Introducing … our new pre-sessional co-ordinator!

Hannah Jones

[Hannah Jones is now Director of English Language Education at the University of Edinburgh]

As a newly appointed EAP Coordinator here at CELFS, I wanted to take this opportunity to introduce myself on the CELFS Blog.

I’ll start with a brief biography, which should hopefully give you an idea of my background and experience. After graduating with a Masters in History from the University of Manchester, I desperately wanted to travel and decided to spend some time overseas.

I spent several years working as an EFL teacher in a senior high school in Taiwan, before moving on to work for the British Council. It was at this point that I made the decision to pursue ELT as a long term career, completing my DELTA in 2006. In 2008, I relocated to China, and moved into EAP, starting out as a tutor and then becoming Head of the Centre of English for Academic Purposes at a joint-venture British university in Shanghai. During this time, I also completed my Masters in ELT with Leeds Beckett University.

I returned to the UK in 2016, and worked as a pre-sessional tutor at the University of Edinburgh, my hometown. After having spent nearly 20 years in Taiwan and China, I found that I sometimes had more in common with my Chinese pre-sessional students than with my compatriots – none of us could understand the bus system or get used to waiting until 1pm to have lunch!

I started here at CELFS in January, after spending a few months travelling in the USA.

I’m now busily planning the pre-sessional assessments and materials, and looking forward to the challenge of being part of the coordination of our pre-sessional courses this summer.