Adapting ESOL to an online environment

For the past 3 years, Train-to-TEFL have been coordinating the delivery of the Talk English Project in Salford, Manchester. Talk English is a government funded initiative with a mission to help build support networks and provide English language courses to learners with low level English.  Our aim as providers has been to empower learners through language development enabling them to feel more confident when using English in their daily lives.

Stakeholders

We ran sessions in local community centres, primary schools and libraries and enjoyed lively classes with learners from a diverse range of backgrounds. Forging links with local organisations such as the Yemeni Association in Eccles and the Edmund Rice Network in Salford amongst others meant we were able to create warm and welcoming community hubs where learners could come, have a coffee and learn English in a friendly and safe environment.

esol-in-class

Lockdown contingency

Sadly, Saint Patrick’s Day 2020 saw the UK put under lockdown resulting in the closure of face-to-face classes. We quickly moved our provision online and were thrown into the wonderful world of Zoom! Like everyone else in the world, we faced a steep learning curve but soon got to grips with teaching online. Classes were able to resume again from September to December only to go online again in the new year.

Volunteering

Together, our fantastic team of teachers and volunteers have managed to engage and support over 300 learners from September 2020 to April 2021 through continuous delivery of lessons and conversation classes. As well as providing learners with quality language lessons delivered by experienced teaching professionals, the project afforded TESOL qualified volunteers from our Trinity couurses the opportunity to gain valuable post-certificate teaching experience.

If you would like to find out more about training to complete the Trinity CertTESOL or volunteer opportunities available, please email us at learnmore@train-to-tefl.com or call us on 07754239939. We would love to hear from you.

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