Christine Coombe

Biographical Statement:

Christine Coombe has a Ph.D in Foreign/Second Language Education from The Ohio State University. She is currently on the English faculty of Dubai Men's College. She is the former Testing and Measurements Supervisor at UAE University and Assessment Coordinator of Zayed University. Christine is co-editor of Assessment Practices (2003, TESOL Publications); co-author, A Practical Guide to Assessing English Language Learners (2007, University of Michigan Press); co-editor, Evaluating Teacher Effectiveness in EF/SL Contexts (2007, UMP); co-editor, Language Teacher Research in the Middle East (2007, TESOL Publications), Leadership in English Language Teaching and Learning (2008, UMP) and Applications of Task-based Learning in TESOL (2010, TESOL Publications). Christine’s forthcoming books are on task-based learning and reigniting, retooling and retiring in English language teaching.

Christine has lived and worked in the Arabian Gulf for the past 19 years. In this capacity, she has served as President of TESOL Arabia and as the founder and co-chair of the TESOL Arabia Testing Special Interest Group who organize the Current Trends in English Language Testing (CTELT) Conference.

During her tenure in the Middle East, she has won many awards including: 2002 Spaan Fellowship for Research in Second/Foreign Language Assessment; 2002-03 TOEFL Outstanding Young Scholar Award; TOEFL Board Grant for 2003-04, 2005-06, 2007-08 and 2009-10 for her work in delivering assessment training assessment in developing countries. Most recently she served on the TESOL Board of Directors as Convention Chair for Tampa 2006 and was the recipient of the Chancellor’s Teacher of the Year for 2003-04. She is currently TESOL President (2010-2013).

Lindsay Clandfield

Biographical Statement:

Lindsay Clandfield is the main author of Global (2010), part of the author team for Straightforward and co-author of Dealing with Difficulties. Lindsay is a teacher, teacher trainer, and international author from Canada. He has addressed teachers and given workshops in more than 20 countries. He was the founder of Pecha Kucha ELT and creator of www.sixthings.net.

Paul Seligson

Biographical Statement:

Paul Seligson is one of the most experienced and well-known teacher trainers in the field of English Language Teaching. He has been involved with TEFL for some 30 years and is particularly well known in Latin America for giving lively, highly practical talks and training sessions.

He has an MA in TEFL and is a CELTA assessor and LCCI examiner. He has taught in Algeria, France, Egypt, Venezuela, the UK and Spain where he worked for 5 years at the British Council in Valencia. He also established and ran his own school in Brighton and has considerable experience at all levels of school management.

Ben Goldstein

Biographical Statement:

Ben has taught English for over twenty years in the UK, Spain and Hong Kong. He currently teaches on The New School’s MATESOL program (New York). He is lead author of the adult coursebook series ‘American Framework’ and ‘New Framework’ (Richmond) and has published the teachers’ handbook ‘Working with Images’ (Cambridge). For more information: www.bengoldstein.es

Brock Brady

Biographical Statement:

Brock Brady is the Programming and Training Education Sector Specialist for the U.S. Peace Corps and the current Past-President of the TESOL International Association (the world’s largest English teaching association with over 12,000 members). Before coming to Peace Corps, Brady served as Coordinator then Co Director of the American University TESOL Program in Washington, DC for 12 years, developing and enhancing academic programs and designing and teaching graduate level teacher education courses. Prior to coming to American University, Brady directed English Language Programs for the State Department in Burkina Faso and Benin, lectured at a science and technical university for two years in Korea, served as a Fulbright Scholar in France, and as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Togo, W. Africa. Brady matriculated at Reed College and Portland State University in Oregon.

Brady’s research interests include program and course design, cross-cultural discourse analysis, pronunciation, teacher education, and most recently English language planning, policy, and use. He has also taught English or engaged in educational consulting in the U.S., Angola, China, Egypt, France, the Gambia, Guatemala, Israel, Mali, Mexico, Panama, Portugal, Sierra Leone, Singapore, South Africa, and Spain.

