Helen Abji
Helen is an independent consultant having had many years experience in secondary EAL, the multicultural anti-racist field, and the management of services in Bedfordshire and Luton. One of her main interests is in teacher education related to EAL, and she contributed to NALDIC's work on specialist teacher standards. She is a distance learning tutor for the Birmingham University Bilingualism in Education Masters course and the governor of a Luton school. She chaired the association from 1998 to 2001 and has made a huge contribution as NALDIC's long standing secretary. Helen currently chairs the Events committee.
Una Bellingham
Una is a Bilingual and Minority Ethnic Achievement Specialist teacher in Kent. After teaching at a secondary school in Kent for 7 years, she began working for the Language Support Service in Kent and has worked in many schools in East Kent across all key stages. Since September 2005, she has been the co-ordinator of EMAG provision for Thanet in East Kent. Una manages a small team which supports schools in addressing the needs of new arrivals as well as advanced learners, and links the schools and other local services in addressing the needs of EAL families in the local district.
Steve Cooke
Steve Cooke has worked in the field of English as an Additional Language (EAL) teaching since 1982 as a teacher and head of department. He was involved in the NFER Partnership Teaching Project in 1989/90 and was featured in the published video material which resulted from the project. From 1992 to 2002 he was an EAL Project Manager in Leicester. He is an advisor for Ethnic Minority Services in Nottingham City Children’s Services. Steve was involved in the National Strategies as a Regional Adviser for EAL. He has contributed articles to several publications and is the author of Collaborative Learning in the Classroom. Steve is a long standing member of NALDIC and was Chair of the Association from 2005 to 2007.
Yvonne Foley
Yvonne worked for a number of years as an English language teacher in Taiwan and the UK. She initially started teaching English to adults in private colleges in Taiwan and later took up a position as an ESL teacher within an international school and then as Director of Studies within an international school in Taipei, Taichung and Kaoshiung. When Yvonne returned permanently to the UK six years ago, she taught English for business and academic purposes and then took up a position as a Lecturer in Language Teaching at the University of Edinburgh. She is the Programme Director for MSc TESOL and also teach on the PGDE Secondary programme. As well as being a co-opted committee member of NALDIC, Yvonne is also a co-director of the Centre of Education for Racial Equality in Scotland (CERES).
Vicky Obied
Vicky is a member of NALDIC and a lecturer at Goldsmiths. She trained as a secondary teacher and coordinated the PGCE programmes in the school. In 2006, as part of the school’s policy on leading from the middle, Vicky acted as a facilitator for one of the Learning Communities organising the programme for ‘Language across the curriculum’; investigating ways to support pupils to use language across the curriculum in ways that address issues of expressive development and technical accuracy. Vicky was awarded Chartered London Teacher status after submitting evidence of a project carried out to support the language development of EAL pupils. This work was also presented at a LATE conference in 2007 on ‘Developing Approaches to Writing’.
