PRELIM resources

PRELIM project closing ceremony 600x230

PRELIM resources

The Partnered Remote Language Improvement project (PRELIM) supports the development of thousands of English language teachers across the world.

Delivered in February and March 2021, PRELIM 1 was a huge success. PRELIM 2 closed for bids in October 2021.

35 language centres submitted winning bids for PRELIM 2. Six of the institutions are running projects with two separate country associations, and all but two are English UK members. Centres taking part can be viewed here.


The opportunity

The PRELIM 2 project, which was open to all Accreditation UK centres in Autumn 2021, is a British Council - English UK - IATEFL partnership that aims to enable forty English teaching associations (ETA) from countries around the world to each work in partnership with an accredited language school from the UK.  75% of the ETAs are in ODA-eligible countries.

Each partnership designs, develops, delivers and evaluates a remote language improvement course (or courses) for the ETA's members and other English teachers in their country. 

The expectation is that each course(s) will have been developed in partnership by the end 2021 and that they will be delivered between January and March 2022, with the project report likely to be published next June.

Forty (40) grants of £10,000 were available, and the successful applicants have formed a community of practice with their fellow grantees, to facilitate the sharing of learning and experience during the design, development and delivery of the PRELIM 2 courses. This community is being coordinated by Norwich Institute of Language Education (NILE).

The deadline for applications was 17:00 on Friday 22 October 2021.

Applications needed to include the following supporting documents: 

  1. A statement of your organisation's capability and experience in the field of online course design, delivery and evaluation of not more than 500 words. You should include details of:

    • Experience of online course design
    • Experience of online course delivery, inc. considerations of appropriate technology
    • Experience of online course evaluation
    • Experience of online course design, delivery and evaluation in ODA countries – please note that this will not be a disqualifying factor if your school has none.

  2. A statement of your organisation's capability and experience in the field of teacher education, teacher language development, and/or ESP for professionals, both online and f2f of not more than 500 words. You should include details of:

    • Experience of teacher education, teacher language development, and/or ESP for professionals
    • Experience of work with English teacher associations

  3. A proposal of not more than 1,500 words in length for a language improvement course for 50 teachers at A2 level from urban and rural areas in an ODA-eligible country. Your proposal should:

    • illustrate the key principles that would underpin a successful course
    • outline how you would communicate and work with your teacher association partner
    • include a timeline for activities
    • include details of costings and budget
    (the costed proposal is hypothetical and only used to assess that the centre would spend the money wisely in a hypothetical scenario)

  4. CVs of no more than 700 words in length for your designated course manager and lead teaching staff.
The supporting documents were assessed based on the following weighting: online capability and experience statement (20%); teacher education capability and experience statement (20%); costed proposal (50%); CV's for named staff (10%). 

If you have any questions about this application process, please contact Eleanor Thomas on eleanor.thomas@englishuk.com.


Further reading