How UK ELT providers can engage with the British Council's new Online Teacher Community platform
Discover what the British Council's Online Teacher Community is and the four ways UK ELT teacher training providers can get involved.
What is the Online Teacher Community?
The Future English Online Teacher Community (OTC) is a new peer-led web-based CPD programme for English teachers in the public education systems of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Uzbekistan. Its ambition is to support around 10,000 teachers at one time.
Supported by the British Council working in partnership with National Ministries of Education, English teachers from across the region take part in synchronous and asynchronous learning, as well as moderated forums and wider events. The platform provides a forum where the teachers can engage in new ideas and relevant discussions, share knowledge and experience, reflect on their practice and take part in research.
The first cohort ran from April – December 2021 with 10,000 participants; the second runs from January to March 2022.
In a briefing on 20 January, British Council colleagues from the region talked through the OTC platform and explained how UK organisations in the teacher training space could get involved in the current pilot.
How can UK ELT providers be involved?
This pilot for involving UK partners in the platform runs until the end of March 2022. There will be further opportunities to engage once this pilot is reviewed.
There are four potential routes UK ELT teacher training providers could use to build awareness of themselves and their products, and engage with groups of public sector English teachers in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. These are:
- Calendar listing: featuring events happening both within and outside of the platform e.g. webinars, SIGs sessions, British Council online events outside the OTC, some IATEFL events, etc.
- Monthly events: an opportunity for face-to-face engagement with teachers within the platform, occuring twice within the pilot's January to March 2022 time-frame.
- Content: provide content that can either be hosted on the platform itself or simply linked to from the platform.
- Grants: available for UK ELT organisations to produce of pieces of content meeting the needs of teachers on platform e.g. 2–3-hour training modules. These grants are in the development phase and are likely to be launched in the next financial year (i.e. after April).
If you are interested in an offering a professional development activity, submit an on-line application form with details of your teacher development offer(s) within the next couple of days.
If you have any queries about the application process and/or would like a demo platform account log-in set up for you, please email onlineteachercommunity@britishcouncil.org
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