About the School of Education and English
The School of Education and English (EdEn) at UNNC brings together the tremendous skills and expertise of our schools in the UK and Malaysia, encouraging our academics here to work together on programmes and projects involving Applied Linguistics, International Higher Education, TESOL, Translation and Interpreting, Cognitive Neuroscience, Educational Leadership and Management, Literature and Drama, and many other fields. We produce world-leading research in these areas and welcome people interested in any aspects of language or pedagogy, and in particular those who work collaboratively across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
Our vision aligns with that of the university as a whole: to be a university without borders, where we embrace the opportunities presented by a changing world, and where ambitious people and a creative culture will enable us to change the world for the better.
To achieve this, our Education experts train hundreds of teachers each year and work with hundreds of others on higher degrees and professional development. Our other degree courses provide gateways to many careers. Our English students develop understanding of the ways that language works - in the professions, in literature, and in academia - and how it has developed as a communication tool for worldwide. In doing so, our students prepare themselves for employment in a vast range of areas, such as business and finance, journalism, publishing and teaching. Our Translation and Interpreting students are directly trained in the necessary skills by our team of professionals, and while many go on to work as translators and interpreters, many also use their skills to facilitate careers in industry, the public sector, or teaching.
Our courses deepen students’ appreciation of the nature of teaching and learning, the complexity and creativity of the English language, and the nature of human talk and communication. Most importantly, students learn how to think critically, how to research effectively, and how to communicate in a wide variety of contexts. All of our students engage in active research, and our staff engages in research-led teaching. As a result, our graduates are highly successful in going on to further study and careers at prestigious institutions where advanced communication skills, analytical abilities and cultural awareness are highly sought after.
Highlights of Teaching and Research
Two of our modules, EDEN1003 Academic Community and EDEN1005 Introduction to Drama, have received Provincial First Class Module Awards, and the latter has been nominated for a national award. Our teaching staff have been recipients of municipal teaching awards, along with the university’s Lord Dearing Award and the Vice-Chancellor’s Medal. Through participation in the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education, our staff are all Associate Fellows and above in the Higher Education Academy. Our experts train teachers from the Beijing Institute of Education, participate in the Cambridge Professional Development Qualification Programme, work with China Daily’s 20th Century English TESOL experts, and supervise the next generation of educational experts through out prestigious professional Doctorate in Education (EdD).
Our staff have been key members of the RICH-Ed Erasmus project, the Chinese Society of Multilingualism and Multilingual Education, and our Cognitive Neuroscience of Language Laboratory has produced some of the university’s top research, including such work as the following: Wei, D., Gillon Dowens, M. & Guo, T. (2018). Early lexical processing of Chinese words indexed by visual Mismatch Negativity effect. Scientific Reports.
You can read more about our talented staff and their research on the School’s website.
General Job Description and Criteria
The School of EdEn is consistently growing and developing into new areas of language and education, so we are seeking people who are committed to guiding that growth while also continuing to deliver on the excellent programmes already in place.
To that end, successful candidates are expected to undertake academic leadership and managerial responsibilities at all levels of the university. Our staff contribute in our own School, but also to teaching, research and administration with all UNNC colleagues.
People with forward-thinking ideas for new modules, programmes, outreach activities and collaboration at all levels are particularly welcome.