Bournemouth and Reading

After a few years in Mexico I ended up in Bournemouth, UK, teaching for Eurocentre there. I worked with an amazing collection of people, including John Arnold with whom I wrote my first two mainstream EFL books, Advanced writing Skills and Advanced Speaking Skills, both published by Longman which is an imprint of Pearson Education Ltd.

Two and a half years later I studied for a Masters in Applied Linguistics at the University of Reading where the faculty included people like David Wilkins, Peter Roach, Peter Trudgill, the ‘two Keiths’ – Keith Morrow and Keith Johnson – Irene Warburton and David Crystal. From Crystal, in particular, I learnt not just about the subjects he taught us, but also about how the way in which lecturing and presenting are offered is of vital importance to the way listeners and participants perceive what is being said and demonstrated.