My education includes:
- A Post Graduate Certificate in Education with a GPA of 6. Three of the units were in TESOL and one was in educational research. (2020)
- Prior to that, I have a Bachelor in Visual Arts, but also two years of a Bachelor of Education – secondary teaching. (1995)
- I have also completed a CELTA. (2003)
I have twenty years of TESOL experience. Most of that is with adult international students in the university context, preparing them in General English to get them into EAP and study tours. I have also taught adults and children in Japan, Germany and Thailand.
My research questions would be something along the following lines:
- What English grammar and vocabulary should be learnt together and at what level? (for second language acquisition)
- To what extent can English grammar and vocabulary complexity be highlighted automatically for teachers and students? (as opposed to accuracy based approaches most teachers rely heavily on when marking student writing)
- To what extent can EAP entrance exams and materials in preparation for them be developed through this research based on learner corpora and Native language texts?
Immediate goals:
- The continued development of a grammar & vocabulary complexity checker online.
- Develop materials (possibly online especially post-COVID19) that get students into EAP for Australian universities.
Here is a list of those at Macquarie that might be interested in supervising this: