The British Council celebrated the official launch of the project ‘Supporting Sustainable English Teacher Continuous Professional Development in Yunnan Province’ on Thursday 14 April. The project is funded by the British Council as a collaboration between the Department of Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick and three Chinese partners – Dali University, Kunming University of Science and Technology and Yunnan Normal University.

Dr Christopher Strelluf was interviewed on the Eddie Nestor Show on BBC Radio London about language change and language ideologies on 2 March 2022. His interview begins at 1 hour 18 minutes in: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0blykkm 

He also presented as one of three language experts along with Susan Fox and Johanna Gerwin as part of Grow Social Capital's event, "Speak Cockney Day: Can Cockney be saved?," on 3 March 2022.

The 24^th volume of ELTED (English Language Teacher Education and Development) Journal has recently been published. This volume was edited by Darío Banegas with assistance from Richard Smith.

Available Open Access at http://www.elted.net/latest-volume, this iteration of the journal contains articles on language teacher identity, Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed, mentoring for teacher-research, and teaching applied linguistics through CLIL. There are also reviews of some recent teacher-research collections and books on Teacher Activity Groups and linguistics for TESOL.

Huge congratulations to Professor Jo Angouri on achieving Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)!

Jo commented:

“Receiving the PFHEA fellowship is an honour and a privilege. I was delighted to join a community of excellence-driven, committed educators who share my belief that the best contribution universities can make to the world is graduates who have received excellent research-led education.

Working and learning with students in innovative ways has been a source of inspiration over the years. I see students as equal partners in a learning community. My approach involves empowering students to take ownership of their learning and challenges traditional hierarchical boundaries between student and lecturer. In my experience, this is best achieved through programmes that enable students to address real world problems and apply theory to practice. Being in a position to make a tangible impact on the student learning experience is gratifying, and a powerful motivation to continue the journey to enhance the higher education pedagogical offering.”

See here for further information on Celebrating Warwick’s HEA Fellows.

In Formula 1, effective communication is fundamental. A study led by Dr Kieran File (supported by an Economic and Social Research Council IAA funding grant) working with Williams Racing Formula 1 team looks to understand how engineers, mechanics, team management and drivers all communicate with one another as they make decisions during the high-pressure situation of qualifying and racing events.

Dr Kieran File explains: “We see this project providing really interesting insights into how humans strategically use language to communicate under pressure. We’re also looking forward to using this innovative research agenda to help the Williams Racing team find the edge in this important but often overlooked aspect of high-performance sport.”

Further information regarding the project can be found here: https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/williams_racing_and

We are delighted to announce that the Applied Linguistics department has been ranked 3rd in The Times & The Sunday Times Good University Guide for Linguistics!

Jo Angouri, Director of Undergraduate Studies commented “I’m delighted with this tremendous success, it reflects the commitment, talent and enthusiasm of our learning community, students and colleagues, to co-creating an excellent, dynamic learning environment. Despite the difficult circumstances, we developed further our problem based, tutorial model which seeks to provide all our students with excellent subject knowledge and opportunities to apply theory to practice from day one to address real world problems of the 21^st century. Our students are at the heart of our strong learning community and share with us in our league table success.”

Additionally, the University of Warwick has been recognised as the best university in the UK for teaching quality by The Times & The Sunday Times Good University Guide with Warwick also recognised as runner up University of the Year. https://warwick.ac.uk/newsandevents/pressreleases/warwick_named_university

We look forward to an exciting year ahead!