Dr Angela De Britos

Teaching Fellow

Education

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Personal statement

Prior to moving into academia, Angela taught in numerous schools with a variety of age groups in Scotland, England and Spain. During her time in school, Angela led successful European projects, established links abroad, mentored Language Assistants, and took part in teacher exchanges and educational visits to Barcelona, Cyprus, Finland, France and Lithuania. Awarded 'Advanced Skills Teacher' status in 2007, she then became a Local Authority advisory teacher for languages and later led the Ethnic Minority Achievement Service.

Before joining the University of Strathclyde, Angela worked as a lecturer in primary education at the University of St Mark & St John, Plymouth where she was also responsible for the early career development of NQTs. Angela completed her Masters research which focused on how primary teachers and senior leaders can successfully embed best practice in modern languages. 

Angela's PhD research investigated the experiences of bilingual children and their families in Scotland. It revealed the importance of bilingualism and biculturalism in their lives and the impact of this on their social, emotional and communcative development, especially for non-European families. Angela speaks Spanish at home and raises her children bilingually. 

Angela leads the MEd Education Studies course and teaches on a variety of modules across undergraduate, PGDE and postgraduate courses. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is interested in supervising postgraduate students (Masters & PhD/EdD) in the fields of bilingualism, languages, literacy, culture and the teaching & learning of English.

 

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Professional Activities

Akke de Witte
Host
13/11/2023
Djurre Fijen
Host
13/11/2023
Mentor
Advisor
1/9/2023
External Examiner
Consultant
1/9/2023
Hanna Ragnarsdóttir
Host
22/8/2023
Kristín Jónsdóttir
Host
22/8/2023

More professional activities

Projects

Erasmus+ Project: Integrating primary and pre-school virtual exchange projects into language teacher education
De Britos, Angela (Co-investigator) Birnie, Inge (Principal Investigator) Mouat, Clare (Co-investigator)
Amount awarded: €400,000

The INVITED project (integrating primary and pre-school virtual exchange projects into language teacher education) seeks to promote the use of virtual exchange (VE) projects in primary and pre-school language education and to develop teachers' competences regarding VE by integrating VE projects with young learners into pre- and in-service language teacher education. Project members are teacher educators from five different universities in Europe in cooperation with local schools.

Outputs:
The project is going to implement a survey on teachers´ experiences with VE in pre-school and primary language education to find out about teachers´ needs.
A community for teachers interested in VE is created in the form of an e-twinning group to exchange experiences and materials and display good practice.
A teacher education module that includes the implementation of a VE project in a local school is developed, adapted for a professional development course and made available on the ESEC platform.

The project provides opportunities for pre- and in-service teachers to connect through the online community and offers support for their VE projects. It develops a teacher education module that will be part of the partners´ curricula and made available as an online training course. These outcomes will help promote the use of VE in young learner language education, develop teachers´ competences regarding VE and foster children´s and teachers´ cultural, linguistic and digital competences.
01-Jan-2023 - 01-Jan-2026
English as an Additional Language and Supporting Bilingual Learners
De Britos, Angela (Principal Investigator)
Drawing on current research evidence on the benefits of bilingualism, this short course will support teachers and practitioners to develop their understanding around the importance of heritage language and culture in teaching English as an Additional Language (EAL).

Participants will gain confidence in teaching EAL and developing literacy skills across all languages. The course offers practical strategies practitioners can use to promote bilingualism in their setting, and to engage bilingual learners and their families.

This course is suitable for the following participants: early years practitioners; primary teachers; secondary teachers; and headteachers

I delivered this two-part CLPL course to eight teachers from West Partnership LAs.
21-Jan-2022 - 06-Jan-2023
“Delivering 1 + 2 Languages” – pre-service teachers’ perspectives
De Britos, Angela (Co-investigator) Birnie, Inge (Principal Investigator)
This study aims to build on a previous study conducted by Birnie (2021) to evaluate the experiences and attitudes of new entrants to the teaching profession in Scotland towards languages in order to support these students’ pre-service provision in line with the latest Scottish Government short-life working group recommendations on the 1 + 2 policy. Furthermore, this study will aim to identify the attitudes of student teachers towards languages themselves; an important indicator of how they will conceptualise this in the classroom but also their perceived confidence and competence in different languages. Where teachers feel confident and competent in the delivery of a curricular area, they are more likely to be able to deliver this successfully (Valdera Gil & Crichton, 2020) and therefore any measures that can be taken to support student teachers pre-service will impact on the delivery of this area of the curriculum in primary schools. This will guide future development on the post- and under-graduate Initial Teacher Education Programmes and provide a valuable insight into the future support needs of early-career teachers.
01-Jan-2022
Leading Learning & Transformative Practice in Colleges - with TQFE
De Britos, Angela (Principal Investigator)
I was part of the course development team who designed this new programme for college lecturers.

We are excited to launch our new Teaching Qualification for College Lecturers - Leading Learning & Transformative Practice in Colleges (with TQFE). The programme, developed in consultation with Colleges and stakeholders from across Scotland, will commence with our first cohort in August 2023.

The programme aims to provide a student-centred, socially progressive and research-informed journey to enable participants to lead learning and transformative practice in Colleges. It has a clear focus on context-relevant learning, sustainability and active participation. Completion of the programme will enable participants to evidence the Professional Standards for Lecturers in Scotland’s Colleges and to register as a College Lecturer with the General Teaching Council for Scotland.

At the University of Strathclyde, we are proud to be a place of useful learning and to offer our students the opportunity to learn at a pace suited to their work and personal commitments. This programme is therefore available online, part-time over 9 or 21 months, depending on individual participant needs. Professional authentic assessment is employed (including professional enquiry and viva), working with participants to negotiate the activities most appropriate to their context. There are no traditional essays on this programme.

We will offer the qualification at both undergraduate (level 9) and postgraduate (level 11) depending on each participant’s experience and existing qualifications. Both qualifications can provide a gateway to further study, including Masters and Doctorates at Strathclyde.

A virtual launch is planned for Monday 17 January 2022 (4pm- 5pm). Please register to attend at https://bit.ly/30DdNFT Speakers will include WorldSkills Scotland and GTCS. More information can also be found on our programme’s Twitter page @StrathLLTP
02-Jan-2022
University of Strathclyde/ Southern Oregon University: Student symposia: ‘Being a student teacher during the Covid pandemic’
De Britos, Angela (Academic)
I worked colleagues from both universities in the designing, organisation and delivery of three online events around the challenges posed by covid (and in the post-covid era) and responses to this from students, teachers and schools.
07-Jan-2020 - 25-Jan-2023
PGCert Educational Impact and Issues
De Britos, Angela (Academic)
The University of Strathclyde collaborated with a school in Lahore, Pakistan’s second-biggest city, to bring a fresh approach to the country’s teacher education. I was part of a team delivering its PGCert Educational Impact and Issues to teachers and Senior Leaders at Crescent School, a trust-run school with a roll of 8500 pupils of primary and secondary school age.

An initial intake of 20 Crescent School teachers were taught the PGCert course by Strathclyde academics visiting Lahore in 2019 over two phases - 10 days in summer and five days in winter - with tasks in between to allow students to develop further. A selected group of teachers then came to study at Strathclyde for a pilot MSc programme during the first term of the current year. The course continued until July 2020.
02-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2020

More projects

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Contact

Dr Angela De Britos
Teaching Fellow
Education

Email: angela.de-britos@strath.ac.uk
Tel: 444 8060