Event Programme
Key: Sesson Types
12th Thursday Programme
Management Training Day - Session 1 - Building and Communicating Effective AI Policy
This session helps managers design, review, and implement practical AI policies that protect students, staff and institutions, while enabling innovation. Participants explore the core components of a strong institutional AI policy, including ethical use, risk management, data protection, transparency, and change communication. Through guided discussions and real examples from across the sector, managers learn how to adapt policy to their local context, involve stakeholders, and communicate expectations clearly to staff, students, and parents. The session provides templates and steps managers can take immediately to strengthen governance around AI.
Inspector Training & Professional Development Day - Session 1
Coffee break & Exhibition
Management Training Day - Session 2 - Management AI Competency and Toolkit for Smarter Operations
This session focuses on building the AI capability that academic managers need in order to lead digital transformation with confidence. Participants will explore practical use cases that reduce administrative load, enhance decision-making, and support curriculum and product development. The session introduces an AI competency framework for managers and provides tools for automating workflows, analysing data, improving quality processes, and experimenting safely with new technologies. The emphasis is on applied practice, showing managers how to map AI tools to their strategic goals and organisational needs.
Inspector Training & Professional Development Day - Session 2
Lunch & Exhibition
Management Training Day - Session 3 - Bring Your Own Device: Hands-On AI Practice and Open Q&A
To consolidate learning from the first part of the day, this fully practical session gives managers structured time to try AI tools on their own devices and apply them to a range of typical operational tasks. Participants will work through guided exercises that reflect common areas of academic management without requiring specific inputs or outputs from their institutions. Examples may include exploring AI for internal communications, simple workflow development, draft policy language, and options for improving team knowledge sharing. The second half of the session is a Q&A that allows participants to explore their own questions and ideas in a supportive community.
Inspector Training & Professional Development Day - Session 3
Coffee break & Exhibition
Inspector Training & Professional Development Day - Session 4
Informal dinner - Hackescher Hof Restaurand. (pre-booking required, meet in the lobby of H4 Hotel at 19.00 )
13th Friday Programme
Conference opening
Opening Plenary, Tim Goodier Memorial Plenary - Plurilingualism: from theory to practice, from practice to policy
Since the late 1990s, the Council of Europe has advocated a plurilingual approach to education in general and language education in particular. The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (2001) defines plurilingualism as “a communicative competence to which all knowledge and experience of language contributes and in which languages interrelate and interact”. On the basis of this definition it argues that the goal of language education should be to develop language repertoires “in which all linguistic abilities have a place”. I shall begin my presentation by exploring the concept of plurilingualism and its theoretical implications for language teaching; I shall then share some examples of plurilingual learning from a variety of classroom contexts; and I shall conclude by briefly explaining what I believe the reality of plurilingualism in theory and practice means for language education policy.
Coffee break & Exhibition
Coffee Break & Exhibition
Eaquals Members: Discussion and Q&A
At Eaquals, we’re committed to upholding a standard of excellence among our members, in line with our core values. As we lead by example, we are facilitating a unique feature at conference which is a session dedicated to discussion groups for members only, providing a platform to address any questions or concerns you may have about the association. Topics that are of interest or concern will be explored during these sessions. Your input will ensure that our discussions are relevant and impactful.
Introduction to Eaquals: Accreditation
Developments in language education in Uzbekistan
Language education is crucial in forming a nation’s cultural identity, promoting social integration, and enhancing global competitiveness. In Uzbekistan, notable advancements in language education demonstrate the nation’s dedication to modernization and proficiency in multiple languages. In recent decades, Uzbekistan has carried out reforms focused on improving the instruction of Uzbek, Russian, and foreign languages, especially English, in schools, universities, and vocational training centers. Key efforts encompass updating the curriculum, incorporating digital technologies, training programs for teachers, and partnerships with international institutions. These initiatives seek to enhance language skills, promote intercultural dialogue, and equip students for engagement in the international job market. This presentation explores the historical development, contemporary strategies, and obstacles in language education in Uzbekistan, emphasizing the nation’s method as an example of harmonizing cultural heritage with global involvement
The Feedback Stage: Turning Post-Task Time into Learning Time
In many classrooms, the feedback stage functions as a procedural tidy-up—teachers correct errors, students listen, and learning opportunities are lost. This practical, research-informed session reimagines post-task feedback as an interactive, developmental stage that actively promotes learner engagement and awareness.
Drawing on insights from Schmidt’s Noticing Hypothesis and classroom research by Lyster, Ranta, and Ellis, the session explores how feedback can help learners notice gaps, reformulate output, and take ownership of their progress. Participants will analyse short classroom examples to identify why certain feedback techniques work better than others, then re-design these stages using three adaptable models: Discovery Board, Reformulation Loop, and Feedback Gallery.
Each model offers time-efficient, low-prep ways to integrate feedback into the learning cycle—encouraging reflection, recycling of language, and greater learner autonomy. Attendees will leave with a practical Feedback Framework for planning lessons and a set of ready-to-use activities applicable to diverse.
Effective Leadership in Action: Empowering People, Elevating Quality
“Leadership is not about being in charge; it is about taking care of those in your charge.” — Simon Sinek
Effective leadership in language education goes beyond decision-making — it is about inspiring teams, creating trust, and driving sustainable quality. In this interactive workshop, participants will actively explore key leadership behaviours through hands-on tasks, scenario work, and guided reflection. Together, we will unpack what it means to lead with clarity, empathy, and purpose in dynamic educational environments.
By the end of the session, participants will walk away with practical strategies and simple, adaptable frameworks they can immediately apply within their institutions to strengthen collaboration, communication, and team performance.
Students as Observers: Lessons Through Their Eyes
Observation has long been recognized as key to teacher development, with research affirming its role in building teachers’ competences. The focus has traditionally been on trainer, peer, or self-observation. However, there is one important perspective that is often neglected: that of the students although their viewpoints and perspectives are important in assessing the quality in teaching. This session reports findings from a case study comparing student, teacher, and trainer perspectives on lesson observation. Data were collected through structured observation tools, student interviews, and the teacher reflective log. The session will introduce the findings of the study, provide a general summary of practical implications for more inclusive teacher professional development, and involve the participants in reflecting on the possible implications in their own settings. Finally, it will discuss how the inclusion of students will not only improve the educational experience for teachers but enable students to play an active role in improving the quality of their own learning.
Social Communication Skills as Foundations for Confidence and Critical Thinking
Being able to communicate with others is more than simply transferring information; it is at the heart of how students grow personally and intellectually. In this article we weave together recent empirical findings and observations from a university communication course to explain how social communication skills support both self‑confidence and critical thinking. Evidence from the last few years shows that active, student‑centred pedagogy and digital tools help students express themselves more fluently and feel more assured (Hajong & Ambedkar, 2025; Asmayani et al., 2025). Studies rooted in positive psychology reveal a strong association between confidence and communication ability (Soylu, 2025). Social‑emotional learning programmes, meanwhile, teach students how to regulate their emotions and make considered decisions. Together, these findings make a compelling case for integrating communication training into curricula to nurture both the personal and cognitive skills students need to succeed.
Designing for Intercultural Collaboration: The Global Weather and Climate Exchange Project
This session presents the instructional design behind the Global Weather and Climate Exchange Project, a Spring 2025 virtual collaboration among students in Türkiye, the USA, and Brazil. Grounded in principles of intercultural communication and project-based learning, the design process involved setting clear learning goals, aligning tasks with language proficiency descriptors, sequencing activities to maximize engagement, and integrating digital tools to support both synchronous and asynchronous collaboration. The session will demonstrate how, despite differing objectives, the interdisciplinary collaboration among project coordinators resulted in a design that was meaningful and beneficial for all groups. Through concrete examples, it will also illustrate the authentic discourse on weather and climate issues within a multicultural framework. Participants will gain insights from both instructor and learner reflections, and transferable strategies for creating globally connected, impact-oriented language learning projects in their own educational contexts.
Leading Self-Regulated Learning: From Vision to Practice
This presentation shares the story behind Leading Self-Regulated Learning: From Vision to Practice—a whole-school initiative to embed self-regulated learning (SRL) into teaching and learning at every level. The project began with a shared concern: many students struggled to take control of their learning. To address this, a CPD programme was introduced, combining face-to-face workshops with online tasks, supported by planning grids, reflection tools and collaborative meetings.
The session focuses on how the initiative was led and managed—from shaping the vision and securing teacher buy-in to ensuring consistency and maintaining momentum. Participants will explore adaptable examples of training tasks and implementation strategies.
The discussion also situates SRL within wider trends in language education, emphasising autonomy, metacognition, and lifelong learning. Reflection on successes and challenges highlights key leadership lessons.
Attendees will gain practical ideas for leading CPD that builds teacher agency and supports sustainable whole-school change.
Lunch & Exhibition
Eaquals Members: Country-based focus groups
Collaborative environments indeed foster innovation and creativity, often leading to valuable solutions and insights. This rings especially true for country-specific issues, where collective discussion can provide fresh perspectives.
This session is a new opportunity for country-based focus groups for Eaquals members only. Here, you’ll have the chance to raise issues pertinent to institutions within your region and openly discuss them with peers facing similar challenges. This collaborative platform offers an opportunity to explore new ideas, tap into the Eaquals Network, and connect with professionals in your geographical area. Together, we can effect meaningful change for our institutions.
Introduction to Eaquals: Frameworks
From Needs to Practice: Building AI Competencies in Language Education
As AI becomes a central force in education, language teachers need more than awareness. They need structured support to build confidence, competence, and critical understanding. This session presents the evolving journey of an institutional project designed to meet that need. Following a comprehensive needs analysis exploring teachers’ and students’ perceptions of AI, an AI INSET team was established to design and pilot professional development sessions. The data revealed key areas of demand: understanding AI’s pedagogical potential, ethical use, and classroom integration. In response, sessions were created around core themes such as “Prompting for Pedagogy,” “Ethics in Action,” and “From Tool to Task Design.” The presentation will share how the team was formed, how data shaped the session content, and what early feedback reveals about teacher engagement and growth. The session concludes with a roadmap for the next phase of AI competency development offering participants concrete models, adaptable training ideas, and inspiration to initiate similar programs in their own contexts.
Integrating Global Awareness into Academic English
This presentation, aligned with the Best Practice in Language Teaching and Learning strand of the Eaquals 2026 Conference, demonstrates practical ways of integrating global awareness into English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instruction. It explores how authentic, experience-based tasks can embed global citizenship and critical thinking while supporting academic reading, writing, and speaking skills. Building on a case study from a volunteering experience in African schools, the session shows how global issues can become engaging classroom activities through photo narratives, missing perspective analysis, and argument auctions that connect themes like sustainability, equity, and access to education with language-focused practice, while drawing on research in global citizenship education (OECD, 2025) and critical perspectives on global citizenship
(Andreotti, 2006) to offer a framework for embedding global awareness into EAP curricula.
Opening Plenary: Q & A session
Empowering Educators: Building Excellence Through Collaborative Observation and Reflective Practice
This talk explores how collaborative peer observation and reflective practice can drive professional growth and improve teaching quality. While classroom observation is often sensitive, it remains essential for maintaining standards in structured language programs. Drawing on a development initiative at De Vinci Higher Education, this talk outlines a model that includes peer observation, feedback, and follow-up dialogue between educators and academic managers, fostering a culture of trust and continuous improvement.
The talk highlights the benefits of ongoing professional development, focusing on mentoring, training, and reflective practice. It emphasizes the importance of collaboration, shared goals, and open communication in building effective partnerships across educational roles.
Participants will gain practical strategies to improve teaching, including classroom management and assessment. The session offers adaptable insights for diverse languages and educational contexts, helping educators enhance their practice in learner-centered environments.
Immersive Language Learning in Virtual Worlds
VR4LL 2.0 (Virtual Reality for Language Learning) is an Erasmus+ project that combines immersive technology with communicative and experiential methodologies. Building on the success of the first VR4LL project, this phase introduces new Virtual Learning Environments and Virtual Escape Rooms that promote collaboration, critical thinking, and problem-solving. The session showcases how tasks grounded in Task-Based Learning and Total Physical Response enhance motivation, communication, and language retention across CEFR levels. Participants will see demonstrations of the Kitchen, Outdoors, and Laboratory VR worlds, and escape-room challenges such as Game of Phones and Burglar Puzzle. Results and feedback from five European partner countries illustrate how immersive approaches foster inclusion, autonomy, and learner engagement. Attendees will leave with a practical framework, adaptable lesson templates, and insights into how VR and gamified learning can be integrated into any educational context to make learning truly experiential.
Mediation in Action: Fostering Autonomy and Inclusivity
This presentation explores how mediation, as defined in the CEFR Companion Volume (2020), can transform classroom communication and foster both learner autonomy and inclusivity. Mediation encourages learners to build bridges between people, texts, and ideas — promoting collaboration, empathy, and shared understanding. Participants will experience sample activities based on the three mediation modes: mediating communication, mediating text, and mediating concepts. Using selected CEFR descriptors, the workshop demonstrates how mediation can be used to design tasks that value diversity and encourage active participation from all learners. The session also highlights the connection between mediation and formative assessment, showing how reflective classroom interaction enhances learners’ agency and confidence. Attendees will leave with adaptable frameworks, practical tools, and reflection prompts for integrating mediation into their own teaching, assessment, or curriculum design in diverse contexts.
Teaching for Tomorrow: Future-Ready Skills in the English Classroom
In a rapidly evolving world, language teachers must do more than teach grammar and vocabulary – we must also prepare learners for the future. But what does it mean to be “future-ready”, and how can we meaningfully integrate these skills into lessons? In this session we’ll answer these questions, showing how we can help shape learners who are not just proficient in English, but prepared for the world beyond the classroom.
Coffee & Exhibition
Empowering Teachers Through Reflective CPD for Sustainable Growth
This presentation examines how reflective Continuing Professional Development (CPD) can empower educators and foster enduring development within Uzbekistan’s higher education framework. It presents a practical model for executing reflective CPD cycles that incorporate self-assessment, peer observation, and collaborative inquiry as essential components of teacher development. Using examples from universities in Uzbekistan, the session demonstrates how reflection-based CPD aids educators in improving teaching quality, sharing effective practices, and maintaining motivation even in environments with limited resources.
Attendees will learn about versatile tools such as reflective journals, peer mentoring strategies, and institutional support systems that promote teacher autonomy and ongoing enhancement.
The session aligns with the Eaquals selection criteria by offering actionable solutions that participants can implement in their own institutions and by emphasizing contemporary trends in professional learning that prioritize collaboration, reflective practice, and sustainable growth.
Enhancing Learner Agency through AI-Supported Reflection on Essays
Learner autonomy and learning-oriented assessment approaches in language teaching require not only active engagement with feedback, but also opportunities for reflection on assessment decisions. Peer feedback is one way to promote both
(Carless 2007, Lundstrom & Baker 2009). Additionally, many learners already use generative AI tools for feedback, albeit not necessarily in a manner that fosters critical thinking (Gerlich, 2025). This session presents a series of classes conducted in a German online TestDaF preparation course. It will provide insights from a study that examines how combining structured self-assessment and peer feedback with AI-supported reflection can deepen learners’ understanding of assessment criteria and promote their writing skills. It contributes to learner-centred and learning-oriented assessment approaches in various language-learning contexts, both digital and analogue, offering practical insights into how AI can be used as a formative, dialogical tool to encourage critical engagement with texts and assessments.
Differentiation Into Action
In this practical, story-driven session, Meri Maroutian shares a framework for teachers working with diverse learners—especially those who struggle Learning Difficulties: reading, writing, attention, or following instructions in their second or third language. Participants will learn how to adapt lessons on the spot using what you already have, support students without over-preparing, and redefine what success looks like through relational teaching and inclusive rubrics. This session offers realistic strategies for classrooms where not every learner processes or performs in the same way, and where thoughtful flexibility makes all the difference.
Understanding washback: Taking control of how testing affects your classroom
Have you noticed your teaching change as tests approach? That’s washback: the powerful influence that assessments exert on teaching and learning in the period leading up to them. This presentation introduces a practical model of washback that helps language teachers understand and (re)shape these effects in their classrooms.
Washback varies: the same test motivates some students, but paralyzes others. Successful preparation depends on teacher assessment knowledge, available resources (materials, time, student well-being), and test stakes. Student motivation balances expectancy of success against costs like stress and anxiety.
The best assessments authentically represent real-world language use. Poor assessments can produce curriculum narrowing, rote learning, and inequity.
Whatever the assessment, five practical strategies can promote better washback: consult participants about assessment priorities, communicate expectations clearly, provide accurate preparation materials, emphasize strategies building transferable abilities, and use results to inform and encourage future learning.
Authentic AI-Ready Writing: Orchestration and the AAWP Toolkit
Many courses still rely on unaided, timed essays that reward format and speed more than authentic performance. We argue for a practical shift to orchestration: writers prompt tools with intent, evaluate outputs, adapt for audience, and stay accountable for truth and ethics. We will summarise the orchestration model and then show how to implement it through the AI-Augmented Writing Pedagogy (AAWP) toolkit. The toolkit includes ready-to-use tasks, prompt logs, short oral defenses, process-visible grading, and rubrics that weight verification, audience fit, and ethical disclosure. We will show sample lesson flows, marking lenses, and low-friction tech setups that work in mixed-ability EFL classes. Attendees leave with templates and a rollout plan for courses and exams. The goal is simple, practical, and transferable: raise standards by making students prove judgment, not just produce text.
Beyond the Margins: Developing Pedagogical Competencies Across the Curriculum
EAP professionals in higher education have been described as occupying a nebulous ‘third space’ at the margins of academia and language teaching. While often entailing navigation of diverse stakeholder priorities, this proximity to multiple domains offers rich potential for meaningful collaboration and innovative learning experiences. Particularly in contexts involving team teaching with content specialists, EAP practitioners are uniquely positioned to observe a need for targeted pedagogical development they are also well-equipped to facilitate. This session will explore the potential for impact beyond the margins in a case of EAP instructors’ pedagogical insight being effectively leveraged in the development of a graduate Teaching Assistant (TA) training course at an English-medium university in Türkiye, which introduces essentials of teaching and learning while scaffolding opportunities for reflection and peer exchange. In so doing, this session offers practical insight on how the pedagogical expertise of EAP educators can be an institutional asset across disciplinary contexts
Beyond Comprehension: Using AI to Train Listening Skills with Authentic Audio
This session builds on the author’s ‘Quality English article Beyond Comprehension: Using AI to Train Listening Skills with Authentic Audio’. expanding it through new classroom-based research across different learner levels. It narrows the focus of AI in ELT to one key challenge: improving listening skills with authentic, unscripted media. The session demonstrates how tools such as Turboscribe and ChatGPT can be used for targeted decoding and micro-listening tasks that train, rather than test, listening. Drawing on classroom data, lesson observations, and student feedback, it highlights tangible results in learners’ ability to perceive connected speech, recognise weak forms, and follow natural rhythm and intonation. Participants will explore practical workflows for designing and adapting AI-assisted listening tasks, showing how technology can make authentic listening practice more accessible, sustainable, and confidence-building for both teachers and students.
