Monthly discussions - March

Training Language Teachers in the Use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)

Ros Walker, CILT UK

Biographical information.

Ros Walker holds a Degree in Russian from the University of Manchester (United Kingdom) and trained in EFL (English as a Foreign Language). She worked in EFL in Eastern Europe with no resources beyond a chalk-board (!) before returning to the United Kingdom (UK) to take a PGCE in French and set up self-access language centres at the Universities of Surrey and Bristol. She now works for the UK-based organisation CILT (Centre for Information on Language Teaching and Research) delivering ICT (Information and Communication Technology) training for secondary school language teachers.

Introduction

The British Government’s pledge of over £1 billion towards ‘making the United Kingdom (UK) a world leader in the field of digital learning’ has attracted the attention of Information Technology (IT) companies wanting a piece of the pie. In the UK, existing teachers must undertake training to reach the level of competence in ICT now required of a newly qualified teacher. This seems perfectly reasonable, so that all active teachers will be competent to utilise ICT in their lessons, not to mention administration.

During a recent seminar on implementing ICT within subject lessons, representatives of the UK-based Teacher Training Agency (TTA) went to great lengths to assure teachers that the companies supplying ICT services to schools and colleges would be assessed for standards. The accreditation process of the National Association of Advisers for Computers in Education (NAACE) will assure the quality of all suppliers of training, support and advice services. So existing teachers can be assured that the training they will receive from this spring, thanks to a chunk of that billion pounds, will be of an appropriate quality and nature.

But what sort of training are teachers receiving? It seems that it has been left up to individual training agencies to attempt to provide training in their own way, with no regulation or guidance

last updated 13th March, 2000

Author: Ros Walker