English Language Advisory Group members

Harry Kuchah Kuchah is Associate Professor of Language, Social Justice and Education the School of Education, University of Birmingham, UK. His professional experience also includes school-based literacy support with young learners in the UK as well as in-service teacher education and material development projects in Sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. More recently, he has been a consultant on different aspects of language policy and practice for the Council of Europe in Albania; Windle Trust International in South Sudan and the British Council in several countries in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and South America. His research looks at social and epistemic (in)justice in two main areas of Language education - the politics and practice of TESOL and English medium education (EME) - and he has published widely in these areas. He is co-editor of International Perspectives on Teaching English in Difficult Circumstances (Springer, 2018) and Ethical and Methodological Issues in Researching Young Language Learners in School Contexts (Multilingual Matters, 2021).

Annamaria Pinter is a Professor and Head of Applied Linguistics, the University of Warwick, UK. Her research interests focus on all aspects of second/ foreign language education for children, task-based second language teaching and learning, and engaging children actively in research. She has published widely in the area of teaching English to children and has a strong international reputation in TEYL and second language teacher education. She is the author of Teaching Young Language Learners Oxford Handbooks for Language Teachers, Oxford University Press (second edition, 2017), Children Learning Second Languages, Palgrave Macmillan (2011), Engaging Children in Applied Linguistics Research, Cambridge University Press (2024), and she is currently joint series editor of Early Language Learning in School Contexts by Multilingual Matters.

Dr Anthony Manning is Dean for Global and Lifelong Learning at the University of Kent, having previously worked at the University of Reading. Through his role at Kent, Anthony is responsible for developing, implementing and reviewing the International and Lifelong Learning activity, which includes English for Academic Purposes (EAP), international pathways to higher education,  apprenticeships and online learning. Anthony is also a Principal Fellow of AdvanceHE and a National Teaching Fellow. In addition to his work at Kent, Anthony has worked as an External Examiner for ten Universities in the UK, China, and Uzbekistan, focusing on modules and courses in English and Academic skills.  He has a doctorate in the assessment of EAP and has lived and taught English in five countries, including France, Germany, China, and Japan. Anthony is the current Chair of the British Accreditation Council’s (BAC’s) Accreditation Committee. BAC oversees educational inspections for language schools and other institutions in the UK and 20 different countries. Anthony’s publications focus on internationalisation in Higher Education and the teaching and assessment of English for Specific Purposes.

Dr. Darío Luis Banegas is Lecturer in Education at the Moray House School of Education and Sport, University of Edinburgh, where he leads a course on language curriculum development. He conducts research in the areas of social justice and inclusion, content language integrated learning (CLIL), and intersectionality in language teacher education. His research, particularly through action research, focuses on South America. Darío is an active member of professional associations in Argentina and the UK. He has designed curricula and advised on curriculum evaluation for different educational systems and universities in Latin America, Spain, and Japan. 

Judit Kormos is a Professor in Second Language Acquisition at Lancaster University. Her research focuses on the cognitive processes involved in learning and using additional languages and inclusive language teaching. She has published widely on the effect of dyslexia on learning additional languages including the book “The Second Language Acquisition Process of Students with Specific Learning Difficulties” (Routledge, 2017) and with Anne-Margaret Smith co-authored the book Teaching Languages to Students with Specific Learning Differences (Multilingual Matters). She is also the author of several research papers that have investigated the accessibility of language tests for young learners. She was a key partner in the EU-sponsored Dyslexia for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language and the Comics for Inclusive Language  Teaching projects both of which won the British Council’s ELTon award. She is the lead educator of the Dyslexia and Foreign Language Teaching massive open online learning course offered by FutureLearn and has run teacher education workshops and webinars on inclusive language teaching in a large variety of international contexts.

Khawla Badwan is Reader in TESOL and applied linguistics at Manchester Metropolitan University.  Her interdisciplinary work brings together expertise in intercultural communication, literacy debates, decoloniality, language education, language and sustainability, language and social justice, language and identity, and sociolinguistics of globalisation.