Jeremy Harmer

Biographical Statement:

Jeremy Harmer has taught in Mexico and the UK and is currently on the faculty for the MA TESOL at the New School University, New York. He has trained teachers and offered seminars all over the world. A writer of both course material and methodology, his titles include How to teach Writing (2004), the new, extensively revised second edition of How to Teach English (2007), and the brand new fourth edition of The Practice of English Language Teaching (2007)– all published by Pearson Education Ltd. He is the General Editor of the Longman ‘How to’ methodology list. Recent projects have included involvement in the new ‘Teacher Development Interactive’ an online self study course for ELT practitioners. He is also a keen musician and performer and has recently released a CD called Touchable Dreams. http://touchabledreams.posterous.com

Luke Meddings

Biographical Statement:

Luke Meddings trained at International House London and worked as a teacher, journalist and teacher manager in ELT for over 10 years before co-founding the dogme in ELT movement with Scott Thornbury in 2000. Their book, Teaching Unplugged, was published by Delta in 2009 and won a British Council ELTon award for Innovation in 2010. Since then, Luke has written and trained extensively around dogme and unplugged approaches, giving plenary talks, seminars and workshops in Turkey, Spain, Poland, France and the UK. Luke is active in the ELT blogosphere and has enjoyed connecting with Brazilian educators both face to face and online in 2011. In addition to interviews with Valeria Franca (for #BReltChat), Willy Cardoso (for TESOL France Teaching Times) and Henrick Oprea (for the Atlantic Idiomas magazine), he will be working with Fernando Guarany on an unplugged teacher training course in Natal in July 2012, just before the BRAZ-TESOL Convention.

Ilan Kernerman

Biographical Statement:

Ilan Kernerman heads K DICTIONARIES (KD), an international dictionary company based in Tel Aviv. It develops dictionary content and software covering well over 40 languages, and cooperates with publishing houses, technology firms, universities, lexicography associations, language experts and translators all over the world. In Brazil, KD has been cooperating for the last 20 years with Martins Fontes on the Password dictionary.

Jack C. Richards

Biographical Statement:

Dr. Jack C. Richards is a teacher educator, an internationally renowned specialist in second and foreign language teaching, an applied linguist and an honorary professor at the University of Sydney, Australia.

David Nunan

Biographical Statement:

David Nunan, Vice President of Academic Affairs and Dean of the Graduate School of Education, has been with the California-based institution since its founding in 1996, when he played a central part in the development of the University's ground-breaking interactive online learning system. Dr. Nunan is a world-renowned linguist and best-selling author of English Language Teaching textbooks for Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, and Thomson Learning. His ELT textbook series "Go For It" is the largest selling textbook series in the world with total sales exceeding 1 billion. In 2000, David Nunan served as President of TESOL, the world's largest language teaching association, and was the first person to serve as President from outside North America. David Nunan has served as Chair and Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Hong Kong since 1994 and has been involved in the teaching of graduate programs for such prestigious institutions as Columbia University, the University of Hawaii, Monterey Institute for International Studies, and many more. In 2002 Dr. Nunan received a congressional citation from the United States House of Representatives for his services to English language education through his pioneering work in online education at Anaheim University, and in 2003 he was ranked the 7th most influential Australian in Asia by Business Review Weekly.

Herbert Puchta

Biographical Statement:

Dr. Herbert Puchta is a full time writer and teacher trainer. He has been a plenary speaker at numerous international conferences, and has conducted workshops and given seminars in more than 30 countries.
For almost three decades, he has carried out research into the practical application of findings from cognitive psychology to the teaching of English as a foreign language. Herbert has co-authored a number of bestselling course books for the teaching of English as a foreign language, and written numerous articles and resource books.
Until recently, Herbert was President of IATEFL, the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language.

Nicky Hockly

Biographical Statement:

Nicky is the Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E (www.theconsultants-e.com), an online training and development organisation which helps teachers learn about technology.
She has been involved in EFL teaching and training since 1987, and is author of several methodology books about technology in EFL.
She specialises in online teaching and training via virtual learning environments such as Moodle, and the application of ICT in the language classroom.
She is currently writing a book about digital literacies. You can read more about Nicky at: http://www.theconsultants-e.com/about/team/NickyHockly.aspx