Ms Alison Dickens

Alison has a background in foreign language teaching (French and Spanish) in schools and Applied Linguistics and has worked at the University of Southampton in a variety of language and educational development roles since 2000. She was a senior leader for the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies from 2000-2011 during which time she led networks for teachers of Linguistics, ran teacher development workshops and successfully bid for funding for a number of language education-related projects at UK (JISC/HEA) and EU (Lingua Programme). Projects include: Opening the Door to Language Learning 2002-2005 (EU), The Language Café 2006-2008 (EU), Language Network for Quality Assurance LANQUA 2007-2010 (EU), The Community Café (technology upskilling for Community Languages teachers) with Kate Borthwick 2010-2011 (JISC), The Humbox Project (sharing open education resources in the Humanities) with Kate Borthwick 2009-2010 (HEA).

Since 2011, when HEA funding for the LLAS Subject Centre ceased she has been instrumental in developing Enterprise activities for the department of Modern Languages and Linguistics and for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Enterprise activities to date have had a strong focus on Continuing Professional Development in the areas of English Medium Education (EME), English Teaching (TESOL), E-learning skills for practising teachers mainly at international level.

Examples include:

• The CSC Programme - a major teacher development programme for teachers of English from China, commissioned and funded by the China Scholarship Council (CSC). This programme offered in-service development to over 200 English teachers from China (2016-2019
• IELTS Training – short courses run in partnership with Waiyan Online (a division of the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, FLTRP) to provide professional development training for teachers of IELTS in China (2019-2021)
• EME Master Trainers – a project funded by the British Council, Philippines to provide a ‘train the trainer’ course in English Medium Education for university staff in the HE sector (2021-2022)

Alison is also director of Lifelong Learning for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Lifelong Learning offers a range of languages and Humanities subjects and is open to members of our local community as well as to staff and students at the University of Southampton.

Since 2016 she has run a range of internal short courses for students, namely:

• The Southampton Language Opportunity Programme (free, extra-curricular language courses for Southampton University students from all disciplines)
• The FAH Postgraduate Training Programme (research, teaching and related skills training for Faculty of Humanities PhD students)

Although her main role is in the area of Enterprise and short courses Alison does contribute to Education activities within the department of Modern Languages and Linguistics. These include: Senior Tutor (PGT); Personal Academic Tutor, MA Dissertation Supervisor. She also contributes to teaching on the MA TESOL/Applied Linguistics Programmes (Modern Languages), most recently in the field of e-learning and is a mentor for colleagues across the University for the PREP scheme whereby staff and PhD students can apply for HEA Fellowship.