CLCL Researchers

CLCL researchers are made up of academics and PhD students across disciplines at Goldsmiths.

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Head of the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning

Dr Vicky Macleroy

I am a Professor of Language and Literacy, Head of the MA Children’s Literature programme, and Head of the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning at Goldsmiths, University of London. I teach at postgraduate level on the MA Children’s Literature, MA Creative Writing and Education, and MPhil/PhD programmes.

My research focuses on: multiliteracies and digital storytelling; multimodal composition and creativity; language development, poetry and multilingualism; transformative pedagogy and activist citizenship; children’s literature and Young Adult Fiction.

Underpinning my research is a commitment to research methodologies that embrace collaborative and creative ways of researching.

I am co-director of a global literacy project ‘Critical Connections Multilingual Digital Storytelling’ (2012-ongoing) that uses digital storytelling to support engagement with language learning and digital literacy and has been applied in over 50 schools in the UK and in 14 further countries.

 

Lecturers

Dr Jim Anderson

Dr Jim Anderson is Visiting Research Fellow in the department. His work focuses on: theories and methods of second language learning and bilingualism, including Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL); multilingualism and new literacies; and language policy. Underlying this is a commitment to an integrated and inclusive approach to language and literacy education incorporating the areas of foreign and community/heritage language learning as well as English as an Additional Language and English mother tongue.

Dr Yangguang Chen

Dr Yangguang Chen, Professor of Education from China, joined the department in 2006 after 20 years of experience in academia at China’s universities. She did her bachelor degree in the English Language and Literature at Xiamen University 1978-1982, her master degree in Comparative Education at Hebei University 1984-86, and became a university academic at FNU 1982. She was a visiting scholar at University of Philadelphia 1988-89; she was awarded the British Academy K.C.W Postdoctoral Fellowship in 1996 undertaking a post-doctoral research at University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Professor Eve Gregory

Professor Eve Gregory is Professor of Language and Culture in Education and Head of the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning at Goldsmiths, University of London. This Centre hosts a variety of research projects in the field of bilingualism, culture and learning in multilingual London as well as currently housing postdocs from Turkey, Spain, Pakistan and South America. She has directed or co-directed five ESRC funded projects, as well as a Leverhulme and a Paul Hamlyn funded project and gained EU funding for research into minority ethnic children in Luxembourg.

Dr Vally Lytra

Dr Vally Lytra is Reader in Languages in Education. She completed her BA in English Language and Literature at the University of Athens, Greece and continued with her graduate studies first at Georgetown University, Washington DC (MSc Applied Linguistics, 1996) and then at King's College London (PhD Sociolinguistics, 2003). Before joining Goldsmiths, she lectured at other London Universities and at the English Department, University of Bern, Switzerland.

Susi Sahmland

Susi Sahmland is a Senior Lecturer in Education at Goldsmiths, University of London. She leads the School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) programme and the Primary Languages element of the PGCE. She received her MA in Leadership in Education from the Institute of Education in 2013 and her research interests are in Primary Languages and specifically the implementation of the new curriculum since 2014.

Dr Cristina Ros i Solé

Dr Cristina Ros i Solé is Lecturer in Language, Culture and Learning. She joined Goldsmiths in September 2017. Previously, she lectured at the Open University where she was founding member of the Spanish Section and Head of Spanish. This was followed by a position as Principal Research Fellow at University College London, where she led the research strand of the HEFCE funded Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Languages of the Wider World. She has also lectured at King's College London, where she was Visiting Lecturer and Researcher in EFL/TESOL and Applied Linguistics.

Dr Julia Hope

Dr Julia Hope joined the department in 2003, after 17 years teaching in inner London schools, and two years teaching in Zimbabwe. With experience mainly in the Primary Sector, she has taught across the age ranges from Foundation stage up to Secondary, as a class teacher, English teacher, EAL teacher, and Refugee Support teacher. Immediately prior to teaching at Goldsmiths, Julia was a freelance Education Consultant, with particular expertise in Family Learning, running courses for refugee parents, and conducting training for Lewisham Education Authority.

Dr Judith Rifeser

Dr Judith Rifeser is a languages teacher-researcher-filmmaker and a Lecturer in Education. She teaches on the PGCE Secondary Modern Languages Programme and contributes to the MA module Teaching Language in Multilingual Contexts. She has held language teaching positions at the Johns Hopkins University (USA) and the IoE (UCL). At the University of Roehampton, she taught on the BA/MA cultural studies programmes. Judith holds an MPhil with Distinction from the University of Cambridge where she specialised in Hispanic Literatures and Cultures.

Dr Yu-chiao Chung

Yu-chiao is Visiting Research Fellow in the department. She obtained her PhD in Bilingualism and Multilingualism at Goldsmiths. She was previously awarded both an MA in English in Education and an MRes in Education by Kings College, University of London.

Dr Francis Gilbert CLCL

Dr Francis Gilbert

Francis is a Senior Lecturer in Education, Head of the MA in Creative Writing and Education & course leader for PGCE English. Francis has organised a number of conferences at Goldsmiths, including ones on Reading for Pleasure and Teaching Creative Writing.

Professor Michael Rosen

Michael Rosen is a Professor of Children's Literature. Since the late 1960s, Michael Rosen has been writing books, articles, plays and various kinds of scripts; performing poetry for audiences of all ages, and broadcasting on literature related subjects on radio and TV. From 2007-2009 he was Children's Laureate.

Michael’s academic pathway took him to read English at undergraduate level at Wadham College, Oxford, and later to study for an MA at Reading University. Following his Ph.D, completed in 1997, he has taught Children's Literature on MA courses at various universities.

Dr Emily Corbett

I am a specialist in Children’s and YA Literature. My research focuses on the growth and development of YA from literary, publishing, and cultural perspectives. Most recently, I charted the development of transgender representation in YA fiction and life-writing since the inauguration of the sub-field in 2004. I am currently working on a project that investigates the state of UKYA in the twenty-first century by examining how books are marketed to potential readers. I am also Vice President of the YA Studies Association and Associate Editor of The International Journal of Young Adult Literature.

Dr. Chunwen Su

Dr. Chunwen Su is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Centre for Language, Culture and Learning, within the Department of Educational Studies. Her research areas are comparative education, bilingualism, language, identity and culture.

She has been working as an IELTS/Chinese teacher in different independent schools, as well as being an education guardian for teenage Chinese EAL students in London since 2012. She holds a Master's degree in English Language Teaching (Studies and Methods) from the University of Warwick. Now she has completed her PhD in the Educational Studies Department at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Dr Thomas Quehl

I am a Visiting Research Fellow in the department. I hold primary school teacher qualifications from the University of Fine Arts, Berlin, and from Goldsmiths. I obtained my MA in Education and Social Justice at UCL’s Institute of Education and my PhD, which explored teacher agency in multilingual pedagogies, at Goldsmith. My current work focuses on multilingual pedagogies and on multilingualism and social justice within critical primary school pedagogy. In these areas, I am interested in pedagogical formats and participatory research methods that acknowledge and strengthen the ‘superdiverse’ voices of plurilingual children, as well as in the development of approaches for initial and continuous teacher education.

Recent publications

2022 Towards multilingual pedagogies for social justice in the primary school: Insights from classrooms in England. In: Apples – Journal of Applied Language Studies, 16(2) 2022, 77-97.

2022 ‘I don’t think we encourage the use of their home language…’: Exploring ‘multilingualism light’ in a London primary school. In: V. Lytra, C. Ros I Solé, J. Anderson & V. Macleroy (eds) Liberating Language Education (pp. 23–39). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Researchers