Episode 43: Episode 43 - The climate crisis and teacher development with Colm Downes

DEVELOPOD - The IATEFL TDSIG Podcast

In the latest episode of Developod, James is joined by Colm Downes to discuss how the climate crisis should be a central part of our teacher development.
About Colm:
ELT Assessment and Teacher Education, ESP, EAP, CLIL, Project Management & Climate Change Education Specialist.
Based in Jakarta, Indonesia - Colm is currently working on a range of projects as a freelance consultant for a variety of clients including the British Council, EnglishScore (a new mobile English proficiency test) and the World Bank. Colm has been involved in education, specifically language education and professional skills training, for over 25 years across Europe, the Middle East and East Asia. Recently (2019 - Sept 2022) Colm served as the Director English, Education and Society for the British Council Indonesia and was the British Council global technical lead for ‘Climate Action in Language Education’ for three years until Sept last year (2022). In this role, Colm developed a wide range of interconnected global innovations designed to train teachers how to integrate the climate crisis in English language teaching. These innovations include: a ten-part podcast series called ‘The Climate Connection’; a new professional development MOOC ‘Climate Action in Language Education’ as well as new video resources and a new publication with 30 climate themed activities for the language classroom.
The British Council Climate Action in Language Education MOOC: teachingenglish.org.uk/training/climate-action-language-education - the MOOC will run again in Nov 2023 in line with COP28.