The Education and Training Foundation (ETF) has a wide range of professional development courses and resources to support ESOL delivery.
Our ESOL CPD offer has been carefully designed to provide solutions to concerns around progress in post-16 ESOL attainment and to develop ESOL practitioners’ subject-specific skills.
We offer CPD courses for ESOL practitioners at all levels and stages of their development including:
- Extended courses (formerly known as Level 5): our 20-hour Developing Your Practice courses provide a comprehensive guide to teaching Functional Skills or GCSE English through 10 x 2-hour sessions.
- Level 3 Award in Education (ESOL): a fully accredited teaching award with a designated focus on ESOL teachers, delivered over 12 weeks, 2 x 2 hour sessions per week.
- Short courses: our 2-hour/2.5-hour modules cover a wide range of research-informed topics.
We offer both open and in-house CPD delivery models for our extended and short courses.
- Open (online) delivery: if you are an individual practitioner looking to enhance your knowledge and skills, please view our open (online) course calendar. Short courses are priced from £99 per person for a 2-hour module, and extended courses are priced at £495 per person.
- In-house (online, face-to-face or blended) delivery: if you are looking to upskill your staff our extended courses can be delivered to your ESOL delivery team, and our 2.5-hour modules can be packaged to meet your organisational needs. Our in-house module packages are priced from £1045 for two modules and our extended courses are priced from £5200. Please contact us for details.
ESOL courses
Level 3 Award in Education (ESOL)
This fully accredited Award in Education is designed for either those new to teaching altogether or for more experienced teachers looking to begin teaching ESOL for the first time.
This is a comprehensive course spanning 12 weeks with 2 x 2 hour sessions per week. The content is accredited by Milton Keynes College on behalf of NCFE and focuses on pedagogical and practical approaches to teaching, specifically, ESOL learners. The cost is £985 per person for an open course – discounts are available for an in-house group booking – contact us for details.
Teaching ESOL: Developing your practice
This CPD course, designed to be similar in difficulty to a Level 5 module, is designed to support participants to become more confident in analysing the English Language needs of their ESOL learners and planning teaching and learning activities to help learners develop their language awareness and the four English language skills of reading, writing, speaking and listening.
Teaching, learning and assessment courses
Helping ESOL Learners to Pass Functional Skills English Exams
This two part course is for you if you support learners with ESOL needs who are learning Functional Skills English and you want to identify ways to maximise the learners’ chances of passing their assessments.
Developing grammar for reading and writing
This interactive webinar aims to explore how knowledge and skills in grammar can be taught in imaginative ways through the active exploration of everyday and vocational texts.
Words are crucial: developing vocabulary for fluency in reading
This course is for you if you support learners of English Functional Skills and GCSEs (including those with ESOL needs) and you want to identify ways to develop your learners’ fluency in reading.
Words are magnificent: increasing learners’ word building and vocabulary skills
This interactive course is for you if your learners may have limited vocabulary and this impacts negatively on their performance. You will consider ways to assess your learners’ vocabulary.
ESOL resources
ETF is continuing to provide support to ESOL practitioners. Alongside the general resources, specific resources have been created to support practitioners who are working with ESOL learners. These resources can be used to support anybody who might be referred to as being at a ‘pre-Entry’ level. We refer to them as ‘New to ESOL’ learners, and we include specific resources to better meet the early integration needs of refugees who are new arrivals.
Our ESOL resources for teachers can be found on the ESOL Teachers section of our learning platform.
Modules for ESOL Learners
Our learning management system houses free, self-access modules for ESOL Learners mostly migrated over from the British Council’s Nexus website. These are online activities that learners can complete by themselves or with the support of their teacher. Access the modules on our learning platform.
