources with broadcast and mobile companies. Prior to that he taught English in numerous countries, and worked in educational management, technology and learner support.

Watch the webinar recording below

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