Für Englischlehrer:innen – mit Erfahrung oder in Ausbildung – hat die Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich (PHZH) eine Open Access Toolbox mit Inputs Beispielen und Fragen zu vielfältigen Aspekten wie Kompetenzen, Methoden, Grammatik und Wortschatz rund um den Englischunterricht entwickelt. Laura Loder Buechel präsentiert nun die Toolbox und beantwortet die Was? Wo? Wie? Wozu?-Fragen für CeDiLE.
Interview auf English
Zurich University of Teacher Education has released an open access toolbox (Teaching English Toolbox) for pre-service and in-service teachers. It shares examples and questions about the teaching of English as a Foreign Language and covers basic topics such as language skills, language teaching methods, grammar and vocabulary and more. Laura Loder Buechel presents the Toolbox and answers CeDiLE’s questions: What? Where? How? What for?
At Zurich University of Teacher Education, we have so many cohorts of students and so many different instructors, that we found we needed to consolidate our content a bit. The original toolbox was used with our students – in the regular and in the career-change cohorts. But when they then left the university, they no longer had access to it and so many times over the years, ex-students (now teachers) would contact me asking if they could still use it. Therefore, we made the move to make it Open Access. Since we went live, there have been some ex-students who used it just before they started teaching English in the public schools for a quick review.
The original idea was to put all the required readings and information students needed about teaching English into one place – so at the time, we had “required” and “additional” readings. Now students have compulsory readings from their lecturers, use the materials on the Toolbox to go a bit deeper, and then use the “Test Yourself” questions for their final exam reviews. In some of our courses, students are expected to use the “Think Outside the Box” section to find an area to begin initial research for projects. Different lecturers use it in different ways – sometimes in class, sometimes as a replacement for a missed lesson.
What can be found in the Teaching English Toolbox?
The Toolbox provides materials and examples from primary schools, though most ideas are applicable to lower secondary schools as well. For example, the materials comparing Dia de los Muertos with Halloween are useful for many ages (see image and link here). Most of the literature is relevant to both primary and secondary school levels and we include many texts from Babylonia or the ELT Forum which are Open Access. Although the Teaching English Toolbox has been created for English, it would certainly be useful for German as a Foreign Language, French as a Foreign Language or other languages and situations. As an example, one of my workmates in the German department used the section on vocabulary for their students to consider how English language teaching in Zurich might be the same or different to German language teaching.
There are a lot of materials about teaching English available online. Yet the specific case of teaching English to “younger” learners who are most likely literate in another (perhaps the local) language was missing so the Teaching English Toolbox provides ideas for that particular population. This Toolbox has also proven to be useful for new lecturers and mentors who want a peek into language teaching in this part of Switzerland.
How were the topics and materials chosen, collected and tried out?
The original Toolbox was not Open Access but a compilation of good work by students and lecturers. It was, due to copyright issues, massively reduced to a core of what can now be shared freely and distributed (by using Adobe Stock images, adapted texts, and so on). That was the original base. It still covers main topics our students are expected to learn about as well as updates, such as you now have AI ideas a bit everywhere. The newest section, “Action Oriented Approaches”, reflects the need for language teaching to connect more to local communities. There is no clear process for what goes up there, but when I have the permission to use materials from my primary school teaching, I share them. The idea is not always to provide “best of” examples but rather provide materials that can be used for discussion and analysis and then further adapted.
Will the Toolbox be updated over time, for instance when something is no longer up-to-date?
Yes! We will update it twice a year, mainly at the end of the semester. For example, at the moment I am teaching in Schwamendingen, Zurich in a fourth-grade class and I have the permission to use videos, images and student work. We are putting together a tourist guide with “Happy Places”, “History” and “Insider Tips” and this will be consolidated. These teaching materials and student products will be made available in December 2025. This is an idea that can be done in primary or secondary or even at the university level. Also, when new issues of Babylonia come out that might be relevant (e.g. our newest issue on AI or our SMILE project materials), then the Toolbox will be updated too.
One last and very important question: Where can it be found?
Just click here: Teaching English Toolbox (https://tiny.phzh.ch/teachingtoolbox)
Thank you, Laura Loder Buechel, for sharing with us about the English Teaching Toolbox.
Discover the English Teaching Toolbox and get inspired!
