Diane Leedham
Diane is an independent education consultant, trainer and writer with 30 years’ experience in teaching, teacher development/training and subject/school leadership cross phase EYFS to KS5. She has mainstream subject teaching specialisms in English/ English Literature/Media Studies along with specialist knowledge and expertise in Multilingualism, Language and Literacy development, Family Literacy, Equalities and Cultural Competence and EAL strategies/ leadership. Her professional roles include Head of English, whole school Literacy Lead, LA English/Literacy Consultant and EAL Advisory Team Leader. She has a successful track record of raising achievement, both directly and indirectly and developing creative, research informed pedagogy which supports learner agency and progress.
Rob Sharples
Rob is a PhD candidate at the School of Education, University of Leeds. His research is with EAL learners, looking at how they bring their own experiences, histories and expectations to bear on their education in the UK, and at how schools operate to accommodate them. His academic work can be found at: leeds.academia.edu/RobertSharples.
Nandhaka Pieris – EAL Project Officer
Nandhaka has over a decade of experience working in state and independent schools in a variety of roles, including the teaching of Science, EAL and ESOL. He has also been the EAL Coordinator of a secondary state school, managing the school’s provision and training of teaching and support staff, as well as external SCITT trainees. Additionally, he has provided support (academic skills and mainstream subject) to EAL and SEND learners.
Nandhaka recently completed a MA with Distinction in English Language Teaching at the University of Southampton. His dissertation research focused on mainstream secondary teachers’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about EAL learners’ needs in their subject area. Other areas of interest include teacher practice, teacher education, and also the evaluation and assessment of language. Nandhaka is a member of NALDIC and various other teaching and research related organisations, and is a founding member of UKALTA, the UK Association for Language Testing and Assessment. He consults on a variety of NALDIC projects, including local and national EAL networking, EAL training, the NALDIC website redevelopment, events, membership and publicity, as well as writing and editing materials for publication.
Frank Monaghan
Frank is a long standing member of NALDIC. Frank's involvement in EAL began in 1983 when he became a teacher at North Westminster Community School in London, where he worked until he joined the Open University in 2003 where he is currently a Staff Tutor in the London region and senior lecturer in the Department of APplied Linguistics and English Language. He has been involved in facilitating numerous CPD sessions for teachers on the topics of language and mathematics, English as an additional language (EAL), and academic literacy. Frank's research interests are in mathematics in multilingual classrooms, educational dialogue, and Liverpool Football fan identity and creativity. Frank is the co-ordinating editor of NALDIC Quarterly and moderates the EAL-Bilingual Google Group.
Vicky Macleroy
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’.
