Dr Rosemary Wilson

• Admissions tutor (MA TESOL, MA Language Teaching)
• Academic Leader for English for Academic Purposes
• BA (C.N.A.A.), Cert Ed. (London), RSA Dip. TESOL, MA (Institute of Education) PhD (Birkbeck)

Contact details

Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication
Birkbeck, University of London
30 Russell Square
London WC1B 5DT
email: rj.wilson@bbk.ac.uk

Teaching responsibilities

• My post at Birkbeck combines academic leadership for the college’s programme of courses in English for Academic Purposes and teaching in the Department of Applied Linguistics and Communication.
• I am first and foremost a practitioner but one who knows the importance of a sound theoretical framework in which to develop my practice as a language teacher and teacher educator.

Areas of research supervision

• Language teaching methodology; language testing and assessment; learner autonomy; language teacher education; English for academic purposes.
• If you are considering applying for MPhil/PhD research in any of these areas, you are advised to contact me and/or the departmental research director about your research plan before making an application.

Profile

• I am a psychology graduate and qualified teacher with a specialised qualification in teaching English to speakers of second and foreign languages. I trained to teach in secondary and adult education and most of my teaching career has been with adult learners in further and higher education as well as in commercial language institutes. I spent fourteen years abroad as a teacher, teacher trainer and academic manager in Italy, Japan, the United States and Australia, with a break in the UK to take an MA in Education (ESOL). On returning to live in UK, I took up a post at the University of Cambridge in what is now Cambridge ESOL, where I was responsible for the management and support of all the in-service qualifications for English language teachers such as the Diploma in English Language Teachers to Adults (DELTA). This post involved working with teacher trainers from countries throughout Europe, the Far East and South America to develop consistent approaches to training and assessment procedures.
• Following this post, I was appointed as Head of Teacher Training at the Bell Educational Trust, with overall responsibility for teacher training in the Trust’s five UK schools as well as input into the training programmes in its many affiliated schools in other countries. I worked with the Trust’s team of teacher trainers to develop new courses to meet the changing needs of teachers abroad, such as the increase in English language teaching at primary level. I also designed and ran an annual trainer training programme, organised conferences and training events and was a guest speaker at a large number of teachers’ conferences nationally and internationally.
• My increasing interest in teacher development took me to a post at the Open University, the UK’s distance university, as a Staff Tutor in the Faculty of Education and Language Studies. In this role, I was responsible for the support and development of a team of over 80 tutors working with adult learners studying a range of education-related subjects. My particular focus was on helping tutors to develop their students’ academic writing. At the same time as doing this full-time job, I began my doctoral studies at Birkbeck on emotional aspects of foreign language use so I am well aware of the challenges of being a part-time student.
• On completing my PhD, I chose to return to classroom teaching. I took up a post in the Centre for Academic and Professional Literacy Studies (CAPLITS) at the Institute of Education, University of London, teaching academic writing to postgraduate students. As part of the CAPLITS team, I was a major contributor to an in-house student writing guide and an open access website on academic writing. My particular interest is in supporting students with writing extended texts such as dissertations and doctoral theses. In 2011, I gained a Birkbeck Excellence in Teaching Award for my college-wide project ‘Supporting master’s students with writing their dissertations’.