English for CLIL teachers

I teach on the faculty's Masters and Doctoral programmes in Primary and Secondary English Language Teaching, and on undergraduate general English courses.  I supervise Masters theses and teaching practice, and I conduct the faculty's English language level tests for potential Erasmus students.  I am the coordinator ("regente") for undergraduate English courses and also for Continuing Education English courses.    

In addition to teaching and coordination, I carry out research for CETAPS / Working CLIL, including Erasmus-funded projects.  My main research area is L2 classroom pedagogy and my work has focussed on Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory and its role in peer interaction, learner languaging, scaffolding and microgenetic development, and also on codeswitching, error correction and assessment in CLIL.  My papers on learning and teaching have been published in peer-reviewed journals including System, ELTJ and the International Journal of Educational Research, and also in teachers’ magazines such as ETP, MET and the APPI Journal.  I have presented my research at international conferences including AAAL and BAAL. I peer-review for journals that include TESOL Quarterly, System, JEAP, JCAL, and Interactive Learning Environments. 

I hold a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Lancaster in the UK, in addition to CELTA, DELTA, an MA in Applied Linguistics & TESOL, and a BA (Hons) in Hispanic Studies. 

Before working at FLUP I taught English (general and EAP) and trained language teachers at universities and language schools in the UK, Spain, Ecuador and Colombia.   

Qualifications

Doctorate in Didactics of Languages (Ph.D), Faculdade de Letras, Universidade do Porto (2014).Thesis: CLIL as a Catalyst for Developing Reflective Practice in Foreign Language Teacher Education.  Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA in TESOL), University of Manchester (2008). Dissertation: Developing Initial Teacher Education through Action Research. Bachelor of Education (B.Ed Hons 4 + 1 years) in Primary Education. Bath College of Higher Education (now Bath Spa University College) (1989). Individual study: Bilingualism: Attitudes of teachers and pupils, and consequences for British state schools.

Other relevant qualifications in TEFL

Royal Society of Arts/UCLES (University of Cambridge Examinations Syndicate) Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language to Adults (1995). Royal Society of Arts Certificate in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (1989).

Convener of the Working CLIL Research strand of CETAPS https://www.cetaps.com/clil/

Research interests

Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) in compulsory education; Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education (ICLHE); Language awareness across the curriculum; The affective domain in foreign language teaching; Dimensions of teacher reflection; Teaching English to Young Learners (5-11 years); Action research in language teacher education.

Current projects

COST -  CLIL Network for Languages in Education: Towards Bi- and multilingual disciplinary literacies (CLILNetLE). Management committee for Portugal https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA21114/

Erasmus + K2:  Towards an Integrated Bilingual Model (IBMODEL) https://ibmodel.org/

The 'Go-CLIL' project at Escola Dr. Joaquim  Gomes Ferreira Alves, Valadares. Pedagogic coordinator.

Recent publications Click here

Awards

European Language Label Award - Selo Europeu  (2008) and Label of Labels Award (2012) for the STEPS-UP project (Support for Teaching English in Primary Schools) with Fátima Vieira. The STEPS-UP project is a case study for NELLIP (Network of European Language Labelled Initiatives).