All entries for Tuesday 17 November 2009

First ever courses in TEFL at British universities

Writing about web page http://www.quality-tesol-ed.org.uk/seminars/seminars.html

Richard Smith gave a plenary talk at the QuiTE (Association for the Improvement of Quality in TESOL Education) annual seminar on Friday 13th November (see website link above). Tracing the history of UK university-based ELT teacher education and research training, he identified the following as precursors of current provision (both predating the first applied linguistics programme, at the University of Edinburgh (1957 onwards)):

First TEFL training course:

University College London, summer term 1917, taught by Harold E. Palmer:

Methods of Language Teaching

[...]

S 30. (Mr. Palmer.) How to teach English to Foreigners.

Third Term: Tuesday at 5.30

(Extract from UCL Calendar 1916-17, in UCL Archives)

First yearlong course:

Institute of Education, University of London, 1935-6, taught by Lawrence Faucett:

‘The year has been mainly devoted to the establishing of the course in the teaching of English to non-Western peoples.’ (Departmental report, Sept. 1936, in Institute of Education archives)

Richard Smith : 17 Nov 2009 22:11 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem