Event Date: 15th August 2021

Abstract:

Teacher Education is one of the most emerging and growing area of research and praxis. Like any other profession, training and assessment has a great bearing on teacher development as well. There are various programmes and within these programmes different approaches aimed at pre-service and in-service teachers’ continuous professional development. Reflective Practice is a process that facilitates and helps improve teaching, learning, understanding and exploring by looking into one’s own practices and experiences in order to ensure effectiveness and growth on part of the teacher and better learning outcomes for students. This talk aims to discuss the role and significance of reflective practices for teachers’ professional development with special reference to language teachers. The webinar will also share strategies that can be used to adopt reflective practice during and after teaching practices to engage in a process of continuous learning and strengthening pedagogy. The session will involve a brief hands-on practice to know the frequency and preferences for reflective practices of the participant teachers. Finally, it will have a Q&A segment to engage participants in a meaningful discussion.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Sumera Umrani is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics/TESOL at Institute of English Language & Literature, University of Sindh, Jamshoro. Teaching in higher education since 2007, she has taught at different universities. She earned her MSc in English Language (2011) and PhD in Education (2016) from University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom after winning a prestigious scholarship from Higher Education Commission, Pakistan on high merit. Dr Umrani has an impressive track record of designing and teaching courses at BS, MPhil and PhD levels. She has successfully supervised two PhDs and six MPhils and currently guiding research students in ‘Second Languageage Education’, ‘Teaching and Learning of English in Public Sector Universities of Pakistan’ and ‘Teacher Education’. She has published and presented her research in national and international fora. In addition, she is engaged as a master trainer for tertiary and secondary teachers. She has worked as lead resource person with HEC, IBA Sukkur University, Sindh Education Foundation, Education and Literacy Department Government of Sindh and Faculty of Education, University of Sindh in various teacher trainings. Recently, she was selected as the only participant from Pakistan in Study United States Institutes (SUSI) Educator Programme for language teacher training organised by Institute of Training and Development, Amherst, Massachusetts, funded by the US Department of State.