Providing effective teaching in English as a school subject in the 21st century is a major challenge for state primary schools globally. This research project responds to the challenge through identifying, exploring and sharing local teachers’ successful practices, thus contributing to Sustainable Development Goal 4: Quality Education.

While there are increasing calls to ensure English language teaching is locally relevant and contextually contingent, communicative language teaching (CLT) continues to be promoted in many ODA countries. At the same time, pedagogies which might be more relevant and decolonising than CLT, such as translanguaging, are under-researched, with little recognition of the successful practices used by teachers with low levels of English. Through identifying these practices in Bangladesh, Malawi, Mexico and Uzbekistan, the project will provide an ethical and practical response to the challenge of teaching English as a school subject in difficult circumstances. flooding, which can increase the risk of human exposure to raw sewage and the spread of waterborne pathogens, such as cholera and typhoid, in highly-populated areas.

We will collaborate with teachers and children to gather classroom recordings, interview and focus group data to provide evidence of ‘what works’ in English language teaching in these contexts. The findings will be disseminated not only through research reports and publications, but also as professional outputs. Short, dynamic videos of teachers’ classroom practices will be professionally edited and made widely available to teachers globally. A 20 unit teacher education module will also be developed, based on classroom videos and interviews, for pre-service teacher education. This will be piloted by partners in the project, disseminated widely and made freely available.