Staff profile

staff list  BackMr Mark Almond

  • Job title: Senior Lecturer
  • Dept: English and Language Studies
  • Tel: 01227 782308
  • Campus: Canterbury
Mark Almond

Senior Lecturer (Language Studies)

MA TESOL (Kent), DELTA, CELTA and LCCI Advanced Language Certificate (French and German)

Office: Es25

Ext: 2308

Mark has taught and directed courses for English language teachers and learners in the UK, Europe and Asia.

At Christ Church University, he is a Senior Lecturer and contributes to various programmes for pre- and in-service teachers: he directs the department's full- and part-time CELTA course and a short course for trainee teachers from Uppsala University, Sweden.

He also teaches on the Certificate in ELT (for Middle Eastern secondary school teachers), the Certificate in TESOL, the Diploma/MA TESOL, general English language and International Foundation programmes.

His main research area is in the use of drama in the language classroom and dramaturgical devices for creative and effective teaching.

He is widely published in this field and his book, 'Teaching English with Drama' was published by Modern English Publishing in the autumn of 2005. In 2003, he was seconded to the Hong Kong Institute of Education for six months specifically to implement drama components into their pre- and post-graduate English language programmes.

He speaks French and German.

  • Publications
  • Reviews and Reports
  • Conferences
  • Consultancies
  • Drama Cunsultant/Trainer
  • Examining

Publications

  • Is the Bard Barred from your Classroom? Dramatising Shakespeare in the Language Classroom (2010 forthcoming), English Teaching Professional, Issue 72
  • Nuevas Perspectivas en la Didactica de las Lenguaculturas, Drama Undiluted for the Language Classroom (chapter), forthcoming 2010
  • Affect and Performance Skills in the Language Classroom (2010) in Towards a Student-Centred Pedagogy in English Language Teaching, Christian College Kattakada
  • Getting Students to Write Rap (2009), English Teaching Professional, Issue 60
  • Developing Classroom Presence Through Acting Skills (2007), IATEFL Teacher Training and Education Special Interest Group
  • Acting Skills for Language Teachers (2007), IATEFL Voices, Issue 198
  • The Funny Side Of Phonology – A Physical Approach to Teaching Pronunciation (2007), English Teaching Professional, Issue 50
  • Let's Get Theatrical With Our Students (2006), The Teacher (Polish publication), Issue 10 (42)
  • Teachers Acting Up – From Stage Presence to Classroom Presence (2006), English Teaching Professional, Issue 45
  • Teaching English with Drama (2005), Modern English Publishing (book) ISBN 1-904549-12-8
  • Laboratorio ITALS , interview on the use of drama in ELT for a website for Italian teachers of English (2005) – in Italian Web site
  • English Teaching Essentials: Drama (2004), English Teaching Professional, Issue 35
  • Curtain up on Drama - Putting on a play with EFL learners (2002), English Teaching Professional, Issue 22
  • Bridging the Gap - Raising Cultural Awareness and Developing Communicative Skills through Drama on Immersion Programmes (2001), Hong Kong Institute of Education (chapter) ISBN 962-949-079-X

