Sustained Educational Excellence
Name
Biography
Dr Barbara Skinner is a Senior Lecturer in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in the School of Education and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is a member of council for the British Education Research Association and the co-convenor of BERA’s Language and Literacy SIG. She is passionate about supporting diversity in the higher education classroom, especially through the implementation of culturally responsive pedagogy to respond to the teaching and learning needs of overseas students. She is also an advocate of diversity in schools in Northern Ireland and has worked with universities in the South of Ireland on a joint ‘Closing the achievement gap’ project which supports the English as an Additional Language training needs of student teachers on the island of Ireland.
Barbara predominantly teaches second language pedagogy as well as multiculturalism and multilingualism. The diversity of the students and the subject is exciting and also challenging, particularly ensuring that every student, where ever they are from, is able to study and succeed. Barbara’s teaching is research informed and she is currently exploring, along with her European ERASMUS project partners, the potential for hybrid learning in NI schools and higher education. She recently won a Professional Practice Innovation award for the implementation and impact of an innovative ‘E-placement’ – a six week, full-time, entirely online teaching practice placement for MA TESOL students who were studying at the time of the pandemic when face-to-face teaching was not possible.