Welcome to my website!
I come from the UK originally and am of Welsh ancestry. I was educated at the Universities of Oxford (first degree in English Language & Literature), Leicester (PGCE teaching qualification in primary education) and Lancaster (postgraduate degree in Applied Linguistics). I taught for 14 years at the University of Leeds and still retain a close link with the institution.
I am interested in:
• language and development
• needs analysis and language planning
• language in education
• mother-tongue based multilingual education (MTB MLE)
• the inappropriacy of English in many contexts
• class size (learning and teaching in large classes).
Since the early 1970s I have spent much of my life in Indonesia, involved in teaching, project management, research and lecturing. My home is in Cinere, just south of Jakarta. I am particularly interested in:
• education policy and practice in Indonesia in general
• language policy in Indonesia
• English in Indonesia – its characteristics and the roles that it plays.
I have carried out research, consultancy and teacher development work in many other parts of the world apart from Indonesia:
Asia
• India
• Maldives
• Nepal
• Pakistan
• South Korea
• Sri Lanka
• Thailand
• Timor Leste
I have also spoken at conferences in Bangladesh, Cambodia, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam.
Sub-Saharan Africa
• Côte d’Ivoire
• Gabon
• Kenya
• Nigeria
• Senegal
I have also spoken at a conference in South Africa.
Middle East and North Africa
• Iraq/Jordan
• Morocco
• Oman
• Saudi Arabia
• Yemen
Europe and North America
• Czech Republic
• United Kingdom
I have also spoken at conferences in Canada, Ireland and USA.
I have been writing about the issues that interest me since the late 1970s. I also have considerable experience in editing books (published by British Council, Cambridge University Press, Mouton De Gruyter, Multilingual Matters and others).
Conferences are a very important part of my professional life. I have been involved for many years in the organisation of two series of conferences:
• ITB-Leeds-British Council International Conferences on Language Education in Indonesia (held in Bandung, Indonesia, every two years since 1995)
• Language and Development Conferences (held in different parts of the developing world every two years since 1993).
Outside work, I collect traditional Indonesian textiles. I am interested in how they are produced, the meanings they have and the ways that they are used.