The purpose of the Simon Greenall Award is to celebrate and support projects that bring people together through learning English.
This award was created in honour of the life and work of distinguished author and ELT professional, Simon Greenall, OBE who dedicated his life to building communities through language learning.
The 2024 Winner
IH World sponsors the award alongside International House London and Macmillan Education. Together we are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2024 Simon Greenall Award is “The Happy Teachers’ Mentorship Programme”. Founded and coordinated by Venice Irving in Jamaica, The Happy Teachers' Mentorship Programme offers six months of coaching to help new teachers who lack developmental opportunities to improve their teaching and develop their careers.
“We chose Happy Teachers because their programme reaches across continents to link experienced teachers in Jamaica with new teachers in Tanzania, and next year in Asia,” commented the Simon Greenall Award Committee.
At its core, The Happy Teachers’ Mentorship Programme believes “in community as a powerful force for change”. This shared conviction between the project and the Simon Greenall Award was one of the many reasons for the committee’s decision.
The Simon Greenall Award provides mentoring, increased brand awareness through wider visibility and a grant of up to £1500 for resources. Annie Thompson, DELTA trainer at International House London, has started work as a mentor with Venice at The Happy Teachers' Mentorship Programme to develop and expand her programme.
“Mentoring with Annie is progressing well,” reflected Venice. “I have learned how to match participants, set clear communication channels and schedules, encourage reflection and feedback, and evaluate program outcomes with the mentees and mentors in the programme.”
Meet the Street - Highly Commended
As well as the winner, the Committee highly commended three other projects. They include “Meet the Street”, a programme based in Nice and founded by Clare Catchpole which enables English learners and local entrepreneurs and start-ups to meet and engage in English. Clare is being mentored by Simon Greenall Award committee member, Lucy Horsefield.
Education Beyond Borders - Highly Commended
“Education Beyond Borders” was also highly commended. This project is a collaboration between Malaysia and Japan with the founders working together from the two different countries, Emi Nakamura in Japan and Ann Michelle in Malaysia. The partnership links a class in Konosu City, Japan, with a class in Sabah, North Borneo, Malaysia. The idea is to strengthen ties through an exchange of ideas, technology, teamwork and understanding. The children meet online and talk to each other in English.
UQ Voices Choir - Highly Commended
Finally, “UQ Voices Choir” was the third project highly commended by the Simon Guhreenall Award Committee. Set up by Vicki Bos at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia, choral rehearsal and performance in this thriving choir builds a lasting community as well as English language development for overseas students.
Updates from the 2023 Simon Greenall Award Winners - The Dau Dau Project
We checked in with the 2023 winner, “The Dau Dau Project,” run by Sirhajwan Idek and Nurazilah Othman of Keningau College in Sabah, Borneo, Malaysia to understand how winning the Simon Greenall Award has helped them in the last year, “The Simon Greenall Award enables us to universalise our Indigenous folklore via the English language and global network which helps to preserve our living heritage,” commented Sirhajwan Idek.
The committee was delighted to receive such a wide variety of programmes in the application process. They were inspired by the active projects in the language teaching industry and look forward to seeing how the winners and highly commended programmes will grow and develop over the next year and beyond.