Learn English digital resources have become part of the English language curricula for grades 1 – 9 and are available to 1473 primary school English language teachers and 200,000 students in the country. This comes as a result of the Digital mapping project that was initiated between the Bureau for Development of Education and the British Council in order to respond to the Governmental priorities for modernisation of the education process in Macedonia in 2013.
The project ran in two phases – in phase 1, digital content from the Learn English Kids website was mapped to the national curricula from grades 1 – 5 to offer teachers trusted IT content. In phase two, digital content from the LearnEnglish Kids and LearnEnglish Teens websites was mapped to the national curricula for grades 6 – 9. Hands on training was organised for 1473 English language teachers across the country. They were trained on how to use the websites, the proposed activities and the produced Manuals. So far, both websites have had more than 70,000 unique visitors.
Apart from assisting teachers in their endeavour to enrich their language instruction with digital content, the project recipients, i.e. the students now have access to digital content, have more interesting lessons and learning English has become more enjoyable, interesting and more motivational.
Based on the feedback collated from Phase one of the project, teachers seem very positive. Here are a few quotations:
‘My pupils are very grateful with this way of teaching, they like the videos, the songs and the games too. They are more interested in the English lessons now. Even the laziest ones have become more competitive, and they are more enthusiastic to learn English’.
‘My teaching has certainly changed - I don't need to create and come up with my own activities and materials for classroom use, which gives me space to concentrate more on the quality of the lesson and students' approach to learn the language. Students have become more independent and confident.’
The Manuals can be downloaded from the links below.
Find out more about our work in English.