The British Council plans to offer a consultancy package to university English departments that wish to upgrade their English teaching programmes, and increase the effectiveness of results.   This would take the form of a full quality audit of an English language teaching programme, leading to a detailed report with recommendations for improvements.


What is the background for this?

The British Council has a very strong reputation in Vietnam and elsewhere for teaching English, training teachers, and working closely with the Ministry of Education and Training to strengthen levels of English language learning and teaching.   Because of this, many university colleagues have approached us for assistance in teaching English more effectively.  There has been a huge increase in university programmes delivered wholly or partly in English, as well as a recognition that good operational English is now essential for graduates entering a job market that is ever more competitive and international.    Currently, most school leavers entering university simply do not have enough English to be able to take advantage of international opportunities, or to meet the universities' own foreign language requirements.  Therefore universities face the challenge of trying to raise the English levels of large numbers of students, with limited resources.   In addition, some faculty members need to teach course content in English, but lack confidence in their language skills.


How can the British Council help?

We would like to offer a structured response to the above situation that would enable us to use our own very limited resources to influence positively the English language programmes in as many university English departments as require assistance.  So we propose the following 4 stage ELT programme audit:

One day workshop with English department heads, teachers, administrators and university policy makers
Objective: to learn details of your English language programmes and to discover objectives of consultancy – what you want to know, and where you wish to improve

Terms of reference drafted by British Council and agreed with university.  Further meetings may be necessary to establish clear aims, procedures and methodology

British Council engages a team of external consultants who spend 2 weeks at the university.  They will:

Ø      Examine documents (syllabus, curriculum, course materials, tests, policy)

Ø      Conduct interviews and focus groups with staff and students

Ø      Observe teaching in progress

Ø      Test English levels of samples of students (and faculty if included in terms of reference)

Draft full report, on behalf of and edited by British Council specialists.  Report (with PowerPoint summary) presented formally to university, together with proposed action plans


What happens after this?

British Council will stay in contact and monitor progress on the planned improvements


Is there a charge for this?

We are offering this service free of charge to one institute as a pilot, in order to evaluate the demand, and the usefulness of our approach.  After the pilot, we will evaluate its success, make any desired changes, and then offer this as a paid service. The participating university should agree to share the key findings for other institutions.


Have you done this before?

Yes, we can provide details of projects elsewhere in the world.  The framework we use is adapted from our own in-house Teaching Quality Standards, that we use to quality assure our own teaching operations throughout the world.


Would you like to participate in the pilot?

Please contact Le Song Nga, ELT Development Manager at nga.le@britishcouncil.org.vn or (84) 4 3728 1932 to discuss, to find out more and to find out whether this approach may be right for you. Once we have identified some interested institutes/departments, we will select one or two appropriate candidates to pilot our offer.  We will do this in discussion with all who respond, and we will be transparent in selection criteria.

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