AI in Language Education: From Classroom Practice to Institutional Implementation
This session presents a practical framework for integrating generative AI into English language programs, designed for both classroom use and institutional implementation. Developed during a curriculum renewal project for a UNSDG-based EAP course, the framework was introduced through AI-integrated, research-based project learning and is being expanded within the course through ongoing feedback and training. The framework structures learning into AI-free and AI-enhanced zones, guiding students through ethical, reflective, and creative engagement with AI tools. Participants will explore adaptable teaching materials, scaffolded prompts, and reflective exercises applicable across diverse contexts. The session also outlines strategies for collaborative lesson planning, professional development, and wider institutional engagement, offering practical ways for both managers and teachers to implement AI responsibly. Combining classroom-tested approaches with scalable practices, it addresses current trends in educational technology and offers actionable insights for purposeful AI integration.
The only acceptable way is Green.
We live in uncertain times. We face the likely impact of international conflicts, visa restrictions, trade wars, budget deficits, and the increasing threat of Artificial intelligence. But we also face a host of serious environmental challenges such as a rapidly changing climate, mass extinctions, huge amounts of pollution, and so on. Sadly, these environmental challenges are likely to get worse before they get better; and they will only get better if we all play our part. Language schools also need to do whatever they can to ‘go green’ and we can achieve this in many different ways. ‘But will this sort of thing have a positive impact on my business?’ is a question school owners and directors often ask. The simple answer is ‘Yes, it will’. Taking steps to lessen your environmental impact could be of real benefit to your school, as well as having a positive impact on the environment. This presentation will outline how you can achieve this valuable dual benefit.
(Then, if we still have time, we can talk about Donald Trump, AI and the rest of it.)
From Testing to Teaching: Using Observational Learning to Rethink Reading Instruction
This session offers a practical professional development idea that helps teachers connect assessment design and classroom practice through observational learning. The approach uses short videos featuring expert testing members discussing how they design reading exam tasks, focusing on text selection, item difficulty, distractors, and CEFR alignment. The goal is to help teachers understand how assessment principles shape reading tasks so they can apply similar reasoning when planning lessons and developing materials, fostering positive washback and assessment-informed teaching.
Rather than training teachers to write exams, observing think-aloud protocols of expert test writers encourages them to exploit lessons more effectively using insights from testing practices. Although still in the planning phase, the session will present a sample expert video, the conceptual framework, and a possible action plan for piloting the idea in teacher development programs.
Precision CPD: ETP Mapping to the Eaquals TD Domains
The Experiential Teaching Project (ETP) re-engineers CPD as an evidence-to-practice pipeline that fuses Quality Assurance, Teacher observation data, and the Eaquals Teacher Development (TD) Framework into a single, iterative improvement cycle. Drawing on supervisory observation feedback, Performance Review analytics, and EPG-based self-reflection, ETP translates needs analyses into small, team-led inquiries targeting high-leverage practices. Each of the 4 sub-projects follows a two-phase methodology. Outputs—case studies, micro-presentations, and reflection records—feed forward into subsequent observation cycles, inform targeted coaching, and contribute to a growing institutional CPD repository. We will present the architecture, sample interventions, and outcome metrics, arguing that ETP operationalizes the Eaquals TD Framework as a living scaffold for continuous, standards-aligned improvement—where evidence is not merely collected, but converted into better learning.
AI – Teacher’s Friend or Foe? Insights from Serbia
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the way teachers plan lessons, design materials, and interact with students. This paper looks at how private language schools in Serbia are responding to these changes and finding ways to integrate AI into everyday practice. Based on conversations with teachers and school managers, it explores how educators use AI to generate ideas, prepare activities, and personalize learning for their students. Teachers recognise the advantages of AI in saving time and boosting creativity, but they also express concerns about overreliance on technology and the need to preserve meaningful teacher–student interaction. The paper argues that while AI can be a powerful classroom assistant, it cannot replace the teacher’s judgment, empathy, and adaptability. By sharing practical insights from the Serbian context, the session highlights how language schools can approach AI thoughtfully and use it to enrich both teaching and learning.
Effective corrective feedback – with & without generative AI
Feedback is essential for learners’ writing growth, but getting it right can be hard. Too often, comments and marks confuse students or shut them down entirely. With the rise of generative AI, giving feedback more often and in more depth has become easier than ever, but is that really the right approach? AI tools can provide instant feedback, notice patterns, identify bias, catch plagiarism, and offer suggestions when given students’ writing. They can also imagine patterns, introduce bias, encourage plagiarism, and offer nonsensical advice. Worse, AI feedback may be rejected outright by students and damage rapport between teachers and learners, undermining the trust that is essential for feedback to work.
In this talk, we’ll explore how to balance the utility of AI with the principles of effective feedback and learners’ needs. We’ll answer the question of when we should use generative AI, and how to do so ethically and effectually. Principles of good feedback, best practices, and fostering students’ feedback literacy will be covered, as well as AI tools teachers may want to try.
From Compliance to Quality Culture through Accreditation
Accreditation is often viewed as a compliance-driven obligation, yet it can serve as a catalyst for fostering a sustainable quality culture in language education. Drawing on research conducted in an intensive English program and practical experience as an accreditation steering committee member and site visit leader, this session illustrates how accreditation processes can become drivers of institutional development. Using the Competing Values Framework (CVF) as a lens, it shows how leadership practices, faculty engagement, and professional development can be aligned with accreditation standards to produce meaningful change. Participants will explore practical strategies for moving beyond a checklist approach—promoting faculty ownership of quality initiatives, leveraging self-study reports as developmental tools, and embedding reflection into continuous improvement. A short interactive task will prompt participants to consider how accreditation could become an opportunity for growth in their own institutions.
