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Helen Spencer-Oatey

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Profile: I started my ELT career in Hong Kong, where I taught English language at Hong Kong Baptist University and at the British Council Language Centre (1977–1979). Having gained this teaching experience, I returned to the UK to take an MEd degree at Cardiff University, with TEFL as my main speciality. This provided me with valuable theoretical background for my teaching. Soon afterwards, I went to work at Shanghai Jiaotong University where, through a British Council initiative, I ran an in-service teacher course. I worked there for seven years (1981–1988), and during this fruitful period I developed an interest in the interrelationship between language, culture and pedagogy. This now forms the main focus of my research and teaching interests. For my PhD degree at Lancaster University (1989–1992), I investigated British and Chinese conceptions of the tutor–student relationship, and when I was teaching at the University of Bedfordshire (1992–2002), I continued to research cross-cultural and intercultural issues. I established the UK’s first MA degree course in Intercultural Communication, and when I took up the management of HEFCE’s eChina-UK Programme see Web site in 2002, I had the opportunity to put my words into practice through my management of this complex set of international projects. The eChina-UK Programme is now nearing completion, and in September 2007 I’ll be taking up the post of Director of CELTE (Centre for English Language Teacher Education, at the University of Warwick

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