Her most recent publication is Language in a Globalised World: Social Justice Perspectives on Mobility and Contact (Palgrave, 2021). This book won the runner-up Book Prize Award 2022 organised by the British Association of Applied Linguistics (BAAL). 

She is editor (with Shoba Arun, Hadjer Taibi, and Farwa Batool) of Global Migration and Diversity of Educational Experiences in the Global South and North: A Child-Centred Approach (Routledge, 2023).

Khawla is appointed by the Quality Assurance Agency as the chair of the advisory board for reviewing the benchmarking statement for Linguistics (2022-2023). She is currently co-leading the Manchester Centre for Research in Linguistics hosted at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Her latest research projects include The Voices of the Future project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (Co-I) and the Children’s Sociolinguistics Project funded by Manchester Metropolitan University (Principal Investigator).

Psyche Kennett is an independent English, education and governance consultant with expertise in English as a subject in basic education and education system reform in low income countries. She has worked as a team leader for humanitarian-development-peace-nexus programmes in South and South East Asia for the British Council, GIZ and former DfID and AusAid. She works with the Education Advisory Services to the EU on gender equality and girls’ education.

Psyche specialises in teacher education, materials development and adapting ELT methodology for other subjects in the curriculum and across disciplines in international development. She supports education ministries and government institutions to promote gender equality, rights-based approaches and social justice through content and language integrated learning, inclusive classroom management, and task-based critical thinking skills for teachers and textbook writers.

As one of the founding trustees of the Language and Development Conference series, Psyche utilises her practical project management experience to champion language for resilience and English as a tool for conflict transformation in crisis affected communities.

Rachel Wicaksono is Professor of TESOL and Applied Linguistics, and Head of the School of Education, Language and Psychology at York St John University. She has taught English, trained teachers, inspected programmes, and led courses and schools in: Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Vietnam, Malaysia, China, Japan, Thailand and Sweden.

In 2013, she was awarded a Higher Education Academy National Teaching Fellowship for her work on the internationalisation of Higher Education. She has been a member of the BAAL Executive Committee since 2017 and is currently Membership Secretary.

She has published on applied linguistics and English language teacher education, including: Mapping Applied Linguistics: A Guide for Students and Practitioners (Routledge), York’s Hidden Stories: Interview in Applied Linguistics (Palgrave), and Ontologies of English: Conceptualising the Language for Learning, Teaching, and Assessment (Cambridge University Press).

Sue Garton is Professor of Applied Linguistics (TESOL) at Aston University, Birmingham, UK. She has been an English language teacher and teacher educator for nearly 40 years, working with teachers from all over the world. She has worked on a number of Erasmus+ and British Council funded projects on teaching young learners, CLIL and EME.  She has published widely in the area of TESOL including The Routledge Handbook of Teaching English to Young Learners and is co-series editor of the 15-volume International Perspectives in ELT series, published by Palgrave Macmillan (both with Fiona Copland). Her research interests are in language teacher education, teaching young learners and classroom discourse.

Thom Kiddle is Director at Norwich Institute for Language Education (NILE), where he has worked since 2011. Previously, he was head of academic research and educational technology at the Chilean-British University in Santiago, and worked in Portugal, the UK, Australia and Thailand in language teaching, teacher training and language assessment.

He has a Master’s degree in Language Testing from Lancaster University and the Cambridge DELTA, and his role at NILE involves strategic and organisational leadership, and training and consultancy in a range of areas including the CEFR, testing and assessment, learning technologies, and language teaching methodology.

Thom is also Chair of the Eaquals Board of Trustees, and treasurer and founding director of AQUEDUTO – the Association for Quality Education and Training Online.

He has published in Applied Linguistics, Language Assessment Quarterly and System journals; in 2019, two chapters in Routledge Handbooks of Language Teacher Education; and has two forthcoming publications on Quality Assurance and Digital Language Teaching Materials in 2023. Thom was also a plenary speaker at IATEFL 2021.