TEachers Learning to Teach languages

General Teaching Council for Scotland-recognised, TELT was inspired by and contributed to delivery of the Scottish Government’s 1+2 language policy.

It was developed in collaboration between the OU and SCILT, Scotland’s National Centre for Languages. French, German, Spanish or Chinese were the TELT language study options.

TELT was the first substantive multi-level Continuing Professional Development (CPD) curriculum combining beginners French, Spanish, German and Chinese language learning with primary languages pedagogy.

Following its success in Scotland, the OU in Scotland collaborated with the Welsh Government in the implementation of TELT across Wales.

Overall, 662 primary teachers studied the programme, embedding language policy and transforming primary languages practice at scale.

As the most widely adopted CPD of its kind in both nations, TELT has been highly commended by policymakers and external examiners for its strong partnership in the collaborative provision with SCILT, for offering alumni the opportunity to become associate pedagogy tutors, for its high quality standards of teaching and assessment, for the continuously positive outcomes and the career development it facilitated for participating teachers.

TELT was recognised with an OU teaching excellence award in 2018 and was shortlisted in the partnership category at the 2018 Herald Higher Education Awards.

The 2025-26 session was the concluding presentation of the TELT programme.