Training the Teachers

A day in the life of the Macmillan English Campus Training Manager

The Macmillan English Campus (MEC) is now being used in language teaching institutions all around the world: from Chile to Hong Kong and from Italy to Bangkok. But what happens when a school or university actually begins to use MEC with their students?

The answer is that MEC offers a comprehensive package of support to all users, covering everything a teacher needs to begin using the English Campus with their students. This package of support includes five days of face-to-face training with one of our experts, held on-site at the convenience of the institution.

In this month’s newsletter, we follow a typical day in the life of Mike Green, MEC Training Manager (right), to see how one of these face-to-face training sessions is conducted.

In 2005 Mike travelled as far as Santiago, Mexico City and Milan to train teachers at schools using MEC. Can you guess how many air miles this was in total? The answer is at the bottom of the page. As a quick clue, compare the fact that the Queen travelled around 20,000 miles during her official duties last year... Did Mike improve on that?

Mike Green
MEC Training Manager

Macmillan English Campus - Product home screenshot

 Mike explains: "We prefer to keep the training hands-on and teacher-centred, covering what an institution needs to begin using the English Campus". A typical training session will begin with the basics - how to log in and find your way around, as well as thinking through ways of introducing it to students. "Sometimes of course people are a bit anxious about using this new technology - that's natural. But in my experience this quickly disappears once people realize how easy it is to handle and how much interactive material is available to use."
'...hands-on and teacher-centred...'

Having spent time on the basics, Mike can begin to introduce teachers to some of the key features of the English Campus: the weekly news items; the opportunity for students to personalize their study area, the assigned courses, the Markbook, and the ability to search for vocabulary on the online dictionary, to name but a few.

"One of the most satisfying parts of my job", he comments, "is to see the look on the faces as people realise that their working lives are about to be made much more stimulating. The English Campus reduces the workload of busy teachers with the added benefit of monitoring the students' progress closely, even with those students working online at home."

A separate training session then looks in more detail at one of the most interesting and innovative aspects of the entire English Campus: the course-building facilities. This function is managed entirely by senior teachers who are specially designated as ‘administrators’.

Course-building enables an institution to create entirely bespoke online supplementary courses by mapping resources from the MEC database to topics or themes that they wish to teach.

Face-to-face training is a key part of MEC's service to the customer, ensuring that it is fully integrated into the life of the school. "We are keen to work with and train teachers both in the initial stages and once they have been using the English Campus in their school for a while", says Mike. "This ensures that they derive the maximum enjoyment and benefit from using such an extensive learning resource."

Mike plans to develop a series of specifically commissioned advanced training materials in 2006 for customers using MEC. These will tie in with the introduction of training "master-classes", as he describes them, designed for teachers who have already been using MEC with their students for some time. Look out for these on the MEC website (www.macmillanenglishcampus.com) during 2006.

To find out more about the Macmillan English Campus contact:

Tim Howles
Macmillan English Campus
The Macmillan Building
4, Crinan Street
London N1 9XW
United Kingdom
+44 (0)20 7843 4873
englishcampus@macmillan.com
www www.macmillanenglishcampus.com
Answer to the question above: Mike travelled approximately 50,000 miles in 2005!