Gala Dinner at Locanda 12 Apostoli Restaurant (pre-booking required, meet tin the lobby of H4 Hotel at 18.50)
14th Saturday Programme
Beyond the Screen: Building Belonging in a Digital-First Teacher Community
This presentation reports on a study from a large Brazilian language institute where teachers work exclusively online. It examines a Year 1 teacher integration and development program. Implemented over the first two academic terms of 2025, the framework includes self-paced tutorials, synchronous supervised lesson planning, and mentoring from experienced peers. In the absence of physical contact, sustained supervisory presence and peer collaboration, facilitated through intentional use of digital resources, proved central to its success. The study investigated if this framework positively influenced teacher performance. Over 30 newly hired teachers were involved. The session will outline the institutional background, program design, and research methodology. Findings suggest that layered support mechanisms and a consistent online presence are fundamental to cultivating engagement and collaboration.The presentation concludes with recommendations for refining the program, offering insights for institutions supporting new teachers in remote or hybrid environments.
Empowering Teachers as Self-Directed Professionals: Practical Models for Autonomous CPD
This presentation explores how institutions can foster teacher autonomy by shifting from compliance-based professional development to a culture of self-directed learning. It demonstrates how empowering teachers to design, track, and reflect on their own growth enhances engagement, motivation, and long-term impact. The session presents a range of teacher-led CPD models – such as SMART goal-setting, reflective portfolios, peer observation and learning circles, micro-PD projects, and the KASH model adapted for teacher growth. It also highlights emerging approaches including digital PD trackers, AI-assisted reflection, and peer coaching, which promote autonomy while ensuring accountability. Participants will examine how these models align with the Eaquals Framework for Language Teacher Development and help balance institutional structure with individual agency. The session concludes with practical strategies for building a PD culture in which teachers become autonomous and future-ready.
Agentic AI in Language Education
Although we’ve entered the agentic era, AI agents are still not widely integrated into daily school practice. This session aims to enhance participants’ AI literacy and demonstrate how to design simple yet useful agent workflows for language education, without requiring heavy technical details. We will explore practical use cases for teachers, learners, and managers across content creation, assessment, professional development, management, and quality assurance.
Can You Really Give Autonomy? Rethinking Power, Complexity and Agency
Lots of educators talk about giving students autonomy or allowing them more agency. But what if autonomy isn’t actually ours to give? My presentation aims to draw on constructivist and complex dynamic systems theory (CDST) to argue that learner autonomy emerges from classroom power structures rather than from teacher permission.
The traditional view treats autonomy as either a personality trait some students have or as a binary teacher decision. However, CDST shows us something different. Autonomy arises from interactions. It’s shaped by context and built through the synergy that occurs between teachers, learners, materials, and the environment.
In my presentation, I’ll demonstrate that structural features of the classroom essentially build how agency is developed and how small shifts in power can cascade into significant changes in learner behavior and engagement. I’ll analyze the way we ask questions, correct errors, design assessments, and manage classroom talk in order to show how teachers function as co-creators of learning spaces rather than knowledge authorities.
Leading AI in Language Schools: A 90 Day Implementation Roadmap
As AI becomes central to education strategy, language school leaders face pressure to act, yet many lack a clear, credible path forward. This session presents a practical, adaptable roadmap for implementing AI in 90 days. Designed for academic managers, directors, & institutional leaders, the framework moves through three key phases: Foundation & Quick Wins, Scale & Refine, Embed & Evaluate. Participants will explore realistic, low-barrier use cases & discover how to run small-scale pilots that inform larger rollouts. The session also offers tools for aligning AI adoption with existing frameworks, academic integrity, & inspection readiness. Core resources include a decision matrix for pilot selection & ROI tracking, training & policy development tools for ethical use & stakeholder communication.
By the end of the session, leaders will have the structure & resources to initiate implementation the following Monday with confidence, clarity, & contextual flexibility.
Hop-On Hop-Off CPD: Building a Teacher-Led Growth Culture
Following the success of last year’s UKLA CPD framework, our journey continues with UKLA CPD 2.0—a more agile, teacher-led, and motivating model that keeps professional growth flexible and sustainable. Built on teacher feedback and participation data, CPD 2.0 replaces long-term structures with 8-week mini-cycles, each focused on one meaningful goal, an interactive workshop or check-in, and a reflective task from a PD Menu. Teachers can join for one mini-term, take a break, or hop back in anytime—maintaining ownership of their journey. The model combines reflection, peer collaboration, and small personal and professional incentives to sustain momentum and morale. The session shares how these shifts built a community that celebrates progress as much as outcomes, offering adaptable ideas for designing teacher-powered CPD systems grounded in relevance, reflection, and recognition – all without losing depth or quality.
Boosting Learner Autonomy through Practical Frameworks: From Reflection to Action
This presentation explores how teachers can intentionally foster learner autonomy by combining reflective tools with structured learning frameworks. Drawing on classroom practice with institutional experience in quality-oriented language programs, the session demonstrates how autonomy develops not by chance, but through consistent reflection, goal-setting, and feedback cycles. Participants will be introduced to a toolkit of autonomy-building practices—including learning journals, CEFR-aligned can-do checklists, choice boards, and SMART goal-setting—alongside the KASH model, which offers a holistic framework for sustaining learner motivation and growth. Through examples and short task demonstrations, the session illustrates how these tools can be embedded across proficiency levels to build responsibility, confidence, and strategic awareness in learners. Discussion will link these practices to Eaquals principles of quality and learner-centred education, showing how institutions can integrate autonomy development into their curricula and teacher training.
Inclusive English Language Learning Across Preparatory and Undergraduate Programs: A Case Study of S
This proposed study will explore inclusive English language learning practices across preparatory and undergraduate programs. Using a multiple case study design, it will follow three students with distinct learning challenges, one visually impaired, one hearing-impaired, and one with dyslexia, through their English learning experiences at both levels.
The project aims to document the specific barriers these students encounter (e.g., visual tasks, listening activities, timed reading and writing, academic writing and citation at the UG level) and to identify effective strategies, such as audio-supported materials, captioned input, peer collaboration, scaffolding, and flexible assessment.
By comparing prep and undergraduate contexts, the study intends to highlight the importance of institutional continuity in inclusive pedagogy and conclude with recommendations for instructors on how to design accessible, adaptive learning tasks that support all learners.
