NATECLA Awards 2013
Back to news list
05 September 2013
NATECLA Awards 2013: Sponsored by Ascentis
For contributions to ESOL and Community Language teaching and learning
NATECLA is delighted to announce the winners of our 2013 awards. Thanks to everyone who sent nominations and many congratulations to our four winners who have now been rewarded with the prizes:
Jump to:
- Chris Taylor: The special NATECLA Lifetime Service to ESOL Award in recognition of his significant contribution to language teaching and learning
- Dan Taubman: The special NATECLA Lifetime Service to ESOL Award in recognition of his significant contribution to language teaching and learning
- Beata Barker: Category A Award: An ESOL or community language teacher who made a positive contribution through sharing their practice - their teaching ideas, materials and approaches - in the year 2012 - 2013
- Sue Johnson: Category B Award: A highly regarded ESOL or community language teacher who is leaving the profession after a lifetime or long period of significant contribution
- Award description: The special NATECLA Lifetime Service to ESOL Award in recognition of his significant contribution to language teaching and learning
- Winner's current position: Programme Director, NIACE
- Nominated by: Jennie Turner, Greenwich Community College
Nomination statement:
Chris worked in ESOL for many years, at Refugee Council and latterly at NIACE, where she led on ESOL.
During her career, Chris contributed to and ran many inspirational workshops and conferences, including many sessions for NATECLA.
She is known for her work on citizenship, developing the ESOL Citizenship materials for NIACE in conjunction with LLU+ and more recently editing the new study guide for the new citizenship test and highlighting the implications of the Home Office's Statement of Intent on Family migration in 2012.
Prior to this she supported many providers and local authorities to respond to the 'New approach to ESOL' 2009/10.
During the Action for ESOL campaign, Chris provided thoughtful and measured ideas and, through NIACE and Refugee Council organised a highly successful parliamentary meeting to bring the consequences of the eligibility proposal to the attention of MPs and peers.
Through her work at NIACE Chris was an untiring and passional advocate of ESOL. She always kept the learners and their needs as her main focus and was positive and supportive to work with.
NATECLA would like to formally thank her for all she has done for ESOL and to wish her well in her recovery from ill health.
- Award description: The special NATECLA Lifetime Service to ESOL Award in recognition of his significant contribution to language teaching and learning
- Winner's current position: Senior National Education Official FE and Lifelong Learning, University and College Union
- Nominated by: Jennie Turner, Greenwich Community College
Nomination statement:
Dan has worked in FE for more than 35 years, first in Adult Education and latterly for the main FE teaching union, UCU.
He is not specifically an ESOL specialist, but over the years has championed ESOL both across the FE sector and within UCU itself.
He was pivotal in organising the parliamentary lobby for ESOL as part of the "Save ESOL" campaign against the introduction of fees in 2007, as a result of which a 'transitional fund' was secured for providers to alleviate the effect of fees on the poorest working learners.
Subsequently he played a huge role in the Action for ESOL campaign, which fought the introduction of confounding for those on 'inactive' benefits, providing meeting space, printing of materials, links to union press officers, contact with organisations across the sector, including NATECLA, and, above all, experience of campaigning and much wisdom.
More recently, Dan has again been working with NATECLA and Action for ESOL on several major policy issues. The first was the response to OFQUAL on their consultation on ESOL Qualifications. The outcome of this was successful from NATECLAs point of view and due to the coordinated response from the sector. Secondly Dan worked with NATECLA to clarify the funding for ESOL in community learning and, again, the outcome is positive for learners in this provision. Finally, Dan has been working with NATECLA and Action for ESOL to lobby the Skills funding Agency on the listing of ESOL qualifications on the QCF and rates which are far too low for the vast majority of ESOL learners.
Dan is due to retire at the end of this year. NATECLA would like to wish him all the best for his retirement and thank him in this public way for everything he has done for ESOL over the years. We will miss him!
Find out more about Dan in his FE Week biography.
- Award description: An ESOL or community language teacher who made a positive contribution through sharing their practice - their teaching ideas, materials and approaches - in the year 2012 - 2013
- Nominated by: Helen Kitson, Head of School for English and Maths, Hull College
Nomination statement:
Beata Barker has worked at Hull College teaching ESOL since 2001 and has been the Curriculum Leader since 2006.
It is due to Beata’s enthusiasm, organisational and management skills, teaching ability and commitment to staff development for herself and her team that she has been able to mould the ESOL team into consistently outstanding performance since the College gained Grade 1 in the last Ofsted Inspection of 2008. She has won two STAR awards within the College since I arrived as Head of English and Maths in 2009.
Beata’s management skills are extraordinary but it is as a teacher that she is at her most innovative, with outstanding grades in each of her yearly observations. She has been described by her staff and colleagues as “inspirational”, “the best manager I have ever known”, “a fantastic role model”.
She has facilitated much excellent staff development this year including reading circles, SMART targets, medal and mission assessment, advanced questioning techniques, employability skills, and using ILT. Her behaviour intervention strategies in particular have turned around some of our most traumatised 16-18 year old asylum seekers and refugees into model students.
However, an outsider to the College, Paul Nickson, a researcher into ESOL in Hull from Hull University, summed up to me how important Beata’s skills were. He told me how impressed he was with the expressiveness of our ESOL students which he attributed to the fact the ESOL department was so well organised. “I think this is why the students feel safe enough to express their opinions so freely in the classes.” This atmosphere of safety, equality, excellence, high expectation and mutual respect is what to me sums up Beata’s own personality, and therefore the standards she expects and gets from her staff and her students.
She is a truly exceptional practitioner and role model in ESOL.
- Award description: A highly regarded ESOL or community language teacher who is leaving the profession after a lifetime or long period of significant contribution
Nomination Statement:
Sue Johnson's English language teaching career has spanned an amazing 40 years and will probably never entirely stop, therefore entirely fulfilling the category of "lifelong".
Sue started in 1972 as an EFL tutor and teacher trainer working for International House in London, Tokyo and Barcelona. In 1977 she switched to ESOL and her most striking project: welcoming, re-settling and teaching English to Vietnamese Boat People at reception centres in Dewsbury and Wetherby, Yorkshire. After that, Sue gained valuable experience as an EFL/ESOL tutor at three colleges in the North West before settling into Wirral Metropolitan College where she undertook a huge variety of roles, including Language Support Organiser, Access to HE Core Skills tutor, roving CfBT consultant for Embedded Learning (Nursing), English for Nurses programme at Arrowe Park Hospital, Wirral Manager of North- West ESOL Pathfinder, CertTESOL teacher trainer for Trinity College, London, as well as ESOL tutor at all levels. Although Sue technically retired from work in 2009, she is currently active as an ESOL examiner for the English Speaking Board and a couple of years ago embarked on an exciting adventure to Pakistan to train local teachers in language teaching and UK exams.
Unstoppable, one of her most admirable projects is running still: the delivery of Entry level English to Bangladeshi mothers at a local school in Birkenhead, offering them the opportunity to pass examinations as well as improve their English language and personal confidence.
Sue was Chair of the North West branch of NATECLA from 2006-2009, organising at least two training days a year during that time. I was delighted to support her as co-chair and learned much about the organisation and motivation of others during this novel period. I have also observed her ESOL classes and seen for myself the wonderfully calming but inspiring influence she exerts on students who often lack belief in themselves. Finally, Sue is a brilliant and loyal friend whose energy and integrity have inspired us all. I believe that her extraordinary history and determination never to give up giving earn her this coveted award.