Bio:

Ben Fenton-Smith is Associate Professor in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. He is also Director, International, of the university’s Arts, Education and Law faculty. He previously worked in Japan at Kanda University of International Studies in Chiba City, where he was Deputy Director of the English Language Institute. He has published extensively on academic language and learning in higher education, in journals such as Studies in Higher Education, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Higher Education Research and Development, and Language Teaching Research.

Speech Title:

Implementing, Evaluating and Sustaining a University-wide English Language Enhancement Strategy

Abstract:

The focus of my talk is the Griffith English Language Enhancement Strategy (GELES), which has been in place since 2010, and has won national and international awards. Griffith University is a large, metropolitan university in Queensland, Australia. It has over 50,000 students from a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, and offers a comprehensive suite of undergraduate and postgraduate programs across the health, sciences, business, humanities and creative arts fields. I will outline the components of the strategy and elucidate the challenges we experienced in designing, implementing and sustaining it. Importantly, I will also discuss the mechanisms we have used to evaluate it and ensure that it gains recognition both inside and outside the institution.