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Scots Language Teacher CPD – Course Guide

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Course: Scots language teacher CPD September 2024
Book: Scots Language Teacher CPD – Course Guide
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Date: Friday, 21 November 2025, 5:29 PM

Table of contents

1. Introduction

In this Scots language teacher professional learning course, you will become familiar with the Scots language and culture, explore a variety of approaches to the learning and teaching of the language, the contexts it is used in and how it can feature in any subject area and level of study in Scottish schools.

1.1 Objectives

The course comprises a variety of study materials revolving around the theory and practice of teaching Scots language and culture, which enables you to engage with both the language and pedagogy in a professionally supportive environment. As teachers, you can become drivers of change in your own school by implementing what you learn here and starting a positive move towards Scots language learning. While studying this course you will have the opportunity to apply your new skills in your classroom with your pupils. We hope that your confidence in this aspect of your teaching practice will increase.

1.2 Meet the group

You will interact with the other students in the course via the course discussion forum, as well as during the synchronous online tutorials in Teams.

You can meet informally with other students in self-help groups, work together on tasks, exchange ideas or give each other peer support using any tools for communication of your choice.

1.3 Meet your tutors

The principal tutor for the course, Bruce Eunson, is Scots Language Co-ordinator for Education Scotland. Born and bred in Shetland, he is Joint Convener of dialect promotion group Shetland ForWirds. He is an Executive Director for the Dictionary of the Scots Language and a Council member of the Scots Language Centre. He was an editor and author for the OU Scots Language and Culture open course and has written a unit for this teacher CPD course.

Bruce Eunson

Bruce will lead a team of tutors on ths course, each of whom will tutor a group for the duration of the course. Your tutor will contact you near the start of the course, after the induction week, to introduce him/herself and explain how you will work together.



2. Course Content

This course comprises seven units as follows:

  • Unit 1: Scots within the school context

  • Unit 2: Scots – exploring the educational benefits

  • Unit 3: Scots in the broad general education (early and first level)

  • Unit 4: Scots and social studies at secondary school

  • Unit 5: Scots in literature and creative writing

  • Unit 6: Scots, creativity and the expressive arts

  • Unit 7: Scots as a language learning option in school.

Each unit includes engagement with research, formative reflective tasks, application of knowledge and skills activities and exchanges with other students on the forum and in live tutorials.

The purpose of the course is to explore the role Scots language and culture in Scottish schools across the curriculum and how it can lead the way for multilingual pedagogies and practices for the 21st century classroom. Alongside this, you will familiarise yourself with the Scots language and find out about its history and related societal and cultural aspects. You will apply your new language and pedagogy skills in your own classroom as part of studying this course.

Scots as an L3 in school

If you are learning to teach Scots on this module in order to provide an L3 (Language 3, or additional second language) experience in your school, explore Education Scotland’s L3 audit tools.

2.1 Unit materials

You will work with a range of materials in different media, including videos, and different types of input including research articles and policy documents.

The materials you will engage with in this course may:

  • be located on external websites, with links provided

  • be available as in-course PDF documents

  • take the form of articles in academic journals or reviews or the like, all of which you will access online via the course website.


3. Unit Structure

Unit 1 is an introductory unit and depending on your previous knowledge and skills you can study it in full or parts of it only.

Units 2 to 7 have the same elements and structure. They are all structured as follows.

1: Introduction

Here you find out about the theme of the unit, the reason why it is important to study this and the key learning objectives of each unit.


2: Input

Here you study some core stimuli to instigate your thinking about the theme of the unit. You will be asked to reflect on aspects of the stimuli and can compare your reflections with the model answers provided. You should also be prepared to discuss aspects of the stimuli further in the tutorial.


3: Tutorial

Here you’ll have the opportunity to engage in deeper discussion inspired by the input stimuli. A central aspect of your tutorial will be an introduction to the class-based application task and an opportunity to start planning for and discussing approaches to the Application element together with your peers.


4: Application and reflection

This takes place in your classroom, with your learners. You will try out the task you started designing during the Tutorial and completed afterwards. Part of the Application task is to reflect on the challenges and successes of your planned activity with your fellow students in the unit discussion forum. 

