London Stafford House: the Training

 The London Stafford House, located in the heart of upmarket Bloomsbury, central London, is a challenging school of English, where technology and professionalism pair up with historic buildings. It was the English Language Centre in charge of teachers' training,  part of  Stafford House School of English,  a subsidiary company of Cambridge Education Group Limited, Registered in England (06020370).
Trainers have created and constantly maintained a constructive learning environment, where they not only have dealt with General English, but also with key concepts and principles for learner-centred teaching and classroom management, creating a positive learning environment, motivating, involving and engaging learners, keeping them on task, ensuring a suitable pace, managing transitions between stages in a lesson, question types, elicitation, oral and written feedback, interaction patterns (whole class, pair work, group work), practical application through a variety of appropriate teaching techniques in a specified context in order to achieve desired learning outcomes, key principles for giving and checking instructions, demonstrating activities, giving preparation time before activities, grouping learners, monitoring and checking learning, encouraging interaction with and between learners, providing positive and corrective feedback on learners’ spoken language  and on learners’ written language.
Every trainee was tested and assessed at arrival, and then grouped according to their levels of competence. Provided with their log in details, trainees could then check their weekly timetables and all the necessary information whenever indispensable, and they also received and enrollment letter certifying their results and level of competence. The account also showed percentage of attendance, whether regular or not, alongside progress and results obtained over the training weeks.
In the first phase, the 5 beneficiaries, i.e. Headteacher, an English Language Teacher, a Geography Teacher, a Science Teacher and a Physics Teacher attended a 70-hour Training Course in English Language at the London Stafford House, developing and improving their skills in the English language and focusing on the methodology of Content and Language Integrated Learning, related to their own Subjects. Participants were constantly tested and monitored during their training, and they obtained a Certificate of Achievement, according to the level of competence in the English Language they achieved, and also a Europass Language Passport, which analyses and illustrates their different skills in detail, in accordance with the CEFR. Subsequently, each of them devised a couple of Teaching Units in English in their Subjects (C.L.I.L. Teaching Units) that were  later analysed, checked and discussed in a feedback session managed by the English Language Teacher and the Stafford House Teachers in the month of September.
In the second phase, the English Language Teacher attended another 70-hour training course in English Language at the Stafford House in London, further developing and improving her skills in the English language and focusing on the methodology of Content and Language Integrated Learning. Moreover, a feedback session at the Stafford House was carried out, during which all the 8 Teaching Units devised by participants in the Project (2 per each Teacher and Subject, i.e. Geography, Science, Physics and English Language and Literature) were analysed, checked and discussed together with the Stafford House Teachers. As a result of this, a Certificate of Achievement of Level C2 was obtained, together with a Europass Language Passport Level C2, both of which analyse and illustrate her English Language skills in detail, in accordance with the CEFR.