The beginning of the academic year is always busy for the Department of Foreign Languages at State University of  Telecommunications and this one is not the exception as the stuff of the Department are always active participants of the professional development (PD) events.

 This autumn is rich in remarkable PD Pearson ELT Webinar Series (October 21-25), Dinternal Education 2019 Business Partner Webinars (October – November, 2019) and Pearson Conference REFORMING HIGHER EDUCATION IN UKRAINE (November 8-9, Kyiv). The Department of Foreign Languages took part in all of them. Organized by Pearson, which our Department has partnership with, all of the webinars as well as the Conference are of very high quality, innovative and reflect the needs of higher education in Ukraine and, what is great, are free for the participants. 

What is so special about all these PD events?

Business Partner Webinars invite to join authors Iwonna Dubicka and Margaret O'Keeffe for a series of webinars this October and November as they explore Business Partner and the nature of employability in today's world, and the need for improving soft skills alongside learners' English language skills:

1. The webinar Becoming and staying employable in today's workplace (October 22, 2019), presented by Iwonna Dubicka, looks at how Business Partner helps learners develop their language skills in a business context, and develops their business and essential soft skills so that they become and stay employable.
2. The webinar How to teach business English at lower levels (October 29, 2019),  presented by Margaret O'Keeffe, looks at how we can help lower level English students develop their communication and language skills for work.
3. The webinar First classes with Business Partner (November 5, 2019), presented by Iwonna Dubicka, looks at how to use video and tasks effectively in Business Partner and highlights key features of the coursebook, focussing on first classes when practising listening and language in a business environment, as well as communication skills.

So, a lot of innovative trends on teaching English for higher education were presented at these two series of Pearson webinars and the representatives of the Department of Foreign Languages at State University of Telecommunication got Pearson Certificates.