ESL in the Mainstream Professional Development for Staff

Shaila Samtani, Head of EAL(English as Additional Language)

As part of the Stamford community, we continuously look for ways to upskill ourselves as teaching professionals. As a professional teacher trainer, I have spent much of my teaching career in teacher training, particularly in international school settings and in the delivery of ESL in the Mainstream strategies. Recently I have had the privilege of working with our secondary teachers in delivering The Language, Literacy, and Learning course, a well-known professional development course from the United Kingdom.

Some topics we have delved into include:

• understanding our second language learners
• exploring what key factors affect their educational success
• engaging in practical classroom strategies and activities to promote language development and curriculum access.

We have worked collaboratively on different strategies, and engaged in academic research to strengthen our pedagogical knowledge of language and how language works.

It has been wonderful to witness how committed our teachers are to teaching and learning, and student support. At Stamford, we know that our bilingual and multilingual students have a wealth of knowledge they bring to the learning context. We are always looking for ways to acknowledge their contributions.