The British Council’s ELTons awards celebrate the best innovations in English language teaching and learning worldwide. This year's winners can be found here.
Excellence in course innovation
Widgets Inc.: A task-based course in workplace English - Atama-ii Books
Widgets Inc. is a course employing a “strong” task-based approach to language learning.
Students simulate being interns at an exciting new startup company where they work together to perform a series of increasingly challenging tasks. In this way, all classwork is highly contextualized and realistically connected; all discussions, presentations, video viewings, written reports and interviews have a clear purpose and build cohesively upon each other.
The primary goals of Widgets Inc. are to develop communicative competence in practical situations and to practice workplace-related language skills. Therefore, self, peer, and teacher evaluations are realistically integrated into the course and focus on the appropriate completion of tasks. Students perform tasks individually and together as members of a team, taking turns as project managers for their team. At the end of the course, students create resumes listing their simulated but realistic experience, and participate in authentic-seeming job interviews.
Find out more about Widgets Inc.
Digital innovation
Go Correct - Big Languages
Go Correct is a messenger-based chat bot product that provides a simple way for a student to speak or write English every day and find out what mistakes they make. It is aimed at adult learners who have taken lessons and now need an opportunity to practise what they have learnt.
Students receive a daily conversation question through a messaging app. Their reply is corrected by a qualified teacher. They can click on any of their mistakes for a further explanation and see statistics about the types of mistake they make most often.
Other English practice apps use impersonal quizzes or flashcards, without context. Students using Go Correct receive personal attention from a real teacher and can talk about their own life and opinions.
It helps students ‘unlearn’ typical mistakes and increase their fluency and confidence. It is appropriate for students of intermediate (B1) level and above.
Find out more about Go Correct.
Innovation in learner resources
Ready to Run: Authentic ELT video for language schools and teachers – Digital Learning Associates ltd.
ELT providers are constantly searching for authentic videos and inspiring video-led learning materials, but it can be hard to find graded resources with natural speech and appropriate commentary that you can use anywhere, any time. Not any more.
Ready to Run is a brand-new series of engaging and authentic graded videos for English Language Teaching. We’ve taken the best of broadcast, vloggers, and other media content to develop effective and entertaining learning resources available on demand through a single platform.
- Tailor-made: each video has been made using authentic video content in line with the CEFR framework with level-specific lexical foci.
- Diverse: Diverse: Ready to Run tells real-world stories aligned to ELT topics exposing learners to natural language in a range of contemporary video styles.
- User friendly: all the videos come with supporting materials including full teacher guides, student handouts, transcripts and English language closed captions.
Ready to Run offers learners the latest ELT materials while also supporting CLIL and 21st Century Skills. It is available to schools for streaming delivery and for publishers to distribute inside courses.
Find out more about Ready to Run.
Innovation in teacher resources
Teaching English Online - Cambridge Assessment English
Find out about the skills, knowledge, digital tools and resources you need to design and deliver effective online English lessons. Gain insights from online teachers, trainers and learners and share ideas with other course participants. This course will help you better understand how to adapt your face-to-face teaching skills to an online environment.
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...
- Demonstrate the key skills and knowledge needed as an online English teacher
- Plan and deliver lessons to develop receptive and productive skills
- Understand how to develop language skills
- Reflect and improve on professional practice
‘Thank you very much for delivering such an interesting and informative course! Some online courses can be a bit hit or miss, but this has been genuinely useful and I look forward to putting the advice and knowledge into practice as an online English teacher.’ – feedback from a teacher on the course.
Find out more about Teaching English Online.
Local innovation
Hands Up Project playwriting competition - The Hands Up Project with UNRWA
'When a 12 year old student has her own literature published in a book, this means that the Hands Up Project opens the space for Palestinian kids to become their own Shakespeares.'
Sahar Salha, teacher at Beit-Hanoun Elementary Co-ed UNRWA school, Gaza
'When Mrs Mariam told us about the competition I became very motivated. I had the idea of the play and started to write. I wrote many drafts. I learned many new English words from the dictionary and from asking my teacher. It was an amazing experience to write a play in English. This is my real start in writing.'
'This experience gave me more self-confidence. I got rid of my shyness and fear. I am now able to stand in front of people to speak and express myself. It’s a big change in my character.'
Dana Nawas and Rawan El-Bahnasawi, students at Nuseirat Prep-A Girls UNRWA school, Gaza
Find out more about Hands Up Project playwriting competition.
The British Council outstanding achievement award
Professor David Crystal OBE
Professor David Crystal is one of the world’s foremost experts on the English language.
Professor Crystal’s work, spanning writing, research, talks, lectures, and radio and television broadcasts, have had an enormous influence on those with an interest in language worldwide. His clear, eloquent and often humorous explanations of English grammar, spelling, punctuation and pronunciation, as well as his works on Shakespeare, have inspired generations to understand how language works.
His books can be found in schools, universities and homes around the world, treasured by English language educators and students young and old. Professor Crystal has a global influence. Nominations for the award were received as far and wide as Russia, Ethiopia and New Zealand.
His influence on the world of English extends to its institutions, through his patronage of the UK National Literacy Association, the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists, the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language, and the British Council, to name but a few.
As the UK’s national treasure of linguistics, the British Council is honoured to present Professor Crystal with the ELTons award for Outstanding Contribution 2019.
