Learning and Learners

British Council via FutureLearn

Go to class Write review

Details

Go to class

Provider

FutureLearn
Pricing

Paid Course
Languages

English
Certificate

Certificate Available
Duration & workload

4 weeks, 2 hours a week
Sessions

On-Demand

Found in

Overview

Learn with English language teachers worldwide

This continued professional development course is for EFL teachers around the world who are interested in improving their understanding of their students and creating genuinely inclusive teaching practices.

The course specifically builds four professional practices that will improve your skills and knowledge based on the British Council’s teacher development framework. It is focused on improving:

Understanding of learners
Knowledge of the subject Use of inclusive practices Learning assessment

Foster student engagement through better understanding

For the best learning outcomes, it’s important to understand what motivates your students and build rapport based on that understanding. This course allows you to watch experienced teachers interact with their students and see how they build rapport, offer praise, and encourage them to speak up in class.

Create a genuinely inclusive EFL classroom

Successful teaching offers students a way to achieve their learning outcomes using a range of processes. This shows you how you can differentiate texts, tasks, and media to support all of your students. You’ll also consider different ways to produce evidence of understanding and evaluate your own inclusive teaching practices.

Learn with EFL teachers around the world

You’ll spend a week focusing on each of these different practices. The course material is supported by video interviews with experienced teachers and classroom films from around the world. You’ll also receive downloadable teaching resources at every stage to give you the best chance of turning your learning into practice.

This course is aimed at English language teachers at all levels. You will need an intermediate level English (around B1 on the CEFR) in order to engage with the course materials.

Taught by

Claire Ross

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 271 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Learning and Learners

Anonymous

the course was beneficial and helpful in the area of teaching and learning. the themes are different depending on the week. in this course, you will learn how to teach and assess different skills. you ll learn how to embrace your learners's and appl…

the course was beneficial and helpful in the area of teaching and learning. the themes are different depending on the week.
in this course, you will learn how to teach and assess different skills. you ll learn how to embrace your learners's and apply differentiation to create a healthy and encouraging environment that respects and appreciates students differences.
in addition, you ll be able to find out different opinions from different teachers snd open - up to a large community of english teachers. through reading comments, you ll be able to see things from another prospective that you were not able to see before. it was a pleasure being one of the community.
another thing that i liked is the idea that materials are provided in each step so as to be able to keep them and take a look on documents that may help you recall what you have learnt. moreover, there is the option of reading transcript of each video so it will help those suffering from connexion issues though i must say that watching videos are vital and necessary.
the mentors and course leaders interact with our comments so it's very encouraging.
one of the think that i will keep with me is to never stop developing my teaching practices. in addition to the effectiveness of keeping a reflective journal.
Walid Ibrahim Ali @WalidIbrahimAli2030Egypt

It is a quality course which is presented and delivered with hands-on and innovative theoretical and practical cutting-edge knowledge where I rediscovered EFL pedagogy with more subtle , deep , and sophisticated perspectives that empowered me with a lot of operational procedures necessary for me to excel well in my work place .

I am loyal to the legacy of the British Education System , and the British Council as well which has been the authentic and entrusted provider of EFL/ESL pedagogy since I joined the Department of English Language and Literature at the Faculty of Education-Alexandria University in Egypt .
FATIMZAHRA RAFALI @2021

I would like to thank the British Council for offering this opportunity for teachers to grow professionally and update themselves on the latest trends in education. I find the course really useful, enjoyable, and instructive as we have the chance to interact with others and receive feedback from educators. I also enjoyed watching and listening to the experiences of other teachers with concrete examples from their classrooms. I like the combination between theory and practice and I find the pace reasonable.
Anonymous

This online course has helped me to understand more about learners'motivations and needs for learning.Teachers have to build rapport in the class so that learners feel engaged in a class where respect,understanding and support are always present…

This online course has helped me to understand more about learners'motivations and needs for learning.Teachers have to build rapport in the class so that learners feel engaged in a class where respect,understanding and support are always present in the classroom.Motivating learner's speaking skills is a challenging task for most teachers because learners'language level,age and needs are quite different.At this point teachers have to keep in mind that they have to use differentiation techniques to teach in an inclusive classroom where diversity is taken into account.Scaffolding techniques and activities are very appropriate for dealing with learners' individual differences. Another relevant issue related to differentiation is using the most suitable assessment tools which can best reflect the learner's progress in language learning.The teacher has to decide when it is more advisable to use the types of assessment:formative assessment,summative assessment,continuous assessment,self-assessment and peer assessment.
Ijeoma Joy Ndukwe

This course really help me to understand the assessment terminology like types of assessment etc. in week one. Week two deals with checking understand and practicing new language which was very interesting. Understanding inclusive practices, diff…

This course really help me to understand the assessment terminology like types of assessment etc. in week one. Week two deals with checking understand and practicing new language which was very interesting. Understanding inclusive practices, differentiating context like process, product was the topics we studies in week three. Lastly we studied types of assessments where we deals with inclusive assessment practices, correction codes, comments and context, accuracy criteria for assessing writing, classroom speaking. I must say that all the videos and links are very helpful in sense that all material contain are very much accurately related to the course. I hope we can still have another interesting course sooner before schools will be reopened.
Anonymous

I really like the course so much, good examples from real classrooms are presented which gives me a variety of simple activities I will use inside my classroom and with my learners.

A great help is offered excessively and intensively in all parts of a language.

Everyone is sharing their ideas and commenting on the others on a great educational and learning community.

The educators are real models of great teachers who offer their time and knowledge freely and ready to help and really help by giving tips and discussing every single idea with the others.

Thanks a million for your efforts.
Love you and proud of being a teacher and for joining this awesome course.
Anonymous

I believe that teaching is a profession where you're always a learner.Just like all good learners,I am always on a search of the courses which can sharpen my skills as a teacher.

