CNT continues Online Teacher Training with Lewis School of English, Southampton

After the success of the CNT-funded Online Teacher Training programmes attended by ninety-five LPJ teachers last year, CNT has been encouraged by the enthusiastic response for this year’s Lewis School of English courses (www.lewis-school.co.uk). 

Abeer Hanna, LPJ Director of Education for Palestine, described these opportunities as “a light at the end of a very dark tunnel”. LPJ schools, as everywhere in the world, had to adapt rapidly to online learning during the pandemic. This was very hard and teachers rose as best they could to meet this unprecedented challenge. When, in January, Abeer presented her educational review to the virtual visit of the Holy Land Co-ordination Group, she identified lack of computer hardware and unavailability of broadband, compounded with a lack of digital expertise, as her priorities.

Online Teacher Training

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CNT supports an Iraqi Refugee School in Marka, Jordan

Abouna Khalil Jaar has created a safe home with his Messengers of Peace initiative in his parish in Marka, Jordan

When she was last in Amman, Margaret Waddingham, Chairman of CNT, visited two Iraqi Refugee Schools with lessons held in the afternoons in the LPJ schools at Marka and Hashemi after lessons for Jordanians had ended.

About 12,000 Iraqi Christians fled from ISIS to nearby Jordan in 2014. They are being sheltered in Jordanian parishes. As refugees, they are excluded from state education and health care and they are not allowed to work. They receive little international aid. Fluency in English helps with visa applications for better lives in Australia and Canada.

The LPJ schools offered their buildings to provide these most deserving Iraqi children with an education and a safe place in which to recover from the trauma of their flight from their homeland. Some of their teachers have attended CNT-funded training sessions and CNT promises to continue to help.

Fr Khalil, Bernard and Margaret join the afternoon assembly at Marka, Jordan

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CNT-Funded Online Teacher Training (March to July 2020)

Taking advantage of the newly launched innovative Online Teacher Training courses delivered by Lewis School of English in Southampton, CNT has been able to offer continuous professional development to many LPJ teachers throughout the lockdown caused by COVID-19.

 

 

March 2020 Helping Students with Pronunciation
8 Palestinian LPJ Teachers (covered in previous article)
May 2020 Getting Creative with Resources
21 Palestinian LPJ teachers including 2 from Gaza
May/June 2020 Helping Students with Pronunciation
9 Palestinian and 7 Jordanian LPJ Teachers
July 2020 Helping Students with Pronunciation
26 teachers, 1 from each LPJ school in Jordan
(This course is still in progress)
   

All these two-week courses required at least 5 hours per week of individual study, but the teachers spent considerably more time than this.

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