Empowered, Supported and Skilled: Rethinking Leadership Sustainability
Eleanor Roosevelt said “Good leaders inspire people to have confidence in their leader. Great leaders inspire people to have confidence in themselves.” Despite today’s volatile environment, educational institutions can survive and thrive if guided by empowered, supported and highly-skilled great leadership teams that create a culture of confidence and self-belief, which is key to successful change management and quality assurance. Thus, the sustainability of effective leadership should be a strategic priority. But how do we encourage a diverse range of people to enter leadership roles in this challenging environment? How do we maximize the chances of success of those chosen to lead? How do we support and develop our leadership team? In this session, Özlem and Mike invite participants to examine the key principles of sustainable leadership to maintain quality. Based on Hargreaves and Fink’s (2006) principles, drawing on findings from their own research and case studies in various contexts, they will explore sustainable leadership practices, with a particular focus on strategies for effectiveness in selection, ways of empowering and supporting leadership teams, and ongoing investment in development. The participants will leave with a framework allowing them to reflect on their own institutional practices to achieve sustainability in leadership.
Building a Sustainable CPD Unit: From Good Intentions to Impact
“Professional learning is most effective when it is systematic, reflective, and clearly connected to classroom practice.”
— Andy Hargreaves
Continuing Professional Development (CPD) is a core requirement of quality assurance frameworks such as the Eaquals Inspection Scheme, yet many CPD units struggle to move beyond isolated activities towards sustainable systems with demonstrable impact.
This interactive workshop explores why CPD initiatives often fail and how they can be redesigned to support continuous improvement, professional learning, and institutional coherence. Grounded in Eaquals standards, the session focuses on aligning CPD with observation cycles, curriculum development, and assessment practices, while balancing institutional priorities with teacher agency.
Participants will engage in practical tasks including CPD ecosystem mapping, role clarification for PD units, academic managers, and teachers, and the design of an annual CPD plan aligned with quality standards. The session offers transferable tools and planning frameworks that participants can adapt immediately to strengthen CPD provision and embed a culture of reflective, sustainable professional development.
Bridging Cultures in the Language Classroom: Integrating Intercultural Training into Teacher CPD
This interactive workshop, led by a certified intercultural trainer, will equip language teachers and academic managers with practical strategies to integrate intercultural awareness into their teaching practice and professional development. As language teaching involves cultural understanding, educational professionals need to develop their intercultural competencies to address the needs of multinational, multicultural, multilingual learner groups.
Participants will explore the some principles of intercultural competence, engage in collaborative activities, and reflect on how these approaches can enhance student engagement and learning outcomes. Through scenario-based exercises and a detailed debriefing, attendees will examine how intercultural training can be embedded in everyday classroom practice and CPD initiatives. The session will provide concrete tools for designing activities that foster cross-cultural understanding.
From Chalk Dust to Chatbots: A Teacher's Journey to Human-Centered AI
For two decades, my classroom has been a constant evolution. Starting with chalk dust and overhead projectors, I’ve pursued one consistent goal: to use every tool available to enhance, not replace, human-centered pedagogy. My presentation shares the story of how I’ve thoughtfully integrated AI chatbotsinto English language instruction, transforming a potential disruption into a powerful educational asset.The core challenge was providing students with the intensive, low-stakes speaking practice necessary for Cambridge exam preparation. My solution was to deploy the AI as a dedicated “speaking buddy.”This went far beyond simple conversation. Students were guided to deconstruct the AI’s responses, analyzing them as models for sophisticated vocabulary and grammar.This simple shift transformed passive practice into a form of active, critical analysis. This activity quickly fostered student autonomyand encouraged valuable peer learningas students collaboratively built a shared bank of advanced language.
Integrating SDGs into Language Classes: Interactive Approaches
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) also known as Global Goals are hot topics all around the world. Aiming to leaving no one behind, institutions set their targets to achieve all goals by 2030. The participants will work on practical strategies on how and to what extend they can achieve these goals in their educational contexts. We believe that through groupwork, participants can share best practices in teaching and learning from their institutions as well as working on strategies to achieve certain goals.
The Art of Decision-Making
As managers and leaders, we have to make decisions that shape the experiences of our learners, teachers, teams, and at times, the direction of the whole organisation. Some are quick and instinctive; others keep us awake at night. Whatever their scale, our choices carry weight.
This session is for anyone who wants to approach decision-making with greater clarity and confidence. Together, we’ll explore simple, practical ways to think through complex situations, balance different viewpoints, and communicate choices clearly. Building on the values that underpin the Eaquals Academic Management Competency Framework, we’ll use shared examples, reflection, and a range of decision-making approaches, to explore how stronger decision-making can build trust, save time, and create more positive working environments.
You’ll leave with practical ideas and renewed confidence to make thoughtful, well-reasoned decisions that others can understand and support, that maybe even help you sleep better at night!
Consider the bias: slowing down thinking to understand biases better
Despite their best efforts, people have both cognitive and cultural biases. This workshop helps uncover these by combining the conceptual framework found in Daniel Kahneman’s System 1 and System 2 thinking with a tool, the SPOT method (source, perspective, omission, and tone). The workshop begins by distinguishing automatic from deliberate thinking: the mind has deeply ingrained structures that guide people automatically. However, the structures contain biases. The trick is to slow down thinking. Building from that idea, the participants will utilize the SPOT framework to identify biases in outputs generated by artificial intelligence. Through guided reflection on their thinking and through discussion, the participants will consider how to lead their students on a path of uncovering biases. Designed for secondary and university educators, this session offers both a cognitive toolkit and reflective practice for pursuing more objective teaching and learning. While there is often focus on biases as “wrong,” this workshop focuses on considering biases deeply lodged in one’s thinking.
Exploring Emotional Labour: Fostering Teacher Collaboration for Well-Being
Teachers often manage strong emotions while striving to stay professional and authentic. Emotional labour deeply influences well-being, motivation, and relationships. This presentation explores how collaboration helps teachers manage emotional challenges and sustain professional resilience. It highlights how shared reflection, open dialogue, and empathy-based teamwork can reduce stress and strengthen collegial trust. Participants will engage with practical strategies such as reflective prompts, peer observation with an emotional focus, and collaborative journaling to encourage open discussion and mutual support. By the end of the session, attendees will have reflected on ways to recognise and manage emotional experiences constructively, fostering healthier staffroom cultures and more sustainable teaching practice.
A Teacher-Centered Framework for Sustainable Professional Development
This session presents actionable strategies forming an institutional CPD model that repositions teachers as the foundational architects of their own professional growth. Moving beyond traditional top-down training approaches, this framework integrates three interconnected pillars: goal clarity through S.M.A.R.T. objectives, teacher wellbeing and recognition, and systematic strength mapping.