This course is perfectly designed for language teachers.It beautifully covers all areas of teaching from motivating your learners to assessing them.Every step is elaborated and easy to apply in classroom.
I am very thankful to the professionals who put their effort in bringing up this course to the teachers of the world.It has brought clarity to me and equipped me with the most effective teaching techniques.
Looking forward to do more courses of this kind.
Best Regards.
Malahat.
Anonymous

This course is clearly well-designed. It starts from general concepts related to teacher-learner, and then narrows down to practical language-teaching techniques.
It is of vital importance to interact with other teachers world wide, get to know about their experience in the field and adopt their useful tips in one's classroom.
I am halfway through this helpful course, and I would like to learn more on the remaining language skills: "listening", "writing" and "reading". Secondly, how to deliver a successful lesson. Thirdly, how to remedy learners' weaknesses after tests or exams. Fourthly, what are the different lesson frameworks?
Anonymous

I have not finished the course jet, but I can say that it is practical. There are videos with lessons. The course is helpful. The different techniques are demonstrated and discussed. The opportunity to share ideas, views, experience is given. Moreover, the course offers resources on the website of British Council which includes not only linguistics and methodological aspects of teaching English but also additional professional articles to discuss. No matter how long you have been teaching English, you will find practical and useful tips of teaching English as a foreign language as for primary school learners, so as for secondary school ones.
Anonymous

The best thing that happened to me during this awful, frightening time due to the coronavirus pandemnia , was to sign up for this course! It has been years that I haven't participated in a professional development course and this online course has been enlightening and reassuring as well. I have been teaching for many years and although I have a lot of experience I had started to question my methods and this course has been for me a refresher and has also reassured me that ,phew, yes, I am doing the right things and I'm still in the game :)
I really enjoy reading the comments , it is here that I get some good tips. I love comparing methods and ideas with the others.
Anonymous

This course has been helpful for my teaching practice in many ways.It has made me reflect on how important is to build rapport with the group of learners so as to create a good learning environment where respect and confidence prevail in the classroom.At this point it's very important to motivate students sometimes praising or correcting them appropriately as most learners will have problems in their learning.Teachers can use a variety of techniques to check understanding on the content of the lesson and undoubtedly teaching students to have a lot of practice is the best way for communicating in english.
Anonymous

when review this course, firstly I declare that I'm a poor one not obliged to review you. but as part of being gratitude to you for partaking in this course, I'm compelled to it.
anyway itmy first course like so, with complete digital and online facilities like MOOC. I could enjoy it. so I appreciate for your arranging it so philosophically and psychologically. I appreciate you on behalf of both content and method of this course.
thank you claire, Suzanne, Mohammed, Urmila and many other teachers I recall no their names, for granting such a precious and unforgettable experience. thanks a lot.
Anonymous

I liked this MOOC very much. It gave the opportunity to brush up on my teaching skills. I am aware of inclusivity and diversity as two important principles of successful teaching. I learned several methods and techniques to increase my inclusivity practice. Another important point covered in this course was how to assess learners and give feedback. Constructive and professional feedback is an integral part of teaching/learning process. For all these benefits, I recommend teachers take this valuable course. Thank you Claire and Suzanne. Many thanks to British Coucil and Futurelearn.
Anonymous

I found this course really interesting and useful. Each aspect is well explained with enough examples and theoretical foundations. The videos are really attractive and meaningful because they are made with teachers from around the world with different nationalities, backgrounds and contexts. I loved to see them sharing their experiences and their classes. It was very emotional to find similarities in our teaching. Also, the spare activities and links are really practical and can be implemented in our daily teaching. Thank you so much !
Adriana Salinas
Colombian teacher
Anonymous

I am glad I came across the chance to take this course! During these crazy times, being under quarantine, it gave me an opportunity to use the free time I have to improve myself and also to get in touch with the fellow teachers. I appreciate it's interactivity through the comments section as well as provided tasks throughout the course. Also, I find very useful most of the links and sources shared by the organizers of the course as well as its participants. Thank you!
Anonymous

Passing two weeks in this course, I find it quite interesting and beneficial to the extent that I finish my two-hour weekly learning on the spot. It is not boring at all and having short videos is so nice and make you eager to go for the next video. The interviews and the live videos of teachers in classes is great and they encourage me to apply what I'm learning in this course.

Providing material of recommended activities and links that can help is great. Thanks a lot for the great job.
Radwa Mahmoud Monazea

Honestly, The educators are doing their best and exerting efforts to present a productive, informative and useful content.. They introduce varied sources like videos, written scripts, valuable articles and links to support us and get the most out of the course. I do appreciate their efforts. I enjoyed the course alot. Thanks a bunch.
Anonymous

During the course I am attaining precious advice. For instance, from now on I will pay a close attention to working on my students’ mistakes. Before we worked just on writing mistakes and after following the advices I’ve learned from the course I will be able to correct my ss’ mistakes mildly. Before I didn’t mention about mistakes since was afraid to lose their strives to speak. Thanks a lot!
Farzana Nayani

I had started this course to improve my teaching skills, in the beginning I haven't expected the wonderful learning environment here, but as I got indulged into this, I explored so much in terms of resources and discuss and reflect sections. The educators of this course are very learned ones. So far it is very productive. I'm enjoying all videos and activities. I strongly recommend this course. Thanks
Anonymous

Thank you for sharing your knowledge. It has been a real pleasure to find a lot of colleagues that try to help you out of a question or give suggestions about specific issues. This course has been helping me with the way in which I usually deal with assessment. I think is one of the hardest parts of being a teacher and if you find a way to personalize and make your assessments meaningful, both your students and you will be rewarded and satisfied.