Emma is an Academic Development Lecturer at UCO, supporting students with their academic skills development. After graduating with a BA (Hons) in Linguistics, Emma spent two years working in educational research, first at the University of Lancaster on two Leverhulme Trust funded projects: Academic Literacy Practices: students’ experiences of difference, and A Multimedia Corpus-based Longitudinal Study of Children’s Project Work. Subsequently, Emma worked in the Centre for English Language Teacher Education at the University of Warwick on the research project, Investigating the Language Assessment of Learners with EAL.
Emma was subsequently awarded a scholarship from the University of Lancaster to study for an MA in Language Studies, specialising in Adult Literacy. During this time, she was an active member of the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre and developed a keen interest in writer identity. Her MA dissertation focused on the discoursal construction of writer identity, analysing the ways in a writer’s discoursal self is constructed by the subject positions available in the voice-types they draw upon, and the implications this has for the teaching of language and literacy, e.g. Critical Language Awareness (CLA).
After completing her PGCE in FHAE, Emma worked as a literacy tutor at Blackburn College, both within the college and out in the community. During this time, Emma worked with researchers from the Lancaster Literacy Research Centre on the Relating adults’ learning and lives project (Barton et al, 2006) which focused on how an understanding of language and literacy as a social practice can aid practitioners to work with their learners.
Prior to moving to UCO, Emma worked as a senior lecturer in teacher education for nine years at the University of Bolton and was the pathway leader for the CPD: Subject Specialist Teachers of Literacy and ESOL pathway.
Literacy and language as a social practice; academic literacy practices; discoursal construction of writer identity; Critical Language Awareness.
BA (Hons) Linguistics (Class I)
MA Language Studies (Distinction)
PGCE (Further, Higher and Adult Education)
Associate Member – Dyslexia Guild
Rea-Dickins, P., Gardner, S. and Clayton, E. (1998) Investigating the Language Assessment of Learners with EAL. Unpublished report for Minority Group Support Services, Coventry City Council Education Service, University of Warwick.