Conferences

  • Plenary speaker at the International Conference for Humanism in Language Teaching, Ancona , Italy (August 2010), Just Who Do You Think You Are? Teacher Identity in ELT plus workshops on Performance Skills to Create a Teacher Presence
  • Workshop and Talk at the 'Drama in Language Education' day at SOAS, University of London (Nov 2009), Affect and Performance in the Language Classroom. 
  • Whole-day workshop at the Pilgrims 'Humanism in Language Teaching' conference, (Aug 2009), "Teaching is Acting"! Really?
  • Keynote speaker at TESOL Spain (2009) in Seville, Teacher Identity and Performance Teaching
  • TESOL Spain (2009) in Seville, workshop on Affect in Language Teaching: a performance approach to TESOL
  • Associação Portuguesa de Professores de Inglês conference (2008), Movement in ELT – a physical approach to learning using Laban and Stanislavsky Methods. 
  • Plenary speaker at Interact Centrope 2007 - Integrating Drama in ELT at the regional Resource Centre of Berzsenyi Dániel College in co-operation with the Pädagogische Hochsule Wien and the Austrian Ministry of Education, Art and Culture in Szombathely, Hungary
  • Talk and workshop at The South West TEFL Festival at the Globe English Centre, Devon (2007), Drama in ELT
  • IATEFL Aberdeen (2007), Acting Skills for Teachers to Develop Classroom Presence
  • Cutting Edges: Classrooms, People and Cultures at Christ Church University (2007), Tackling the Bard in the English Language Classroom – why we should and how we can
  • Keynote Speaker at the English Teaching Professional Live Conference, London (2007), Going The Whole Hog: Putting on a Play with English Language Learners
  • Invited speaker at the English UK Teachers' Conference (Nov 2006), Performance Skills for English Language Teachers
  • Cutting Edges: Classrooms, People and Cultures at Christ Church University (June 2006) - Drama in ELT: The Actor's Craft Undiluted for the Classroom
  • Plenary speaker at the International Conference for Humanism in Language Teaching, Ancona , Italy (August 2006) - Drama and Dramatisation: Improvisation Skills for the English Language Learner
  • Keynote speaker at the international English Teaching Professional conference (September 2006), Improvisation Techniques for Fluency and Confidence

  Drama Training and Consultancy

  • Scuola Germanica di Milano (2008 – present). An annual one-week in-service teacher training programme and drama workshops with students
  • Pilgrims, Canterbury (2006 – present). An annual one-week teacher training course on Drama in English Language Teaching
  • Pilgrims, Canterbury (1999 – present). Various drama and teaching methodology workshops for in-service primary and secondary teachers
  • The Hong Kong Institute of Education, six-month secondment (2003): Invited Visiting Lecturer on various under- and post-graduate programmes for Primary and Secondary pre- and in-service teachers but essentially creating, writing and demonstrating new drama modules to be incorporated into pre- and post service courses. While in Hong Kong , I was invited by the government Education and Manpower Bureau to instruct and workshop with Primary and Secondary teachers from all over the country, demonstrating the application of drama in English language teaching
  • Consultancy with HM Prison Service, Canterbury (for foreign nationals) providing professional development for language trainers in the use of drama in ELT (2008)
  • Workshop for in-service primary and secondary teachers in Vienna, Austria (2007), Drama in ELT
  • Workshop for International House, London (2007), Be Creative: Acting Skills for Teachers
  • Consultancies/CPD/INSET for teachers at various OISE schools around the UK (Bournemouth, Canterbury, London, Edinburgh, Cambridge and Oxford),  Performance Skills in the Classroom
  • Three-day consultancy with teachers of Spanish (2007), The Cervantes Institute, Madrid, The Use of Drama in the Teaching of Spanish
  • Training day for ESOL teachers organised by NATECLA (The National Association of Teaching English and other Community Languages to Adults), London (January 2007), The Use of Drama Techniques in Teaching English as an Additional Language
  • Consultant on an ESOL drama project at Tower Hamlets College, London (November 2006)
  • Norwich Institute of Language Education (NILE) in 1999 and 2000. Integrating Shakespeare into an English language syllabus

Reviews and Reports

  • Report on the Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics by Jack C Richards and Richard Schmidt for Pearson Longman (2008)
  • Report on How to Teach Listening (2007/8) by J J Wilson in the Pearson Longman series of practical resource books, for Pearson Longman
  • Review of Spontaneous Speaking (2006) by D Heathfield (DELTA Publishing), English Teaching Professional, Issue 43

Other Work

Voice actor on audio material for published ELT courses (2002 – present)

Examining

  • External examiner (PhD), University of Essex
  • CELTA assessor for the University of Cambridge ESOL
  • Examiner for University of Cambridge ESOL 2001- 2004 (Certificate in English Language Skills)
  • Item writer and examiner for University of Cambridge ESOL 1999 - 2001 (Certificate in Communicative Skills in English)

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