Life-long Learning alias Online Courses for Teachers
If you asked me what website I would recommend to any new teacher colleague, my first pick would be FutureLearn. Here is why.
FUTURE LEARN ONLINE COURSES (ALSO FOR TEACHERS)
After 15 years of going to conferences and annual meetings, I had enough of listening to introductions to the CEFR levels, CLIL debates and exam overviews. Every teacher needs to improve and update their database regularly, but without cancelling lessons and sitting through long hours of little interactive presentations. So, I turned to ‘good old’ Google and found the first course offered by the British Council through FutureLearn: English in Early Childhood: Language Learning and Development.
I had the choice to enroll onto this 6-week course for free. Materials for the coming week were published every Monday and a reminder was sent to my email. It required 2 hours a week to watch the videos, read the articles, do the exercises about the topic and considering that I was running an innovative English home-nursery with my two toddlers, the course was just perfect for my needs. I could complete the tasks whenever I had an hour free, no appointments were mandatory. I had the opportunity to get in touch with colleagues interested in the same topic, or just learn on my own without becoming part of the big ‘community’.
So, it didn’t take long to long for the next course: Teaching English Online, an extremely useful course just in time for the lockdown, offered by Cambridge Assessment English on FutureLearn.
And these are only two of my favourite courses, you can find out about nearly anything on the website.
These online courses are a really useful and quick way to get up-to-date information about current topics in our field and improve our skills, get to know materials and websites and think about professional questions. Trying is believing.
WHERE WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO NOW?
