My research interests are in the fields of English Language Learning and Teaching (e.g. ELT, TESOL, EAL, EAP) and Education. I am particularly interested in dialogue and interactivities in educational contexts, with a focus on the activity of speaking to investigate stance-taking, positionality, and perspective sharing. 

I am also interested in the application of research in corpus linguistics to education and have been involved in the design, development, and research of a number of spoken (academic and learner) corpora investigating the construction of knowledge in classroom contexts, speaking skills, stance-taking and language use in intercultural and multicultural contexts.

My research has also been applied to the development of community-based approaches to English Language learning for refugee families.  

I teach on the following masters and doctoral modules: Language Learning for TESOL;  Language Awareness for TESOL; TESOL: Discourse and Pedagogy.

I supervise doctoral students in the following areas: English for Academic Purposes (EAP);  Computer mediated communication and English Language Learning and Teaching; Speaking Skills in EAL; English Language Learning and Resilience; Multimodality in School English Language Teaching

QUB Teaching Award for Sustained Excellence (2014)

Current roles: Director of Internationalization, Director of Centre for Language Education Research

Previous roles: EdD Programme Director (Professional Doctorate in Education), MSc TESOL Programme Director