KARACHI, July 12: A three-week course for English Language teachers from higher education institutions in the region got underway on Tuesday under the aegis of the British Council (BC). The moot known as Hornby Summer School Pakistan is being held for the third consecutive year in the country. The first and second summer schools were conducted by the British Council at Islamabad and Lahore respectively.
The school, originally an initiative of the A S Hornby Educational Trust, has been aimed at providing opportunities to participants from the south and central Asian regions for working together on research proposals to be taken forward over the next two years.
At the end of the programme, participants, who belonged to Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan and Pakistan, uniquely positioned to use their experience on the course to make creative improvements to the teaching and learning process in their institutes, said a BC communication.
The managing director of the Sindh Education Foundation, Prof Anita Ghulamali was the chief guest of the inaugural ceremony of the summer school.
She underlined the need to learn English as a second language and spoke, particularly with a reference to her long teaching experiences, and noted that the lack of skills in the English language was very often the first barrier to be crossed, she added.
Prof Anita referred to the dearth of specially trained and skilled English language teachers and expressed the view that the government would find it difficult to post suitable teachers at its hundreds of English medium schools, which it had lately announced to open.
The director of the British Council Pakistan, Dr Tom Craig Cameron, introduced the audience to the three-week summer school.
The director of the British Council Karachi Charlie Walker informed the gathering that in addition to the summer school, Hornby trust also awarded scholarships to English language teachers for Masters level qualifications in ELT from the UK.
This year, this scholarship has been offered to Naeem Sadiq from Karachi and Hasan Shikoh from Lahore, he added.
Mr Walker also spoke about the participants and tutors from countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, Uzbekistan, Hungary and the UK attending the summer school and mentioned that participants from Afghanistan and Iran were shortly to join the school, which enjoyed the support of a few local organizations as well.
Fiona English of London Metropolitan University, Ameena Saiyed of Oxford University Press, Saima Satti of ELT, BC, also spoke at the ceremony.
The course on the theme “English in Higher Education: Issues and Challenges” will conclude on July 29. Among other issues, the programme would look at the development needs of teachers in designing, delivering and evaluating new, more effective support programmes in English language, said a communication.
KARACHI, July 12: A three-week course for English Language teachers from higher education institutions in the region got underway on Tuesday under the aegis of the British Council (BC). The moot known as Hornby Summer School Pakistan is being held for the third consecutive year in the country. The first and second summer schools were conducted by the British Council at Islamabad and Lahore respectively.
