Our Values and Beliefs

All courses are designed and delivered in such a way that they are in harmony with the Bell Educational Trust's main goals, which are to:

1. Provide high quality language training to consistently high standards.
2. Increase mutual understanding among people from different cultures / cultural backgrounds around the world and work towards raising the level of co-operation between them.
3. Promote self-development among course participants and staff.

The principles underlying our courses

We believe that language education and training should:

1. Be part of a coherent programme with explicit aims within a clear curriculum framework.
2. Involve learners so that they understand the aims of all activities and get regular feedback on their progress.
3. Encompass the use of the language for meaningful communication in real life contexts and the study of formal aspects of language (grammar, semantics, phonology and orthography).
4. Be enjoyable and rewarding.
5. Extend beyond the classroom and continue independently outside course hours.
6. Encourage learners to take responsibility for their own learning and enable them to continue their language development after their course at Bell has finished.
7. Be delivered in a manner appropriate to the learner's level of language competence.
8. Focus on the needs, wishes and interests of the learners based on systematic evaluation and on frequent consultation with the learners.
9. Be subject to principled assessment and evaluation in order to measure learners' performance and obtain feedback on teaching effectiveness.
10. Focus on improving learners' communication skills in the broadest sense, helping them to improve their linguistic, pragmatic and intercultural competence.
11. Be aware and take account of the ever-changing nature of language over time and of geographical and cultural variety.

Language learners

We believe that we need to help learners to:

1. Be aware of their own language learning needs and goals.
2. Be aware of their own strengths and weaknesses as learners and their preferred modes of learning.
3. Be aware of themselves as language users in social and cultural contexts, including that of their first language.
4. Develop effective language learning strategies.
5. Take responsibility for their learning, working independently to achieve the objectives they have set for themselves.
6. Feel physically and mentally at ease in a comfortable environment.