We are now into the last decade of the United Nations’ Sustainable Goals, and their emphasis on promoting education, improving health outcomes and eradicating poverty have never been more crucial. Despite their importance, many students around the world know little about them. In this podcast, we hear from three ELT writers who contributed articles to the British Council publication Integrating global issues in the creative English language classroom. We then speak to Margarita Kosior about...

For decades, the educational dial in northern Nigeria, had barely moved. Low levels of literacy and numeracy prevailed across the state of Kano. Since 2019, the British Council have worked with governmental and non-governmental partners to implement its Kano Literacy and Maths Accelerator (KaLMA) project, the aim of which is to build foundational Maths, Hausa and English literacy skills, using a TaRL (Teaching at the Right Level) approach. In our interview, Mohammed Wais, a coordinator of the...

The last two years have seen a rush to teaching online, driven largely by the COVID-19 pandemic. But whilst some teachers had considerable experience teaching remotely, for others it was a completely new experience. In episode 5, we learn from Plan Ceibal (Ceibal en Inglés), an innovative English teaching project which uses videoconferencing technology to reach 80,000 children in over 550 primary schools across Uruguay. In the second part, digital learning specialist and lecturer in English...

There are in excess of 85 million displaced people in the world, with children under the age of 18 constituting around half this total. Whether a refugee, migrant or internally-displaced person, developing language skills can play a huge role for these individuals – and the host communities in which they live – to withstand challenges, recover from crisis and overcome barriers. We’ll explore the British Council work on Language for Resilience to understand this further. Following on from...

All children have the right to learn, but often they are not given the opportunity to do so. Even when they are present in the classroom, they are not fully included in the learning. In this episode, teachers involved in the British Council’s innovative Teaching for All programme in South Africa will share approaches which can promote inclusivity, particularly in diverse classrooms communities. Then leading inclusivity expert Anne Margaret Smith will then share her ideas about how these...

Although classrooms are becoming increasingly gender fair, the educational impacts of COVID-19 have affected females more than males. Now, more than ever, teachers need to continue to make their classrooms gender-fair places. In the first part of Episode 2, we learn about a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) recently created by the British Council, in which we explore its three modules, Gender representation in teaching materials, Understanding gender equality in teaching practice and Working...

The 'Teaching English with the British Council' podcast launches as COP26, the crucial UN climate change conference, draws to an end. In our first episode, we explore how teachers can effectively integrate teaching global issues in the language classroom. Initially, we’ll examine this question from the perspective of one of the most pressing global issues of our time, namely the climate crisis, in particular the British Council’s podcast series The Climate Connection. We’ll then interview...

A ten-part podcast series from the British Council. Each episode explores a key topic and provides classroom-based solutions through interviews, a focus on recent developments and reports on British Council initiatives in English language teaching. Practical show notes and transcripts are available to download.