Teaching Staff
Amos Paran
Amos Paran
After a false start as a medical student I studied for a first degree in English Literature and Linguistics at Bar Ilan University. I did a teaching diploma as an insurance policy and during my final year got hooked on teaching. I spent eight years or so as a secondary school teacher, and became involved in writing support materials for Israeli Educational Television, which later led to writing coursebooks, exam practice materials and supplementary skills books. I did an MA in Applied Linguistics and a PhD at the University of Reading (UK) and later also did an MA in Education and Development, specializing in Distance Education. After four years at the University of Reading I moved to the Institute of Education in London, now part of University College London, where I am now Professor of TESOL. My main areas of interest are using literature in EFL, reading in EFL and distance education; publications include editing Literature in Language Teaching and Learning (TESOL 2006) and Testing the Untestable in Language Education (Multilingual Matters 2010). My most recent books are a teachers’ resource book, Literature: Into the Classroom (with Pauline Robinson, OUP 2016); Taking Language and Language Teaching online, (edited with Sandra Stadler-Heer, Bloomsbury 2022) and Becoming a Reading Teacher (with Jane Spiro, Routledge 2023). I have worked with teachers in many international contexts such as Chile, France and Spain, including visiting appointments at the University of Tübingen (Germany) and the University of Szeged (Hungary). I am a tutor on the free MOOC, Teaching EFL/ESL Reading: A Task-Based Approach ( https://www.coursera.org/learn/esl-reading) and am co-convenor of the AILA research network, Literature in Language Learning and Teaching Website: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/centre-applied-linguistics . I am also the Reviews Editor for the ELT Journal and a member of the Advisory Board of IATEFL. A full list of my publications is available here https://iris.ucl.ac.uk/iris/browse/profile?upi=APARA68