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Dr Karin Whiteside

karin whiteside profile picture
  • Head of English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
  • Academic Language and Literacy Liaison (ALLL) for Built Environment and the Doctoral and Researcher College
  • Teaching of doctoral research writing courses, workshops and ‘Language of Research’ sessions in the Doctoral and Researcher College 

Areas of interest

From a practitioner and researcher perspective, I am interested in academic genres, disciplinary discourses, and corpus linguistic approaches in EAP. My doctoral research in Applied Linguistics involved a corpus-driven discourse analysis of undergraduate writing in humanities and social sciences subjects.

I am currently involved in two funded T&L projects at Reading developing online disciplinary writing resources, for undergraduate Psychology and doctoral-level Education respectively.

With my current teaching responsibilities, I am particularly interested the teaching and learning of research writing genres.

I am a member of the EAP Steering Group for the Cara (Council for at risk academics) Syria Programme and have contributed to development and delivery of training materials on research writing for participants on the Programme. I also convene the BALEAP (Global Forum for EAP Practitioners) Special Interest Group for Doctoral Education.

Background

I have worked in English for Academic Purposes since 2004, first at the University of Nottingham, then Royal Holloway University, and from 2014 at Reading.

Much of my recent work has been in the development of programmes and materials for discipline-specific academic language and literacy development as part of Reading’s In-sessional EAP provision, the Academic English Programme (AEP), which I directed from 2016 to 2021.

In my current role as Head of EAP, I have academic oversight of both the Pre-sessional English Language Programme (PSE) and AEP.

Academic qualifications

BA, BA Hons History & MA Applied Linguistics (Victoria University, Wellington, NZ), PhD Applied Linguistics (Warwick)

CELTA (A), DELTA

Professional bodies/affiliations

Senior Fellow of Higher Education Academy, UK, 2017

Member of BALEAP (Global Forum for EAP Practitioners), EATAW (European Association for Teaching Academic Writing) and BAAL (British association for Applied Linguistics)

Reviewer: Journal of English for Academic Purposes

Selected publications

Cranwell, P., Li, D., Page, E., Whiteside, K & Woodcock, A. 2021. Understanding the barriers faced by TNE-students when completing advanced-level laboratory-based practical classes. International Journal of Chinese Education [in press]

Cranwell, P., Li, D., Page, E., Whiteside, K & Woodcock, A. 2021. Challenges faced by transnational education students in advanced STEM practical classes in Dippold, D. & Heron, M. 2021. Meaningful Teaching Interaction at the Internationalised University. London: Routledge

Cranwell, P. & Whiteside, K. 2020. Investigation into the Semantic Density and Semantic Gravity Wave Profile of Teachers When Discussing Electrophilic Aromatic Substitution (SEAr). Journal of Chemical Education, 97, 3540-3550

Whiteside, K & Wharton, S. 2019. Semantic patterning of grammatical keywords in undergraduate writing across two close disciplines. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 39, 1-20

Brewer, S. & Whiteside, K. 2019. The Cara Syria programme – combining teaching of English for Academic Purposes and academic and research skills development. Language Learning in Higher Education, 9, 161-172 May 2018

Parkinson, T., Brewer, S., Camps, C., Turner, J., Jenkins, M., Whiteside, K., Zoubir, T. 2018. Supporting Syrian Academics to be Agents for Change: The role of UK universities. Educational Developments, ISSN 1469-3267.Supporting Syrian Academics to be Agents for Change: The role of UK universities.

Whiteside, K. 2016. A corpus-driven investigation into the semantic patterning of grammatical keywords in undergraduate History and PIR (Politics and International Relations). Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Warwick

Whiteside, K. & Wrigley, S. 2015. Adapting the scaffolding academic literacy pedagogy for an EAP context, in Kavanagh, M. & L. Robinson (eds), Proceedings of the 2013 BALEAP Conference

Hunter, D. & Whiteside, K. 2010. Developing a Core Module for a Foundation Programme, Inform (A journal for international foundation professionals), Issue 6, October 2010

Selected Conference Papers and Presentations:

Raising the profile of ESAP In-sessional practice and practitioners: Modularisation and Academic Language and Literacy (ALL) Liaison.’ Durham BALEAP PIM - Leadership and Management in EAP: Insights, Issues and Experiences, 5th June 2021

The Cara programme for Syrian academics in exile. “I’ve learnt I mustn’t leer into the screen”: Evidence from 3 years of online teaching.’ (jointly delivered with Maggie Charles and Michael Jenkins), BALEAP 2021, Glasgow, 7th April 2021

Core Corpus Skills for designing In-sessional ESAP Materials’. BAAL Corpus Linguistics SIG, Coventry (online), January 2021

Writing development across an undergraduate degree: A contrastive corpus analysis of student writers’ first- and third-year Essay texts from the disciplines of History and Politics & International Relations (PIR)’ TaLC (Teaching and Language Corpora) 2020, Perpignan, France (online), July 2020

Utilising the BAWE Genre Family Framework to redesign a discipline-specific in-sessional provision: An analysis of core module PGT Business School genres’ (jointly delivered with Vicky Collins), Symposium: BAWE 10 years on, Coventry University London Campus, 8th June 2019

EAP for Syrian academics at risk: facilitating engagement and collaboration’ (jointly delivered with Sarah Brewer, Michael Jenkins and David Read), BALEAP (The global forum for EAP professionals) Conference, Leeds, 12th April 2019

The Cara Syria Programme: integrating the teaching of English for Academic Purposes into a programme to support exiled Syrian academics’, (jointly delivered with Sarah Brewer), ProLanguage Conference, Reading, 20th September 2018

The semantic patterning of grammatical keywords in undergraduate History and PIR (Politics & International Relations) essays: a corpus-driven investigation’, Poster Presentation, Corpus Linguistics 2017, Birmingham, 26th July 2017

The Pedagogic Potential of the Appraisal Framework in teaching Dissertation Writing’, EAP in the South East, 9th June 2017

Engaging a mixed native-speaking and non-native-speaking group in the learning of written genres for Psychology’, InForm (A journal for international foundation professionals) Conference 2017, Reading, 15th July 2017

Publications

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