About
I studied Early & Modern Irish at Trinity College Dublin before teaching Irish and French at a Dublin comprehensive school. I moved to Scotland in the 1970s, where I studied applied linguistics and worked as researcher and lecturer in Stirling and in Edinburgh. In the 1980s I moved to Southampton where I was lecturer and professor in the School of Education and later in Modern Languages. In 2014 I became Emeritus Professor in Applied Linguistics. I am a former editor of the OUP journal Applied Linguistics and Chair of the British Association for Applied Linguistics; I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.