“So you are a native speaker of English and you have a PhD. You should be able to teach English, right?” Wrong. This is a common misconception held by aspiring language teaching academics looking to change their career paths and those outside of the profession alike. The academic teaching English…>
Career Development
How to Get through Your Probationary Period
You are in an exciting position: you have been hired in a permanent position but your new employer says that you have to undergo a probationary period before your job is officially yours. What does this mean, and what is the best way to ensure that you successfully negotiate this…>
Making A Five Year Research Plan
Many academics will be asked by their institutions to produce a research plan that will take them up to the date of the next REF-style audit. In this exercise universities want their researchers to conduct ‘blue skies’ thinking that will fulfil their institutional strategic needs. However, scholars have their own…>
Getting Published
There has been a proliferation of options for would-be writers to be published in recent years due to the development of digital technology and social media platforms. Many publications are now both online as well as in hard copy, with others only accessible online. Whilst this offers more choice for…>
Top Ten Tips on Note-taking
Note-taking is a skill that we use in many walks of life: at school, university and in the world of work. However, it will be obvious to many people that they have not honed the skills needed to get maximum potential from their note-taking, so here are 10 tips on…>
Considering a Career Change? Your 5 Step Plan for Success
A career change can be a daunting process and usually comes with a significant investment in the process: time, money or both. However, it need not be as daunting as you might think, after all, most people will change career several times over the course of their working life. The…>
Considering Graduate Career Options
This article highlights some of the key points for those starting to consider the wide, and perhaps sometimes confusing, range of graduate career options on offer. It could be that you’re nearing graduation and haven’t given too much thought up till now about what you’ll do once you’ve got your…>
Tips And Techniques To Chair a Meeting Effectively
Tips to Chair a Meeting Effectively. 1. What is the meeting for? Is the meeting needed to gather information, to generate new ideas, to explore options in detail, or to make decisions? Or perhaps it is some combination of the above? Is the meeting needed at all? Meetings cost money….>
Things To Consider When Starting An Academic Career In China
Congratulations! You have secured an academic position and landed in China. Here are a few practical tips in getting ready to start.
Teacher of English Speakers of Other Languages – TESOL
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages is usually abbreviated to TESOL, a similar role to Teaching English as a Foreign Language, except that TESOL is usually for people who live in English-speaking countries. The basic idea behind TESOL is the instruction of English to adults and children in the…>