Clare Furneaux

Office

Room 180, HumSS Building, Tel. 0118 3788986 (internal 8986)

E-mail

c.l.furneaux@reading.ac.uk

University responsibilities

Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics.

National Award: Clare was made a National Teaching Fellow by the UK Higher Education Academy in 2009.

Qualifications

BA Joint Honours English and History ( Bristol ); Post-graduate Certificate in Typography: Web-based Design (Reading); Post-graduate Certificate 'Applications of IT in Open and Distance Learning' (Open University). Diploma in the Teaching of English Overseas (Manchester ); MA in Applied Linguistics (Reading).

Courses taught

Core Issues in ELT, Language Curriculum Design, Literacy: Social, educational and cognitive perspectives, Teaching the Language skills, The Teaching of Writing, Study Skills, Teaching English to Young Learners.

Research interests

Writing in a second language, learning strategies, distance learning, on-line learning.

Pedagogic interests

Curriculum design, the teaching of writing, learning strategies (including study skills), teaching young learners, English for Academic Purposes, on-line teaching and learning

Publications

Furneaux, C. et al, 1991. 'Talking heads and shifting bottoms: the ethnography of academic seminars' in Adams, P. et al (eds) Socio-Cultural Issues in English for Academic Purposes MEP in association with the British Council

Tonkyn, A. et al, 1993. 'The EAP teacher: prophet of doom or eternal optimist? EAP teachers' predictions of students' success' in Blue, G. (ed) Language, Learning and Success: Studying through English MEP in association with the British Council

Rignall, M. and Furneaux, C. 1997. Speaking Prentice Hall/Phoenix ELT. EAP textbook and teacher's book

Johnson, K. and H. Johnson (eds) 1998. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Applied Linguistics Oxford: Blackwell. 14 entries. The entry on 'Process Writing' can be viewed online.

Furneaux, C. 1999. 'Fostering presentation/discussion skills in teachers' ETAI Forum Vol. X, 2

Furneaux, C. 1999. 'Recent materials on teaching writing' (Review article) ELT Journal 53/1: 56-61.

Paran, A., Furneaux, C. & Sumner, N. 2004. Computer-mediated communication in distance MA programmes: the student's perspective. System 32: 337-355.

Furneaux, C. and Rignall, M. 2007. 'The effect of standardisation-training on rater judgements for the IELTS Writing Module'. In Taylor, L & Falvey, P. (eds) IELTS Collected Papers: Research in speaking and writing assessment SiLT 19 Cambridge: Cambridge University Press/UCLES Cambridge ESOL, pp. 422-445.

Presentations

February 1999: Plenary talk: 'Creating a positive learning environment and promoting learner independence through EAP speaking materials' Workshop: 'EAP speaking materials' Bilkent University 4th International ELT Conference, Ankara, Turkey

June 1999 (with Amos Paran) 'Feedback on writing: do teachers hunt as a pack?' CALS 25th Anniversary Conference, Reading University

April 2000: 'Being a distance study MA student' TESOL Arabia, Al Ain.

April 2000: 'ESP teacher training through materials' Fourth Maghreb ESP Conference Agadir, Morocco.

March 2001: 'Preparing students for university-level study in English' Invited speaker at TESOL Arabia, Dubai.

Sept 2001 'CMC in language education: on-line EAP writing tutoring' (with Anne Pallant) (Powerpoint presentation) BAAL conference, Reading , UK

April 2003. 'Computer mediated Communication on post-graduate distance courses: Who Needs It?' (with Amos Paran). IATEFL, Brighton , UK .

June 2003 Learning support needs and solutions in University academic writing contexts (Powerpoint presentation) Invited Closing Plenary Speaker at European Association of Teachers of Academic Writing Conference , Budapest, Hungary

April 2004. 'Synchronous on-line tutorials for staff development?' (with Kerry Shepherd, Paul Haslam and Maggie Hutchings). Networked Learning Conference, Lancaster , UK .

October, 2004. Teaching writing: Issues from a British perspective (Powerpoint presentation) Invited Closing Plenary Speaker. Workshop: Teaching writing in a process way. National Conference on Writing Workshops in the Teaching of Languages, University of Aveiro , Portugal.

May 2006 Challenges of Academic Writing conference, for Estonian and Finnish University teachers and researchers, Estonia Opening Plenary: 'What do academic writers need to know?' Workshop: 'Building up students' knowledge in academic writing' (Sponsored by the British Council).

April 2009 British Association of Lecturers of English for Academic Purposes Conference, Reading, UK Closing plenary: 'ESP: How specific does it get?'.

June 2009 European Association of Teachers of Academic Writing, Coventry, UK Paper: 'Academic writing needs among undergraduate students' (with Nicola Taylor) April 2009 British Association of Lecturers of English for Academic Purposes Conference, Reading, UK Paper: 'Academic writing needs among native speaker undergraduate students' (with Nicola Taylor).

July 2009 Learning and Teaching Conference with the CETL-AURS (Learning Through Enquiry Alliance) annual conference, University of Reading, UK Paper: 'Taught Post-Graduate Students Learning to Write for the Academy: the case of Applied Linguistics'.

Experience

Clare began her career as a VSO English language teacher in Sabah, Malaysia (at secondary school level), and then in Nepal (tertiary level). She has also taught ELT in China, Japan, Jordan, Portugal, and the UK . Since joining the University, she has taken part in the following:

CONSULTANCIES

1. Workshops/seminars on the teaching of writing in India (British Council: BC), Spain , (BC), Portugal , Germany (BC), Poland , Cyprus (BC).
2. Workshop/seminar on teaching grammar in Morocco (BC).
3. Seminars on teaching spoken language in Malaysia (BC).
4. Seminar on teaching learning strategies in Spain (BC).

CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS

• On EAP research projects in Britain
• On teaching spoken language in Britain , Morocco and Turkey
• On teaching writing in Estonia, Israel, Bulgaria, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, UK
• On learner strategies in Singapore and Spain
• On teaching young learners in Italy and Spain
• On distance learning in the UAE
• On online learning in the UK

She has also taught on EAP and ESP courses. She has been the academic director for the MA ELT (formerly MA TEFL) by Distance Study programme since its inception in 1997 and also teaches on the campus-based programme.