BAFEL: Elevating English Education in Singapore

ABOUT US

The British Academy For English Language (BAFEL) merges the best of UK’s English language education with Singapore’s vibrant curriculum, sparking a love for learning in young minds. Our diverse courses, from Public Speaking to engaging in TV Journalism, Philosophy, and Vlogging, are crafted to enhance communication, creativity, and critical thinking in students. With a legacy of nurturing over 50,000 young learners in both primary and secondary schools across Singapore, BAFEL is renowned for shaping confident, articulate, and inquisitive individuals. We invite young explorers to join us in a journey where language learning is not just about words, but about opening doors to endless possibilities.

founder

The British Academy For English Language (BAFEL) was founded by Rohit Belani, an English graduate from London. This national award winning debator is instantly recognisable by his professional demeanour, clear and articulate speech, and intense desire to bring world-ready skills to students. Rohit has worked at the Foreign Press Association of London, Macmillan Publishing (London & Oxford) and Chambers & Partners London (legal publishing) before starting up the British Academy For English Language. He is also a stage and film actor in London and has worked on numerous training projects in London, India, Singapore, Spain, Portugal, Malaysia, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar and Samoa (polynesian island) His vision is to make media, communication and performance skills accessible to every student.

He is the programme curator and lead trainer for select programmes, and lives between London and Singapore.

Training Director

Cordelia Fernandez has an aura like no other. Charming, funny and a glib speaker, she leaves both students and audiences wide mouthed.

In 2012, she joined the teaching staff of TISCH Asia (New York University) as an acting coach. Her journey with the British Academy For English Language (BAFEL) began in 2013 and to date, she has trained over five hundred thousand students in drama, acting, English, and written and spoken presentation.

For 9 years prior to that, Cordelia was the Speech Communication lecturer for Mass Communication students at Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s School of Film and Media Studies, helping students acquire the knowledge and abilities necessary to become composed, credible and articulate speakers in a variety of professional situations.

Currently she continues to lecture at Ngee Ann Polytechnic in the areas of Persuasive Communication, Academic Writing, Professional Preparation and Media Presentation Skills, and holds workshops for Junior College-level Project Work for both students and teachers. She also runs acting classes for upper primary school students in preparation for Direct School Admission to SOTA, and trains them for external examinations administered by the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and Trinity College London. Her corporate clients include the Singapore HDB (Housing Development Board), Curtis Medical Laser Clinic and Google.

Training & Programme Director

Eugene Lin is a seasoned professional with over 20 years of experience in creative fields including theater, film production, arts education, and senior management. His expertise spans video and film production, scriptwriting, directing, acting, and arts education. As a creative director and producer, Eugene has managed diverse projects and led teams to success. He has worked with various productions and companies across his career most notably The Lion King Musical by Disney. His contributions to arts education encompass curriculum development, training of all age groups, and directing stage productions.

VISION AND VALUEs

BAFEL aims to provide a broad-based UK-developed British-style education designed to enable learners discover their strengths, and to make the most of their talents within BAFEL and beyond. The vision of BAFEL is to be at the forefront of education through –

The pursuit of English excellence

The development of each individual’s talents in linguistic, creative and social skills

The encouragement of learning beyond what one is taught

How does one become world-ready with a good command of English? How does one ace the English language exam? Which English language learning strategies are best for learners? How does one boost confidence and communication skills? How to make English language fun in academics and through performance, digital and social media? How does one become a charismatic person? These are questions we ask every day at BAFEL.

BAFEL provides richly varied and exciting education in a friendly, nurturing environment. Programmes offered are of a unique character, progessive, and executed unconventionally.

Programmes offered are of a unique character, progessive and executed unconventionally. We want to fire learners’ imaginations and arouse their intellectual curiosity. We know our learners will be tomorrow’s leaders and we want to help them develop the drive and skills they will need for their future careers, alongside the confidence to aim for the top and pursue their ambitions with determination and enthusiasm.

We fire learners’ imaginations and arouse their intellectual curiosity. We know our learners will be tomorrow’s leaders and we want to help them develop the drive and skills they will need for their future careers, alongside the confidence to aim for the top and pursue their ambitions with determination and enthusiasm.

Our teaching combines the strengths of both traditional methods such as the direct lecture system, and critical reading and writing, with the progressive system such as the humanistic approach, principled eclectism,and communicative language teaching. All of this is done through philosophy, performance, digital media, case studies, team projects, games, pair share, discussions, critical inquiry and the association process (link system) to give a refreshing educational approach.

This is a unique academy; where the learners’ innate curiosity, intellectual rigour, the questions they ask, and the interest they demonstrate for the world around them – through seeing, hearing, tasting and experiencing – all demonstrate what makes BAFEL learners distinctive. The BAFEL environment fosters a culture of scholarship, creativity and enquiry.

OUR UNIQUE APPROACH

Feeding students endless content to remember (that is, declarative sentences or “facts” to remember) is akin to repeatedly telling someone to stop running who is, unfortunately, already at rest. At the British Academy For English Language (BAFEL), we generate results from the learner – we show them the avenues to acquire knowledge, understanding and the questioning that they need to arrive at solutions, conclusions and ultimately success in education at all levels.

This is typically what ‘education’ means in our society today. Instead, students need questions to turn on their intellectual engines, and they must themselves generate questions from our questions to get their thinking to go somewhere. Critical thinking is of no use unless it goes somewhere, and again, the questions we ask determine where our thinking goes. It is only when our thinking goes somewhere that we learn anything of value to us.

Like our students, we work hard at our studies. We analyse our classes and teaching styles; constantly aiming to perfect. It is always possible to improve – there is a science to teaching. By evaluating the details of education – large and small – we provide the best possible atmosphere for our students to learn.

OUR EDUCATORS

Our teachers are passionate about their subjects and are highly knowledgeable. They venture well beyond the assessed programme, inspire students to respond to their questioning curiosity and bring rigour and playfulness with them as well. All of them have taught in local schools and are well aware of the rigour and demands of the Singapore education system, especially where the English language is concerned.