By empowering teachers to identify personalized development goals, institutions can deliver targeted, meaningful training that serves both individual and organizational needs. The model emphasizes teacher valuation through recognition initiatives such as “Teacher of the Week” spotlights that honor educators as both professionals and individuals. Finally, through comprehensive strength mapping—combining self-assessment, personality profiling, S.M.A.R.T. goal analysis, and structured observations—institutions can strategically align teacher competencies with institutional roles, ensuring optimal placement and job satisfaction.
Attention in Classroom Environments: Neural Markers, Fluctuations, and intervention
This presentation examines attention in classroom environments, highlighting neural markers, fluctuations, and interventions relevant to language learning. Participants will explore how attentional lapses affect language acquisition and identify practical signs of reduced focus. Drawing on cognitive neuroscience, the session introduces evidence-based strategies that can be applied across different educational contexts. Through interactive examples and case studies, attendees will practice adapting these approaches to different learner profiles and institutional settings. The presentation also considers cultural and contextual factors that influence attention and engagement, offering tools for monitoring and supporting sustained focus. Participants will leave with actionable techniques to enhance learner attention and improve language outcomes.
Confronting Student Retention through Micro-Credentials in an Intensive Language Programme
One of the most persistent challenges for leaders of intensive English language programmes in higher education is student retention. Students who choose to depart from a language programme may be walking away from higher education all together, which is naturally a significant loss for the individual, the family, and society. While there are numerous variables at play behind student retention, lack of a critical skills set is certainly chief among them. Time management, note taking, self-direction, and a host of other skills have been identified as essential for success, but these are often significant weak points among students. To address this issue, one intensive English language programme has established micro-credential pathways to help strengthen skill sets, motivate students, and increase student retention. This session will guide participants in the nature of micro-credentials as a tool to confront this endemic challenge.
Lunch & Exhibition
Sustainability in the Margins: Small Shifts for Big Impact in Language Classrooms
This workshop explores how sustainability can be integrated into English language teaching (ELT) through small yet purposeful pedagogical adaptations rather than large-scale curriculum reform. Grounded in UNESCO’s framework for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), it demonstrates how existing classroom materials can be reframed to promote global citizenship, critical thinking, and social responsibility. Participants will engage with three adaptable strategies: (1) contextual reframing; (2) critical questioning; and (3) data-informed tasks. The workshop will include collaborative task redesign activities, reflection prompts, and practical tools to apply in participants’ own contexts. By situating sustainability as a perspective rather than an added subject, it encourages educators to view themselves as agents of transformative learning. Ultimately, the session highlights how subtle pedagogical shifts can cultivate awareness of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and foster meaningful change within everyday ELT practices.
IAMS: A Multi-Layered Assessment Management System for Plurilingual Contexts
IAMS addresses the need for coherence, traceability, and validity in institutional assessment systems. It integrates item validation protocols, role-specific workflows via the RACI matrix, violation detection, and a digitally embedded timeline into one unified model. Designed for use across multiple language departments, IAMS supports both central coordination and localized flexibility.
AI technology revolutionises the teaching of writing skills
Connecting to the presentation I did at EQAUALS last year, where I discussed that we need to allow for more guided self-study as we change how we run traditional school education. I now hope in this workshop to demonstrate how using AI I have dramatically change the way I teach writing skills to B1-C1 students in the Swiss state system, which is not only done in a regular class but also by guided-self-study. I will demonstrate how students can become more energised, do more practice, and be aware of the writing process. Using Microsoft’s Copilot and Word as well as Exam Net and Cambridge Write & Improve, we can take and blend the different software so that students can carry out more writing practice with quicker or even instant feedback. Also, how the teacher can have better examples to show students more clearly what they are trying to achieve. Participants can bring their devices to work with during the workshop.
Socrates in your pocket: Teaching students to be critical thinkers
We all acknowledge the importance of critical and analytical skills to our students’ futures—broadly speaking as well as in the context of language learning—but how exactly are we teaching them to develop these higher order cognitive skills? At its core, teaching students how to think critically means teaching them to ask questions and guiding them on what kinds of questions to ask. This workshop will take participants beyond standard CCQs into the world of inductive and deductive reasoning, and using Socratic questioning techniques to guide students towards doing their own logical reasoning. Participants will have an opportunity to share their own approaches to teaching critical and analytical skills, and will work together to devise sets of questions that can help students with inferencing skills, problem solving and deepening their understandings of grammar and syntax structures. Groups will compare their ideas with other groups and the session will conclude with a discussion on why the Socratic method is so effective in developing students’ critical thinking skills.
From Diversity to Inclusion: Culturally Responsive Management in Language Institutions
Teachers, learners, and administrators bring their own cultural lenses and ways of communicating to today’s educational settings more than ever. Managing this diversity calls for developing cultural responsiveness—an adaptive leadership skill fostering empathy, equity, and collaboration (Gay, 2018). Integration of cultural responsiveness with the sustainability agenda strengthens its role in building resilient, inclusive institutions and aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals. This workshop aims to demonstrate CRT principles with examples on how empathy, equity and self-awareness enhance leadership effectiveness in educational settings. We will also look at how cultural identities shape decision-making procedures, feedback mechanisms, and how awareness of these patterns can avoid misunderstandings and help build trust. There will also be reflection tasks to help participants reflect on their management styles and uncover any potential biases to build on the cultural realities and diversity of teams for a more inclusive, creative and stronger teaching and learning community.
Building and Maintaining High Behavioural Expectations
This interactive workshop equips educators with practical, evidence-based strategies to establish and sustain high behavioral expectations. Drawing on Lemov’s (2019) framework, it introduces seven key techniques—100 Percent, What to Do, Strong Voice, Do It Again, Sweat the Details, Threshold, and No Warning—that promote clarity, consistency, and respect. Through modelling, guided practice, and reflection, participants learn how to apply and adapt these methods to their own contexts. The session also explores current developments such as restorative consistency, culturally responsive discipline, and relational authority, aligning traditional management with modern, inclusive approaches.
Observe, Reflect, Grow
Peer observation is one of the most effective, yet often underused, forms of professional development in language teaching, sometimes avoided due to the sensitivities around being observed. This interactive workshop explores the purpose and benefits of peer observation and shows how structured tasks can make the process more focused and reflective. Participants will develop strategies for preparing, conducting, and reflecting on observations through the three key stages: pre, during, and post. The session also considers how to give non-judgmental feedback that fosters reflection and growth. Attendees will leave with practical tools and adaptable frameworks for implementing peer observation as a supportive and sustainable professional development practice across diverse contexts.
