Enhancing the sustainable learning experience
The view from Hong Kong University - one of the loveliest places I’ve worked.
I am an ELT and Sustainability Education consultant, trainer, author and speaker, UK-based but operating globally. My goal is to help educational organisations to facilitate the most effective and sustainable learning environment they can, within their local setting. This local setting provides the backdrop to many of my projects. I work in a range of locations around the world, especially fragile environments - that is conflict or post-conflict zones – and the scope of my work is often determined by challenging on-ground circumstances.
I have a diverse client base including government organisations such as the British Council and ministries of education, educational publishers, and private sector institutions. I have been involved in projects in over 30 countries in a range of contexts.
In addition to my paid work, I am involved in a portfolio of volunteering activities. I am President and Chair of the Board of Trustees of IATEFL from 2025-2027, sit on the board of EVE – Equal Voices in Education and on the volunteering committee of Green Action ELT.
The contexts I work in - globally
English Language Teaching (ELT) is a global enterprise and it’s no exaggeration to say that there are people learning English everywhere, all the time. A global, but not a standardised enterprise. Learners of English can find themselves in settings as diverse as hi-tech, well-funded universities in South East Asia to village schools in Sub-Saharan Africa with no resources beyond a blackboard.
Sustainabiity, and in particular, Climate Change Education is increasingly being integrated into mainstream education around the world, at both national level through ministry initiatives, and at grass roots level, in classrooms initiated by teachers.
I combine my sustainability advocacy with my knowledge of the ELT context to support institutions and teachers with their work on the interface between ELT and sustainabiity, in all its aspects.
The days of the ‘one size fits all’ approach to consultancy are, I hope, behind us. A successful consultancy project is able to respond to a variety of needs, challenges, budgets and feasibilities. In order to meet the needs of my clients, all my projects are based on listening carefully to them. Discussions will almost always begin with pre-conceived ideas from all parties, but open and frank exchanges lead to achievable and sustainable solutions.
What services do I offer?
To help clients meet the goal of facilitating the most effective learning environment, my ELT support services fall under three categories; teacher development, authoring, and speaking and advocacy. These headings are really only useful to make navigating this website easier as many of the services I offer are non-standard and may fall into none or all of the categories.
My work on ELT and sustainability merits its own heading.
The design of what I finally deliver to clients encompasses their achievable outcomes with time-frames and local circumstances embedded, takes every opportunity to in-build sustainability and of course an agreed budget. My watchword throughout my projects is sustainability. And for that sustainability to be a solid pillar of the project, a mechanism needs to be built into the design so that one of the objectives is for my place to be taken as soon as possible by home-grown talent, local colleagues who, after all, will have a far greater understanding of the context than I will ever have.
“We’re delighted with how well the talk and topic were received, and I thought I’d share a few comments from the initial (and overwhelmingly positive) feedback that has come through:
”Summed up brilliantly my own convictions and visions of teaching!”
”The clear presentation was really thought-provoking.”
”A way of thinking about this topic again and motivating to carry on addressing these issues in class.”