Teaching through the Covid-19 pandemic

About the webinar

This webinar presents insights into how teachers and teacher educators are coping with the impact of Covid 19 pandemic on teaching and learning. We will explore what teachers’ experiences have been and what ministries of education have done to support remote teaching and learning. We will present resources and ideas which will help you support your learners remotely and also help you manage the return to learning in school.

During the webinar we will be referring to the reports we have produced – “A global snapshot of Ministries of Education responses in the state primary and secondary sector” and “A survey of teacher and teacher educator needs during the Covid-19 pandemic” which are available here (link).

About the speakers

Tim Phillips is head of teacher development in English in Education Systems in the British Council, based in Manchester. He leads on the British Council’s Teaching for Success approach for teachers’ professional development. He has co-ordinated the research into the impact of Covid-19 on educations systems and English language teachers. He has worked overseas as an English language teacher and teacher trainer in schools, universities and teacher training centres in Jerusalem, Spain, Portugal, Slovakia and North Macedonia. He is chair of Aqueduto (the Association for Quality Education and Training Online) and a member of the advisory board of the English Language Teaching Journal.

John Shackleton is based in Cairo and looks after teacher development work for the British Council in the Middle East and North Africa region. He has been working in English language teaching for over 30 years in Turkey, South Korea, Russia, Morocco, Japan, France, India, the UK and Pakistan; as a teacher, a teacher trainer, teaching centre manager, freelance consultant and programme manager. His professional interests include Continuing Professional Development for teachers, competency frameworks and quality assurance.

Ellen Darling is a consultant for research and insight in English Language Teaching at the British Council and has over 25 years of international experience working as a teacher, teacher educator, CELTA Assessor, author and editor. She is based in Italy and has worked in Spain, Colombia, Egypt, Morocco and Qatar. Her special interests are teaching young learners, using authentic literature, English Medium Education, continuing professional development and teacher education. She is co-author of Teaching Speaking and the course series English for Teaching, which are professional development books published by the British Council.

Amy Lightfoot is the Regional Education and English Academic Lead for the British Council in South Asia. She oversees the Connecting Classrooms programme in this region and leads on the academic strategy and quality assurance of other education projects and related research activities. She has been working in the field of education for 20 years, with over a decade of specialising in South Asian contexts. She has special interests and expertise in multilingual education, the use of digital platforms and alternative models for teacher professional development and the monitoring and evaluation of teacher competence and performance, with a variety of published work exploring these areas. She holds an MA in Education and International Development from University College London and an MA in English Language Teaching and the Cambridge DELTA from the University of Bath.

Liana Hyde leads on the English and Digital for Girls Education (EDGE) programme in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan. She has a background in English language teaching and teacher development. Most recently she has developed and led on large-scale teacher education and curriculum development projects in a range of contexts including India, Sudan, Ethiopia and Uganda. Her specialist areas of interest are teacher education, gender equality in education and language in education. She holds a DELTA and an MA in Education from University College London.