Martine Raphael is currently Education Consultant at the Education Institute, responsible for the 'Academic English Programe' as well as the enhancement of LRC coordinators within the Independent Schools. She has been an English teacher in Australia since 1993, as well as an English Head of Department for 3 1/2 years. She has a Master of Arts in English and a Masters in Teacher Librarianship. She also has 2 years experience as an English Advisory teacher here in Qatar. Her great passions beyond my family are reading, writing, books, yoga, music and creativity.

Question One
Martine, you have been lately appointed at the Education Institute as a Professional Development Consultant. One of your major roles is to facilitate and help realizing the huge project called " Academic English Programme. Could you give us an overview about the objectives and expected outcomes of such a programme and to whom is it directed?

The Academic English Programme is a pilot project that is being run by the British Council this year. Its aim is to improve the competence and confidence of Maths and Science teachers in using English as their medium of instruction and will extend from Elementary to Secondary levels.
This will hopefully be achieved through a 3 phase programme:
Phase 1 – an intensive general English language course to improve the teachers’ English skills
Phase 2 – a content-based programme which will focus on the teaching of Maths and Science using the English language. The terminology of the Curriculum Standards will be central to the teaching approach in this phase. Teachers will attend 3 rounds of workshops, with active research tasks to be undertaken in their schools in between the sessions.
Phase 3 – school visits by the trainers, who will evaluate the teachers’ progress. Teachers will have the opportunity to engage in micro-teaching sessions with their peers. By the end of this phase, a network will have been established of the teachers involved in order to ensure that they have a means of continued support.
This year, the programme is targeting only a selected number of Maths and Science teachers from Independent schools and, depending on its success, it will then be offered to all Maths and Science teachers.

Question Two
How does the role of the School Support Organization teams within schools fit with this programme?

The role of School Support Organisation teams in schools is to support, coach and mentor these teachers in their development and training through reinforcing what the teachers are taught in their Academic English programme. Also, SSO teams need to further encourage the teachers in their development of English language learning through conversation, discussion of content knowledge, vocabulary etc.

Question Three
What are the major challenges to be expected while running the programme and how do you plan to combat them?

One of the major challenges to the programme will be ensuring that teachers are maximizing this learning opportunity through active participation in classes, completion of homework tasks and constant practice of what has been learnt. This is an essential component of successful language learning. Assistance to the teachers in this regard will be through the support of SSO teams, NES teachers (if they are present in a school) and the Education Institute consultants, as well as the support offered by the trainers themselves. The teachers involved need to remember that there are mechanisms in place to help them to succeed and that all they have to do is ask for help.

Question Four
At the end of last year, it was announced that each school should include in their staff four native English speaking teachers. Now, you are responsible, to follow up with this issue. What are the roles and responsibilities of these Native English Speakers going to be? How are they going to fit within the school environment?

The key responsibilities of the Native English Speaker teachers are to: ---to improve the standards of students’ achievement in English - especially those students who are most able and least able in English ---to act as resource personnel for Best Practice teaching strategies across the school through professional development sessions, co-teaching, and work with the English department and individuals.
The Native English Speaker teachers are staff members of each school and need to be welcomed as such. They, on their part, need to work at integrating within their new school environment and building friendships and a community of colleagues as in any work situation.
Principals have been given initial guidelines to assist them in integrating the NES teachers within their teaching staff. Further assistance and advice may well have to be offered as the year progresses. Initial feedback from the current group of NES teachers is quite promising, though more will have to be done to improve communication between the mostly Arabic-speaking staff and the NES teachers.

Question Five
How far could schools until now abide to the new regulations of recruiting four Native Speakers. And if the results are not as expected, why do you think this is? What can be done to help schools absorb the new English speaking staff into their school environment?

It has been very difficult for schools to recruit Native English Speaker teachers in light of the numbers of available teachers in Qatar who fit the stated criteria of the position. Recruitment of overseas teachers has also proven to be problematic – there are many overseas jobs available to teachers who consequently have the opportunity to pick and choose a range of locations and packages.

Question Six
What can individual teachers, who may not be the one's chosen to take part in the 'Academic English Programme' do to enhance their English language. What do you recommend?

Teachers who have not been selected to participate in the Academic English Programme need to avail themselves of any other English language learning opportunities offered by their schools. If there is an SSO team and/or NES teachers in a school, local teachers also need to try and benefit from their knowledge and experience in the English language through engaging in as much English conversation as possible. There are also many online English language learning courses and activities available, with some of the British Council websites listed on www.teachers.net.qa. Members of SSO teams are also useful resources in this regard and can assist teachers in finding websites to suit individual needs.