Language Certification: Inclusive Ways to Serve and Empower Multilinguals
In an increasingly interconnected world, recognizing and validating multilingual talent is essential for both equity and opportunity. This session shares how the Global Seal of Biliteracy, an innovative, free international language certification available in more than 165 languages is transforming language education by empowering learners of all ages and backgrounds. Participants will explore how credentialing language proficiency—rather than seat time or course completion alone can create inclusive pathways to meet the needs of diverse multilinguals.
Through real examples from schools, universities, and employers, attendees will see how language certification supports institutional goals for access, diversity, and measurable outcomes while motivating students to sustain and advance their bilingual skills. The session will highlight tools for implementing proficiency-based recognition, aligning with global standards, and documenting multilingual achievement for academic, professional, and intercultural growth.
Join us to learn how practical, data-driven certification can transform.
Reset, Refocus, Reconnect: The Science of Productive Pauses
In today’s rapidly evolving educational environments, students, teachers, and managers operate under demanding cognitive loads, juggling complex information, multitasking, and constant exposure to innovation and artificial intelligence. Yet neuroscience shows that purposeful recovery is essential for enhancing both performance and wellbeing (Goleman, 2013). Strategic pauses allow the brain to reset, consolidate learning, and restore focus, leading to higher and more sustainable results. In this 60-minute interactive workshop, participants will engage in practical, research-based ‘brain break’ activities, such as mindfulness, movement, imagination, and neuro-kinesthetic coordination, that demonstrate the impact of purposeful pauses on attention and wellbeing. Through guided reflection, they will explore how these strategies can be adapted to their own professional contexts. By the end of the session, attendees will recognize how pausing with purpose serves as a powerful, evidence-based approach to enhancing learning outcomes, collaboration, focus and long-term productivity.
Mapping manager journey pathways to plot future learning and progress
Many organisations map student journeys—and sometimes teachers’—but what about academic managers?
This workshop aims to help managers reflect on their own previous learning and progress, outline the fundamentals of customer journey mapping, present recent primary research conducted in this area, and help them plot their future pathways. The workshop will refer to a variety of different management pathways available in different contexts.
Participants will discuss their own foundational touch points and possible pain points. We will connect journey stages to career pathways and progression, and share simple templates that are adaptable for use in different contexts. Participants will leave the room with some clear ideas about how they can make progress in the future irrespective of their context.
Coffee Break & Exhibition
Schools in the Age of Automation: AI as a Managerial Partner for Productivity and Effectiveness
In many schools, managers are struggling with repetitive loops, such as dealing with data, issues, timetables, reports, meetings, and follow-up emails, leaving little room for strategy, innovation, learning, or even their own well-being. School leaders need digital competence to overcome productivity-related issues resulting from the intensity of their workload. To minimize this, automation can help solve the problem; the aim is not merely using AI, but using it in a smarter way.
This session shows how to use AI as a managerial partner that reduces workload and increases productivity while maintaining human oversight. It will include the use of AI to create automated solutions in the most repetitive management tasks across school operations.
Participants will learn the core logic of automation and be encouraged to build basic automated tasks. They will leave with greater awareness and some ready-to-use templates in hand to deploy in their context and start implementing automation.
Empowering Growth: A Dual-Track Model for Sustainable PD
This session presents a research-informed yet practice-oriented framework for teacher professional development (PD) that institutions can easily adapt to their own contexts. Drawing on a needs analysis of 61 instructors, the model introduces a dual-track PD portfolio that integrates self-directed and collaborative pathways, supported by mentoring and structured reflection.
The framework encourages teachers to take ownership of their learning while engaging in purposeful collaboration, promoting reflective practice, autonomy, and shared responsibility. It aims to build a culture of continuous improvement that supports both individual and institutional growth.
Participants will explore the stages of designing and implementing the model, examine its practical implications, and discuss how it enhances engagement and sustainability in professional learning. The session bridges research and practice, offering adaptable strategies for institutions seeking to develop effective, teacher-driven PD systems that foster long-term growth and quality enhancement in language education.
Building Teacher Excellence through Research-Informed Practice
This session presents a research-informed model for developing teacher excellence at Faseeh Institute for Teaching Arabic to Non-Native Speakers through the integration of academic leadership and applied research in second language education. The model is grounded in a holistic institutional vision that positions teachers at the core of educational quality and professional growth. It aligns pedagogical practice with both the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) and the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines, ensuring international consistency in performance and outcomes.
The presentation outlines how research findings are translated into actionable practices within a growing educational environment. It highlights strategies for continuous professional development (CPD), such as reflective teaching, non-financial motivation systems, and evidence-based training design. The Faseeh Model was recognized with the Mohammed bin Rashid Arabic Language Award for Best Initiative in Teaching Arabic to Non-Native Speakers, acknowledging its innovation in curriculum design and teacher training
Engaging Higher-Level Learners
Adult ESL/ESOL learners on study-work visas in Ireland often face pressures that hinder their motivation and engagement in English learning. These include demanding work schedules, financial limitations, limited study time, and the stress of navigating immigration regulations. Higher-level learners (B2 and C1) may be particularly affected, as they perceive their English proficiency as sufficient for daily communication, leading to reduced motivation to improve accuracy, fluency, and intelligibility.
This action research project will explore how these challenges impact engagement among high-level learners. It will draw on recent research on learner motivation and engagement to inform classroom practices. The project aims to provide insights for improving future course design, specifically by refining strategy instruction and enhancing tasks and activities to better meet the needs of advanced learners.
By addressing the motivations and barriers faced by this group, the project seeks to promote deeper engagement, sustain language development, and improve teaching outcomes for both
Building Transparency and Collaboration through a 360-Degree Appraisal Scheme
This presentation introduces a case study on the design and implementation of a 360-degree appraisal scheme within an English-medium higher education institution. Teaching staff already take part in an appraisal process evaluating their teaching, administrative duties, professional development, and student feedback. However, what was missing was a structured way for different groups to evaluate one another, ensuring a more holistic and collaborative review process.
The project was initiated to enhance transparency, and cooperation across all units. Different institutional bodies—academic staff, the directorate, testing and administrative units—were identified, and their job descriptions analyzed. Subcategories were created for administrative staff, including testing support, technical support, and teaching-related support.
Likert-scale and open-ended items were designed, reviewed by focus groups, refined through feedback. Academic staff evaluated administrative personnel, their unit head, and the directorate, while administrative staff evaluated the directorate and each other.