Note: you will have to successfully complete at least five out of the Application tasks from Units 2 to 7 in order to pass the course. The five tasks you complete will need to include Application task 7. See the assessment section for further information.


5: Community link

This contains information on an existing community-based Scots language initiative. This element provides an idea of the types of opportunity that already exist and may inspire thoughts for collaboration with these or other community groups with an interest in Scots language (learning). The aim is to highlight how you can take language learning beyond your own classroom and link up with others in the Scots language community. You will be encouraged to share ideas and links to other initiatives using the Twitter hashtag for this module – #OU_ScotsCPD – which will also help you establish a community of practice with your peers in this medium that is open to you beyond this course.


6: Research on Scots

Engaging with the content of this section supports you in fulfilling the Masters level study criteria of this course. You engage with examples of research on teaching Scots in the school classroom as well as the important role of Scots as a non-standard indigenous language within the educational context. What you study here will feed into the work you do towards the Professional Recognition award for this course.


7: Professional Recognition reflective task

This section involves a reflective task and is an element required for the award of Professional Recognition in Teaching Scots Across the Curriculum from the General Teaching Council for Scotland. The reflective task consists of a blog post in response to the peer discussion around the application task for each unit. For Units 2–6 the length of the post ranges from 300 to 750 words. For Unit 7 the reflective task is a blog post of 750-1000 words in which students consider the impact of the course as a whole on the development of their practice in teaching Scots in their classrooms.

Note: you will have to successfully complete at least five out of the Professional Recognition reflective tasks from Units 2 to 7 in order to pass the course. The five tasks you complete will need to include the Professional recognition task in Unit 7. See the assessment section for further information.


8: Further Engagement

This includes suggestions for further related academic and other reading, practice or learning that you may wish to undertake to deepen your understanding and knowledge of the theme of the unit.



4. Tutorials

There are 60 study hours in this course in total; of these 8 hours are tutorials. 

In Units 2 to 7, there is an online tutorial of 60 minutes scheduled in your timetable. The tutorials are essential for completing the work on each unit. Please note, we offer two tutorials per Unit at different times as listed in the course timetable/study planner. Both tutprials cover the same content, please attend the tutorial that suits your availability best.

Note: All tutorials will be recorded for students who might not be able to attend. However, as listening to the recording cannot fully replace the experience of taking part in person, we advise you to attend as many of the tutorials as possible.

The tutorials will be taking place in Teams at the times listed in the course timetable.


5. Assessment

This section of the guide contains important information about the assessment of this course, including instructions for the presentation and submission of your assignments as well as the assessment criteria your tutor will use to mark your work.

Please note: Alongside the themes of Scots language and its teaching in your classroom, there is a theme focused on Scots in your classroom as an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion intervention in this course. You prepare for this in Unit 2, Activities 3 and 4; and you will be reminded to include your thoughts on this theme in your assessment submissions in each unit.

Here you will find out more about the following assessment-related aspects of this course:

A. Feedback

B. Application Tasks

C. Professional Recognition

    1. Professional recognition process
    2. Section 7 reflection task requirements
    3. Masters level criteria
    4. Feedback, marking and awards process
    5. Reflective blog tool
    6. Reflection Prompts

D. Referencing and avoiding plagiarism

E. Additional resources for reflection prompts


A. Feedback

In the course all the assessment is formative. The approach is to learn from the contributions of colleagues, from engaging with feedback you receive and giving feedback yourself.

The course offers various forms of feedback to support your learning and help you gauge and foster your own progress. Forms of feedback encompass:

  • model answers to activities you engage with in each unit

  • your posts on the discussion forum in response to the Application task in each unit

  • tutor comments on your forum posts

  • your constructive comments on other people’s posts on the discussion forum.




B. Application Tasks

These tasks are central to your learning in this course. They focus on your application of what you have learned in your own classroom.

Successful engagement with section 4 of each unit will be work towards the successful completion of the course certificate requirements. You must successfully meet the criteria of Application tasks for at least five units out of Units 2 to 7. One of these must be the task for Unit 7.

Note that the application tasks for all units have the same wording:

Using the notes and ideas that you began to gather during the tutorial, complete steps 1-5.

  1. In your own time, continue planning your chosen activity, adding more detail where required.

  2. Try out the planned activity with your learners. You might want to gather some feedback from your learners about the activity as well, which you can bring to the course and share with your fellow students.

  3. Write an account of 250 to 300 words, highlighting the successes and challenges you encountered when applying what you have learned in terms of pedagogy and Scots language/use. It may be helpful to consider these questions:

    • What do you think worked particularly well in your classroom application?

    • Is there anything you would do differently if you were to repeat this lesson?

    • What are the next steps for your learners?

    • How will you provide further opportunities to practise and reinforce the use of the Scots language?

  4. Then post your reflective account in the unit forum.

  5. Read and comment constructively on an application task post by another colleague.

Make sure to submit any element which requires forum interactions with the group as timely as possible, since a meaningful exchange can only happen when all students engage with each other within the dedicated time frame. Your tutors will remind you of these time frames and will moderate the discussions in the course forum.

You will need to complete the Application tasks as a preparation for the professional recognition tasks.

Your tutor will monitor your work on the Application tasks throughout the course.


C. Professional Recognition

This programme carries Professional Recognition from the General Teaching Council for Scotland. This award acknowledges that:

  • the whole programme is aligned to the national model of professional learning, and

  • sections 6 and 7 in Units 2 and 5, and sections 7 and 8 of Units 3, 4, 6 and 7 in particular offer progressive professional learning opportunities at Masters level

The Scottish Framework for Masters in Education progresses the national aspiration that teachers in Scotland engage in Masters-level learning. Masters-level learning is informed by the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework (SCQF) descriptors at Level 11. These ensure that learning:

  • Is practice relevant;

  • Is research informed;

  • Is personally and professionally transformative;

  • Is collaborative in nature;

  • Challenges assumptions and widens perspectives; and

  • Aspires to make a positive impact on Scottish Education.


The SCQF is structured around the following characteristics:

  • Knowledge and understanding;

  • Practice: applied knowledge and understanding;

  • Generic cognitive skills;

  • Communication, ICT and numeracy skills; and

  • Autonomy, accountability and working with others.1, 2

The award is valid for five years and holders are recognised as enhanced practitioners in Scots language. For more information see GTCS: Professional Recognition.



C.1 Professional Recognition Process

  1. If you are registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland and complete the requirements successfully, you will receive the award of Professional Recognition: Teaching Scots Language and Culture. The Open University will present you to the General Teaching Council for Scotland on successful completion of this element.

  2. During the online tutorial in the induction week you will be given more information on the Professional Recognition in this course. Check the course timetable for the session time and where to join. We will record the session for you, too. It provides a full explanation of the Professional Recognition requirements outlined in this guide.

  3. Also, as part of the Induction activities at the start of this course, you are required to complete a GTCS coaching wheel. This provides a pre-course baseline of your current practice in including Scots language and culture in your teaching and areas for development. Your coaching wheel is for your own information, you are not required to share it with your tutor at this time but can do so if you wish. You will revisit this coaching wheel at the end of the programme to evaluate your progress and development over the period of the course.

  4. Contact your tutor in can you wish not to undertake the programme’s Professional Recognition element.

  5. For being able to gain your GTCS professional recognition award, please contact the course administrator by the end of week 3 of the course citing your GTCS registration number and using the Scotland-Languages@open.ac.uk email address.

  6. You will receive your certificate directly through the post from the GTCS. The award is valid for 5 years and will appear automatically on your GTCS registration record. Following that period, you can apply for a renewal of the award based on further development work you have done in this area.




Reflective Task Requirements

Successful engagement with the professional recognition tasks of Units 2 to 7 will contribute to the award of professional recognition.

You must successfully meet the criteria of Professional Recognition tasks for at least five of these tasks. One of these must be the Professional Recognition task for Unit 7.

The reflective blog posts you write for this will be informed by your learning during the unit. Flexibility and choice in how you address the three Masters level criteria is built into the task. You may critically consider:

  • the theme of the unit in general

  • a particular experience/incident arising either in the course community or your workplace

  • a specific piece of reading associated with the unit, especially the academic publication you’ll study as part of the unit


Tasks Units 2 to 6

Note that the wording for the Professional Recognition task for Units 2 to 6 is the same, however the word limit changes to allow for greater depth as you progress through the programme. Variety in your responses to the tasks will come from the different experience you bring and the different learning you take from each unit.

The word limits for the Units 2 to 6 are the following:

  • Units 2, 3 and 4 = 300 - 500 words

  • Units 5 and 6 = 500 - 750 words

You are free to make your rresponse slightly longer if you so wish.

The task itself is worded as follows:

Write a post in your reflective blog here. Your post should:

  • be X words in length (depending on which unit).

  • address the programme’s three Masters level criteria:

    • Knowledge and understanding

    • Critical analysis

    • Structure, communication and presentation

In writing your post, you may choose to:

  • use one or more prompt from the bank of reflective prompts provided to frame your writing,

  • make connections between readings related to the theme of the unit and your practice,

  • explore the extent to which you agree/disagree with or were surprised/impressed by an aspect of the peer discussion on the unit's application task in the course forum.


Task for Unit 7

This task captures your learning across the whole course rather than just a single unit, and is therefore worded differently. Your reflective blog post should be informed by your learning across Units 1 to 7.

You should write critically and in some depth about your development across the programme as a whole. You are encouraged to:

Your post should:

  • be 750 - 1000 words in length.

  • address the programme’s three Masters level criteria:

    • Knowledge and understanding

    • Critical analysis

    • Structure, communication and presentation

In writing your post, you may choose to:

  • use one or more prompt from the bank of reflective prompts provided to frame your writing,

  • make connections between readings and your practice,

  • explore the extent to which you feel surprised/impressed/disappointed or something else by an aspect of your coaching wheel.

Post your reflection in your reflective blog here.




C.3 Masters Level Criteria

This programme’s three Masters level criteria for the professional recognition tasks are as follows:

  • Knowledge and understanding of the concepts, theories and perspectives discussed in the course material and other relevant sources, and use of this knowledge and understanding in an imaginative and creative way, not just reproducing information.

  • Critical analysis and evaluation based on understanding of conceptual and practical knowledge derived from study of the course and other relevant material. Evidence of engagement with the material and an ability to synthesise and evaluate it in order to construct an argument that addresses the question and that gives clear evidence of independent engagement with the ideas.

  • Structure, communication and presentation involving clarity and coherence with regard to the argument, a logical structure, and use of correct referencing as specified in the OU Harvard system (Cite Them Right), including a references list where appropriate.


To help you meet the three criteria, here some more guidance on each one:

Knowledge and understanding

Your knowledge and understanding of the theme of each unit will be evidenced through your engagement on the discussion forum and in the tutorial, in your spoken and written contributions, including your application task.

Your knowledge and understanding of important concepts related to the theme in general and your practice and development as a teacher of Scots language and culture in particular will be synthesised in your Professional Recognition blogposts.

Structure, communication and presentation

You can partially address the structure, communication and presentation criteria, to frame your critical reflections, with:

  • one or more of the reflective prompts to produce a piece of writing that meets the suggested word limit for the task,

  • different prompts for each task, enabling you to reflect on different aspects of your learning experience.

This is not compulsory however, and it would be acceptable for you to address the structure, communication and presentation criteria without using the prompts. You can structure your reflection through explicit links and signposts in your writing, for example by:

  • drawing attention to certain points – ‘equally importantly’, ‘furthermore’;

  • indicating cause and effect progression – ‘this results in’, ‘consequently’, ‘for this reason’;

  • indicating progression within an argument – ‘therefore’, ‘however’, ‘nevertheless’;

  • using headings and sub-headings for themes, examples.

At Masters level, you are expected to support key points that you make in your reflection with reference to relevant readings, policy documents or journal articles. See the Referencing and avoiding plagiarism section below for more detail.


Critical evaluation and analysis

The most challenging of the Masters criteria for many students on this programme tends to be critical evaluation and analysis. If you are in the habit of writing about what you have experienced (descriptive writing), it can take time to get used to writing about what and how you learned from what you experienced (critical, evaluative writing).

To help you develop your critical evaluation and analysis skills, please engage with Activity 9 in the course induction activities.




C.4 Feedback, marking and awards process

Feedback

Throughout the programme, your tutor will support you with this assessed element with personal, private feedback on the reflective blog and with targeted tasks during the unit tutorials.

Written feedback from your tutor on your professional recognition tasks will comment on:

  • the extent to which you have addressed the programme’s three Masters level criteria (see above)

  • the extent to which you have responded to previous tutor feedback

  • the particular strengths and development needs of your written reflection.

Your tutor will review the progress you are making in terms of your Professional Recognition activities. After Unit 3 he/she will get in touch with you specifically to discuss this with you in order to ensure that you will be able to complete the Professional Recognition successfully.

Marking

You will have deadlines for the submission of the reflective tasks relating to the Professional Recognition in each unit. Please adhere to these deadlines so that tutors can submit their feedback to you in a timely manner:

  • Unit 1 Application task task due by end of study week 3

  • Unit 2 Application and Reflection task due by end of study week 6

  • Unit 3 Application and Reflection task due by end of study week 10

  • Unit 4 Application and Reflection task due by end of study week 15

  • Unit 5 Application and Reflection task due by end of study week 20

  • Unit 6 Application and Reflection task due by end of study week 25

  • Unit 7 Application and Reflection task due by end of study week 30

For the deadlines dates see the course timetable.

Tutors have ten working days from the date of your submission to provide their feedback.

Note: should you find that you might need an extension for the submission of the reflective tasks, contact your tutor in advance of the set submission date to arrange this. 

A moderation process is in place. A small sample of tutor comments and blogposts undergo a moderation by the Tutor Team at two scheduled points during the course. If you have any queries about feedback you receive, please contact your tutor or Dr Sylvia Warnecke (sylvia.warnecke@open.ac.uk ), the course lead.

Awards process

The final Professional Recognition 750-1000 word reflective blog post will be reviewed, moderated and marked by the tutor team. You will receive notification of either: criteria met or criteria not met. 

You must meet the criteria of professional recognition tasks for at least five of Units 2 to 7, of which one must be the unit 7 task.

In the event of Critieria met, the details of successful students will be passed to the GTCS and certificates will be issued by post.

The award is valid for five years and will be included on successful students’ GTCS personal registration information.


C.5 Reflective blog tool

You will submit your Professional Recognition reflections on the reflective blog tool which you will find in the Course induction and tools block. For guidance on how to use this blog tool see this information.

Unlike on the course forum, no one except you and your tutor will be able to view the entries in your reflective blog.

Please set your blog to ‘allow comments’ so that you can return to existing posts and add further thoughts, and so that your tutor can add comments.

However, note that if you decide to export the blog content at the end of the course, your tutor’s comments will not be preserved, so do make a note in a separate post of any important points your tutor makes.

C.6 Reflection prompts

You have the option to use reflection prompts from the collection below to inspire or frame your critical writing for the professional learning tasks in this course. These prompts:

  • are clear, concise and ask you to think critically.

  • are relevant and meaningful to you and course learning goals.

  • allow you to give responses that move beyond simple description of the experience to an analysis of how the experience contributed to the student understanding of self, others, and/or course concepts.

  • guide you to demonstrate connections between the experience and material from other courses; past experience; and/or personal goals.

  • challenge you to question their own biases, stereotypes, preconceptions, and/or assumptions and define new modes of thinking as a result.

Many were inspired by existing reflective questions for educators some of which are listed in the additional resources section at the end of this course guide. The collection is organised under four headings:




D. Referencing and avoiding plagiarism

This section provides some general guidelines on referencing sources. For more detailed information we recommend that you consult the information about the widely used method of referencing, and the one adopted in your study materials - the OU Harvard system (Cite Them Right). Please use this system for referencing any sources in your formative assessment of this course.

When writing an assignment, it is important that you support your arguments by referring to evidence. Whether you are quoting directly or simply referring to source material, academic convention requires that you should acknowledge where your information has come from. 

  • Direct quotations should always be enclosed in quotation marks, or placed in an indented paragraph if they are particularly long. 
  • Always cite your sources in the body of your text (in-text citation) and give the full publication details in a list of references as appropriate at the end of the assignment. 
  • You may find it helpful to take note of the style adopted by the course authors, as well as following the guidance on referencing conventions provided here.

To support you with your Masters level working, the Open University also provides some helpful activities that will help you develop important academic skills as well as avoiding and spotting plagiarism. (Link contains three documents combined: Avoiding plagiarism, Recognising plagiarism, and What plagiarism feels like.)