EIA shared its experiences with over 2,500 teachers, teacher trainers and ELT (English Language Teaching) professionals at the  IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) Conference in ICC, Birmingham, UK on13th -16th April 2016. It was the 50th conference, with exhibition stands, and there were attendees from more than 100 countries. EIA colleagues, Ms. Zakia Sultana, Ms. Ruma Rebecca Rodrigues and Mr. Mir Md. Arafat Rahaman, presented two papers in the event.

Head teachers are instrumental in the professional development of teachers. Zakia’s paper showcased how head teachers can make or break professional development for teachers in their schools. In her research, she found that thehead teacher plays a vital role to support teachers to carry on the practices they learned from EIA training. S/he provides support by selecting teachers and ensuring their participation in the training; they observe classes and provide constructive feedback; encourage peer-support and use of simple English in school; share good teaching-learning practices with other head teachers in Governmenthead teacher coordination meetings. Head teachers arealso found to have played an important role in spreading effective practices from EIA to other subjects.

Ruma and Arafat explored the benefits of peer-to-peer support in schools by sharing their findings gathered from interviews with 40 teachers in 20 schools. The paper reflected that peer-to-peer support enables language teachers to practise English together, review lesson plans, share learning games and arrange to observe each other’s classes to offer constructive feedback. 

Both the presentations indicatedthat head teacher and peer teacher support encourage teachers and students to carry on language practice outside the English class and outside the school premises to enhance learning English. The presenters also had an ‘on the spot’ interview, where they discussedwhat EIA is and how it works. The interview can be seen in the following link: