The Editors:
Melanie Cooke has been involved in English language teaching for over thirty years and is currently Senior Teaching Fellow in ESOL & Applied Linguistics at King’s College, London. Her books include The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (2018, section editor with James Simpson) and ESOL: A Critical Guide (2008, with James Simpson). She has published in TESOL Quarterly, Language and Education, Linguistics and Education, Language Assessment Quarterly, Journal of Language, Identity and Education and Gender and Language. She was a co-organiser of the ESRC seminar series Queering ESOL (with John Gray and Mike Baynham) and has collaborated with Dermot Bryers and Becky Winstanley on several participatory ESOL projects, the most recent being the Leverhulme funded ‘Our Languages’.
Rob Peutrell has worked in further education for over thirty years mainly as an ESOL and Learning Support lecturer. He has been an Advanced Practitioner and teacher trainer, and, for many years, a UCU branch officer. He was a founder member and Chair of Nottingham and Notts. Refugee Forum and was active in the Action for ESOL campaign. He contributed chapters to Further Education and the 12 Dancing Princess (2015), The Principal: Power and Politics in Further Education (2017), and (with Melanie Cooke) Caliban's Dance: Further Education after the Tempest (in press). He completed his PhD in 2015.
The Contributors:
Mike Baynham is Emeritus Professor in the School of Education, University of Leeds. A former chair of BAAL and convenor of AILA research networks on Literacy and Narrative and Migration, his research interests include literacy, narrative and multilingualism. In the 2000s, he directed, with Celia Roberts, a number of research projects on Adult ESOL funded through the NRDC, including the ESOL Effective Practice Project. He was a co-investigator with Melanie Cooke and John Gray on the ESRC seminar series Queering ESOL. Recent projects include the AHRC funded TLANG project, directed by Angela Creese, on which he was a co-investigator for the Leeds site. A monograph based on the project, Translation and Translanguaging, co-written with T.K. Lee, is to be published by Routledge.
Dermot Bryers founded and co-runs the adult education charity EFA London. He currently teaches ESOL in three communities across London (Greenwich, Streatham and Battersea) and delivers training in participatory ESOL for teachers and activists across the country. Along with his colleagues and students, he is involved in several campaigns, including the Living Wage Campaign, Action for ESOL (defending ESOL from funding cuts) and local student-led campaigns on issues such as affordable housing. Alongside colleagues Becky Winstanley and Melanie Cooke, he has published research on participatory methods and worked on the 'Our Languages' project in collaboration with King's College London, where he is an Associate Researcher. Previously, he worked as a Community Organiser for Citizens UK and a campaigns consultant for ActionAid on their Reflect ESOL project.
John Callaghan started out as an English teacher, working first in the UK, then in Africa, SE Asia and North America. Back in England, he taught ESOL to adults and managed adult ESOL programmes before joining the University of Leeds School of Education team as a practitioner-researcher on the NRDC funded ESOL Effective Practice Project. Following a Masters in research methods and a doctoral study of language and communication in the everyday lives of a group of Ethiopian refugees, John took part in a number of linguistic and visual ethnographic projects, investigating intercultural interaction in a medical school, on NHS decision-making panels, and in ‘superdiverse’ neighbourhoods in Leeds. Most recently, he was a research assistant on the AHRC funded TLang project. John is Chair of Trustees at the Refugee Education Training Advice Service (RETAS, Leeds).
John Gray is Reader in Languages in Education at UCL Institute of Education, University College London. He has published in Applied Linguistics, ELT Journal, Language Teaching Research and the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He is the author of The Construction of English: Culture, Consumerism and Promotion in the ELT Global Coursebook (2010). He is also co-author of Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics (2012), written with David Block and Marnie Holborow, and of Social Interaction and English Language Teacher Identity (2018), co-authored with Tom Morton.
Michael Hepworth lectures in TESOL at the University of Sunderland and is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University. He also teaches English in the community. Before that, he worked as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds, where he completed his PhD on Spoken Argumentation in the Adult ESOL classroom
Sheila Macdonald is executive director of Beyond The Page. She is a researcher and tutor, working alongside migrant adults in Kent, south-east England. She holds a doctorate in education from the University of Sheffield and uses a critical feminist perspective to explore the lives of women learners with children and contemporary ESOL provision. She is passionate about enabling safe spaces for women to find their voice and develop their potential, and co-creates a learning programme which incorporates voice, drama and community engagement. As a social worker and teacher, Sheila has written and taught on equality issues for over 20 years and is committed to building partnerships with families and across disciplines to offer the most effective and creative teaching and learning practices. She is author of All Equal Under the Act? (1989) and Out in the classroom? Exploring LGBT lives and issues in adult ESOL (2014).
Pauline Moon is an Academic Support Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London. Prior to this she worked for many years in ESOL teaching, ESOL teacher education and dyslexia support. She has also studied photography and is interested in ways of using photography to facilitate language learning, using participatory pedagogies. She has facilitated ESOL and photography projects with several groups of students.
Celia Roberts is Professor Emerita in Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics, King’s College London. Her interests are in language and cultural processes in institutional contexts. Her publications in intercultural communication, second language socialisation, language and inequality, and language and cultural learning and ethnography include Language and Discrimination (1992 with Davies and Jupp), Achieving Understanding (1996 with Bremer et al.), Talk, Work and Institutional Order (1999 with Sarangi) Language Learners as Ethnographers (2001 with Byram et al.), ‘Translating global experience into institutional models of competency’ (2012) and Performance Skills in Clinical Skills Assessment (2014 with Atkins and Hawthorne). Her forthcoming book Linguistic Penalties examines the inequalities migrants face in job interviewing. She has a particular interest in the practical relevance of research for disadvantaged groups. This includes the production of 6 DVDs for professional practitioners and a Knowledge Transfer Project with the Royal College of General Practitioners (2010 – 13).
James Simpson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Leeds. His research interests lie in the teaching and learning of English for Speakers of Other Languages in migration contexts, in migrant language learning and arts practice, and in the sociolinguistics of mobility and migration. His work involves the critical analysis of linguistic practices relating to identity and belonging, language diversity, language pedagogy, language policy and literacy. His books include The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (2018, section editor with Melanie Cooke), Adult Language Education and Migration: Challenging Agendas in Policy and Practice (Routledge, 2015, edited with Anne Whiteside), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics (Routledge, 2011), and ESOL: A Critical Guide (OUP, 2008, with Melanie Cooke). He manages an email discussion forum ESOL-Research, for researchers and practitioners with an interest in adult migrant language education.
Stefan Vollmer is an ethnographer with a background in language education and applied linguistics. As a doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, he is currently researching the digital literacy practices of newly arrived Syrian refugees in the UK.
Becky Winstanley is an experienced ESOL teacher and teacher-educator working in east London at New City College and English for Action. Her areas of interest include participatory approaches to education and language and literacy development for social change. She worked on ActionAid's Reflect ESOL project, adapting the international Reflect model for language learning in the UK and trained with Reflect practitioners in Liberia. She has an MA in sociocultural linguistics from Goldsmiths and is currently visiting research assistant at Kings College London. She is an active trade unionist and is interested in teachers’ and students’ struggles in education and beyond.
Tesfalem Yemane is currently working as Employment and Education Advisor with Refugee Education, Training and Advice Service (RETAS), a small refugee organization in the United Kingdom. Upon successful completion of his undergraduate studies in the University of Asmara in Eritrea, Tesfalem worked as a Teaching Assistant in Eritrea Institute of Technology (EIT) from 2006 to 2010, where he taught Introduction to Political Science. And after spending two years in Sudan as a refugee, he went to China in September 2012 and completed an MA in International Relations. Tesfalem also holds a second MA in African Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Bradford. His areas of interest are international migration relations, refugees, integration, international relations and peace studies.
Melanie Cooke has been involved in English language teaching for over thirty years and is currently Senior Teaching Fellow in ESOL & Applied Linguistics at King’s College, London. Her books include The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (2018, section editor with James Simpson) and ESOL: A Critical Guide (2008, with James Simpson). She has published in TESOL Quarterly, Language and Education, Linguistics and Education, Language Assessment Quarterly, Journal of Language, Identity and Education and Gender and Language. She was a co-organiser of the ESRC seminar series Queering ESOL (with John Gray and Mike Baynham) and has collaborated with Dermot Bryers and Becky Winstanley on several participatory ESOL projects, the most recent being the Leverhulme funded ‘Our Languages’.
Rob Peutrell has worked in further education for over thirty years mainly as an ESOL and Learning Support lecturer. He has been an Advanced Practitioner and teacher trainer, and, for many years, a UCU branch officer. He was a founder member and Chair of Nottingham and Notts. Refugee Forum and was active in the Action for ESOL campaign. He contributed chapters to Further Education and the 12 Dancing Princess (2015), The Principal: Power and Politics in Further Education (2017), and (with Melanie Cooke) Caliban's Dance: Further Education after the Tempest (in press). He completed his PhD in 2015.
The Contributors:
Mike Baynham is Emeritus Professor in the School of Education, University of Leeds. A former chair of BAAL and convenor of AILA research networks on Literacy and Narrative and Migration, his research interests include literacy, narrative and multilingualism. In the 2000s, he directed, with Celia Roberts, a number of research projects on Adult ESOL funded through the NRDC, including the ESOL Effective Practice Project. He was a co-investigator with Melanie Cooke and John Gray on the ESRC seminar series Queering ESOL. Recent projects include the AHRC funded TLANG project, directed by Angela Creese, on which he was a co-investigator for the Leeds site. A monograph based on the project, Translation and Translanguaging, co-written with T.K. Lee, is to be published by Routledge.
Dermot Bryers founded and co-runs the adult education charity EFA London. He currently teaches ESOL in three communities across London (Greenwich, Streatham and Battersea) and delivers training in participatory ESOL for teachers and activists across the country. Along with his colleagues and students, he is involved in several campaigns, including the Living Wage Campaign, Action for ESOL (defending ESOL from funding cuts) and local student-led campaigns on issues such as affordable housing. Alongside colleagues Becky Winstanley and Melanie Cooke, he has published research on participatory methods and worked on the 'Our Languages' project in collaboration with King's College London, where he is an Associate Researcher. Previously, he worked as a Community Organiser for Citizens UK and a campaigns consultant for ActionAid on their Reflect ESOL project.
John Callaghan started out as an English teacher, working first in the UK, then in Africa, SE Asia and North America. Back in England, he taught ESOL to adults and managed adult ESOL programmes before joining the University of Leeds School of Education team as a practitioner-researcher on the NRDC funded ESOL Effective Practice Project. Following a Masters in research methods and a doctoral study of language and communication in the everyday lives of a group of Ethiopian refugees, John took part in a number of linguistic and visual ethnographic projects, investigating intercultural interaction in a medical school, on NHS decision-making panels, and in ‘superdiverse’ neighbourhoods in Leeds. Most recently, he was a research assistant on the AHRC funded TLang project. John is Chair of Trustees at the Refugee Education Training Advice Service (RETAS, Leeds).
John Gray is Reader in Languages in Education at UCL Institute of Education, University College London. He has published in Applied Linguistics, ELT Journal, Language Teaching Research and the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. He is the author of The Construction of English: Culture, Consumerism and Promotion in the ELT Global Coursebook (2010). He is also co-author of Neoliberalism and Applied Linguistics (2012), written with David Block and Marnie Holborow, and of Social Interaction and English Language Teacher Identity (2018), co-authored with Tom Morton.
Michael Hepworth lectures in TESOL at the University of Sunderland and is an Associate Lecturer at the Open University. He also teaches English in the community. Before that, he worked as a Teaching Fellow at the University of Leeds, where he completed his PhD on Spoken Argumentation in the Adult ESOL classroom
Sheila Macdonald is executive director of Beyond The Page. She is a researcher and tutor, working alongside migrant adults in Kent, south-east England. She holds a doctorate in education from the University of Sheffield and uses a critical feminist perspective to explore the lives of women learners with children and contemporary ESOL provision. She is passionate about enabling safe spaces for women to find their voice and develop their potential, and co-creates a learning programme which incorporates voice, drama and community engagement. As a social worker and teacher, Sheila has written and taught on equality issues for over 20 years and is committed to building partnerships with families and across disciplines to offer the most effective and creative teaching and learning practices. She is author of All Equal Under the Act? (1989) and Out in the classroom? Exploring LGBT lives and issues in adult ESOL (2014).
Pauline Moon is an Academic Support Lecturer at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts, London. Prior to this she worked for many years in ESOL teaching, ESOL teacher education and dyslexia support. She has also studied photography and is interested in ways of using photography to facilitate language learning, using participatory pedagogies. She has facilitated ESOL and photography projects with several groups of students.
Celia Roberts is Professor Emerita in Sociolinguistics and Applied Linguistics, King’s College London. Her interests are in language and cultural processes in institutional contexts. Her publications in intercultural communication, second language socialisation, language and inequality, and language and cultural learning and ethnography include Language and Discrimination (1992 with Davies and Jupp), Achieving Understanding (1996 with Bremer et al.), Talk, Work and Institutional Order (1999 with Sarangi) Language Learners as Ethnographers (2001 with Byram et al.), ‘Translating global experience into institutional models of competency’ (2012) and Performance Skills in Clinical Skills Assessment (2014 with Atkins and Hawthorne). Her forthcoming book Linguistic Penalties examines the inequalities migrants face in job interviewing. She has a particular interest in the practical relevance of research for disadvantaged groups. This includes the production of 6 DVDs for professional practitioners and a Knowledge Transfer Project with the Royal College of General Practitioners (2010 – 13).
James Simpson is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Leeds. His research interests lie in the teaching and learning of English for Speakers of Other Languages in migration contexts, in migrant language learning and arts practice, and in the sociolinguistics of mobility and migration. His work involves the critical analysis of linguistic practices relating to identity and belonging, language diversity, language pedagogy, language policy and literacy. His books include The Routledge Handbook of Language and Superdiversity (2018, section editor with Melanie Cooke), Adult Language Education and Migration: Challenging Agendas in Policy and Practice (Routledge, 2015, edited with Anne Whiteside), The Routledge Handbook of Applied Linguistics (Routledge, 2011), and ESOL: A Critical Guide (OUP, 2008, with Melanie Cooke). He manages an email discussion forum ESOL-Research, for researchers and practitioners with an interest in adult migrant language education.
Stefan Vollmer is an ethnographer with a background in language education and applied linguistics. As a doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds, he is currently researching the digital literacy practices of newly arrived Syrian refugees in the UK.
Becky Winstanley is an experienced ESOL teacher and teacher-educator working in east London at New City College and English for Action. Her areas of interest include participatory approaches to education and language and literacy development for social change. She worked on ActionAid's Reflect ESOL project, adapting the international Reflect model for language learning in the UK and trained with Reflect practitioners in Liberia. She has an MA in sociocultural linguistics from Goldsmiths and is currently visiting research assistant at Kings College London. She is an active trade unionist and is interested in teachers’ and students’ struggles in education and beyond.
Tesfalem Yemane is currently working as Employment and Education Advisor with Refugee Education, Training and Advice Service (RETAS), a small refugee organization in the United Kingdom. Upon successful completion of his undergraduate studies in the University of Asmara in Eritrea, Tesfalem worked as a Teaching Assistant in Eritrea Institute of Technology (EIT) from 2006 to 2010, where he taught Introduction to Political Science. And after spending two years in Sudan as a refugee, he went to China in September 2012 and completed an MA in International Relations. Tesfalem also holds a second MA in African Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Bradford. His areas of interest are international migration relations, refugees, integration, international relations and peace studies.
