Ellen Darling, a senior English teacher from the British Council in Naples, recently led workshops for over 50 teachers of English at primary and secondary level, on the use of stories and poems by contemporary writers to teach English.

The workshops were held at the National Curriculum Centre in Ħamrun by the British Council in collaboration with the Education ministry as part of the Brit Lit project.

The project is a global resource of English language learning materials developed from stories and poems and presented in the form of kits of worksheets and projects that can be photocopied and adapted for use in class. They can be downloaded from Brit Lit website www.teachingenglish.org.uk/try/britlit.

George Camilleri, education officer (English) at the Curriculum Management and e-Learning Department (DQSE) commented that the project's use of English literature to teach language is an area of English teaching full of pot-ential: "First, it exposes our students to a wider range of literature texts; secondly, it lightens up language lessons with vivid and stimulating texts and literary styles."