• the British Council lifetime achievement award
This Award went to Brita Haycraft, who, along with her late husband John (he passed away in 1996, in London), founded the International House World Organisation, which, last year, celebrated its 50th Anniversary.
At the ceremony Brita was described as having total commitment to the school, its teachers and students.
“I manned the school, dropping our toddlers in a Greenwich day nursery. I spotted the ideal premises in Shaftesbury Avenue. It was very cheap except that the lease had to be renewed every six months, pending reforms for Piccadilly Circus. We stayed 18 years. The eight-room flat was grotty but perfectly located at a stone’s throw from the famous Eros. Students filled the school. We needed teachers fast.
This is when John thought of a course to train teachers. A tiny ad in the magazine The New Statesman brought our first twelve trainees for two weeks in June 1962.
There was a bold new component. Each afternoon, after their theory session, the trainees had to teach real classes watched by fellow trainees and their tutor.
It worked, possibly because of the group discussion afterwards. And it was the 60s. At the end, we kept on the best ones as teachers. The course was to multiply.
Against tradition, teacher trainers didn’t stop teaching foreign students and so stayed in touch with classroom complexities, always upgrading the training course.
The beauty of short courses was that you could see the result within months, rather than years. Swapping ideas and observing classes became the norm and I remember the excitement at the teachers’ meetings.
Being a new school with new teachers made new ideas possible. Some of our intrepid trainees have become today’s most popular EFL authors” Brita said at the Award ceremony.
International House know-how brought in schools in Hungary, Poland, the Ukraine and beyond. The dedication continues in more than 120 affiliated schools worldwide.
