Teaching online - supporting and mentoring teachers remotely

We apologise, but unfortunately the Q&A session with Beth Caldwell and Neenaz Ichaporia planned for Friday 15 May as a follow up to their Webinar on Supporting and Mentoring Teachers Remotely has been cancelled for the moment.

About the webinar

The British Council is committed to supporting the use of technology for the continuation of education in a crisis. As many teachers find themselves in an unfamiliar situation of having to teach their classes online, with little or no experience, the British Council TeachingEnglish website is committed to providing as much support as possible to help you navigate your way through the world of online teaching.

This is the fourth in a series of webinars, which offers guidance in key areas. This webinar is for managers, coordinators and school owners and focuses on supporting and mentoring teachers remotely.

How do you manage a teaching team without a bricks-and-mortar meeting point? How do you maintain engagement and motivation for teachers working from home? This webinar will consider the challenges and make practical suggestions for supporting a dispersed and remote teaching team. These include innovating ways of delivering INSETT, conducting observation, and building a professional community. We will also look at some of the key areas of professional development our teachers identified as they started their online teaching journey, and some suggestions on how to support this. These tips are based on our experience managing the British Council’s ‘myEnglish’ online courses since 2014, that are delivered by teachers working from home across India.

Watch a recording of the webinar below 

See information about our other webinars in this series

• Online teaching and young learners - making the most of the situation (17 April)
• Teaching online - using your coursebook and ideas for breakout rooms (webinar recording)
• Teaching online - if the tech fails and structuring lessons  (webinar recording)
• Teaching online - tech tools and the tutor's role (webinar recording)

About the speakers

Beth Caldwell is the Head of Blended Learning at the British Council in India. She has worked in the field of English language teaching, with a focus on teacher training and management, in countries around the world since 1998, and has lived in India since 2011. Her varied portfolio includes working in adult training and education both B2C and B2B, and work with schools and universities, including involvement in the set-up and academic management of Al-Azhar University’s English training centre (AAETC) in Cairo, Egypt in 2008.

Currently, she leads on the management, design and development of online learning programmes for the British Council in India, heading an academic team of over 50 teachers and managers. The ‘myEnglish’ courses, the British Council’s online blended English courses, which have welcomed thousands of adult learners since launch in 2015. The work of the British Council in the digital learning space led to it winning EdTech Review’s ‘Language Learning Company of the Year’ award in India in 2018 and 2020.

Neenaz Ichaporia is Academic Manager, Blended Learning at the British Council in India. She is responsible for the design and delivery of the British Council’s ‘myEnglish’ online courses and manages a large, geographically dispersed team, leading on training for over 50 teachers. She has designed a remotely-delivered INSETT (In-Service Teacher Training) programme for them.

Neenaz has worked in English Language Teaching since 2010. She is currently pursuing an MSc in Digital Education from the University of Edinburgh. She also holds a Cambridge DELTA, a certificate in e-Moderating and a certificate in ELT Management Skills from International House, London. Neenaz has also presented on the themes of online learning and teaching at several conferences, including a pre-conference workshop on ‘Best practice for language teaching online: Developing students’ speaking and writing skills in English’ at New Directions Yokohama 2019, a talks on 'Managing remote teaching teams' at IATEFL Liverpool 2019, and ‘Making the Move to Online Teaching: A CPD Toolkit’ at the IATEFL conference (Glasgow, 2017). She also co-authored an article for the International House Journal titled ‘Remote Teaching Communities: Lessons from British Council Blended Learning Courses in India’, which was published November 2016.