Teacher Training

The Curriculum Project (CP) implements various types of teacher training workshops in Post-10 schools and adult education programmes for people from Burma along the Thailand-Burma border. Our workshops include:

These workshops are usually short (1 day – 2 weeks), and are held during the school summer holidays, March – May, and during the mid-year break in October. We also try to respond to other training requests which are received throughout the year.
Our teacher training workshops cover various topics including:

Our subject area workshops include:

We also try to provide ongoing support to teachers by offering on-site training on a one-to-one basis (time permitting). Methods include:

CP produces and distributes teacher training materials to support the workshops and provides a reference resource for teachers in service.

Objectives

Many of the teachers that we assist work in difficult conditions in isolated places. They often have little experience and training, limited subject knowledge, few resources, and limited knowledge of how to identify and source appropriate materials. Through training, we aim to assist them to develop the skills necessary to undertake their jobs more confidently and effectively.

The most prevalent style of teaching in Burma is a traditional teacher-centred rote-learning method. This gives learners little or no opportunity to participate actively in the learning process and develop critical thinking skills. This method is reproduced to different degrees in schools along the Thailand-Burma border.

In our workshops we focus on the benefits (for teachers and students) of incorporating student-centred approaches into teaching. We also aim to provide teachers with useful resources and ideas, offer opportunities to observe, practice and analyse and evaluate student-centred teaching methods, and provide a forum for teachers to share their ideas and experiences.

We encourage teachers to decide for themselves how they might incorporate new methods into their teaching, taking into account to the cultural context, their school and students, and their confidence in their ability to use them effectively.