Developing teachers: key principles in the Cambridge English approach to teacher education

Here is an article from Cambridge English written by Graeme Harrison.

Cambridge Assessment English has long been recognised as one of the international leaders in pre-service teacher education through the CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) qualification. In recent years, we have been working around the world at a national level with both in-service and pre-service teachers to improve levels of pedagogical skill and knowledge in a variety of different countries, for example PanamaUkraine and Malta.

English Literature Summit 2020
English Literature Summit 2020

Underpinning the work that we do in teacher education are a number of guiding principles which spring from our educational philosophy. We believe that learning is best conceptualised through a social constructivist theory of learning. A key tenet of this is the view that learning is constructed by the learner, as opposed to the traditional, “transmission” model of teaching and learning in which knowledge is passed on to students fully formed, ready to be assimilated. Furthermore, learning is primarily a social activity – knowledge and skills are constructed through interaction with others. This is an extension of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, which maintains the primacy of social interactions, mediated through the prevailing culture, in a child’s development (Salkind, 2004).

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