English Center opens at Teacher Professional Development Institute

The first English Center opened at Teacher Professional Development Institute on October 25.

Participants in the opening ceremony included deputy Minister of Education Jeyhun Bayramov, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Azerbaijan Carole Crofts, British Council Azerbaijan Director Elizabeth White, as well as media representatives.

Deputy Minister of Education Jeyhun Bayramov said developing professional competence of English language teachers was one of the key priorities of cooperation between British Council and the Ministry of Education. He said the English Center was equipped with a range of supplementary resources for self-study, extra-curricular activities and access to low-cost communicative skills classes. The Center will help to improve the communicative skills of English language teachers, Jeyhun Bayramov added.

Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Azerbaijan Carole Crofts said the Center would organize teacher training programs, activities for teachers and mentoring support for English teachers.

British Council Azerbaijan Director Elizabeth White expressed her confidence that the English Center would be a success.

Participants of the ceremony then viewed the Center.

The Center will hold a resource of 5,000 books, magazines, methodological handbooks, textbooks, classic and modern literary works, as well as DVDs, computers/tablets for student access equipped with English learning apps and the British Council digital resources.

Center will also offer teacher development training sessions that will be conducted by professionals to be invited by British Council. It will also feature an English Club – a place where students and pupils can come to practice their English communicative skills through organized activities, can consult and borrow books, films, and other resources for English practice; where they can chat to other English learners in the English Club or online; where they can find out and access the best online learning materials.

At the initial stage the Center will be used by a total of 81 teachers from 11 satellite schools in the area.

The English Centers also opened at the Lyceum specializing in physics, mathematics and informatics of the Ministry of Education and the secondary school No. 23.