Onat-Stelma, Zeynep

Hi everyone! It’s great to be a part of this group. I have been around the School of Education and LTE team for about five years now. My main area of interest is teacher education and development. My PhD was about teachers of young learners and how they adapted to a change of context from teaching older learners (15 and up) to suddenly finding themselves in a primary classroom without much opportunity for training for their new role.

Before I settled in Manchester I was involved in both pre-service and in-service teacher training in Turkey (that’s where I am from originally) and have always loved working with teachers. I am therefore particularly interested in research that involves teachers!

In the School of Education I am mostly involved in teaching in BA in LLAC (Language Literacy and Communication). I teach courses which are language related (e.g. Bilingualism, Acquisition of Literacy) and I also teach Research Methodology, and have a role supervising dissertations and research project work.

I have also been involved in projects on technology and language education. I have recently worked with Gary Motteram and Susan Brown on a project funded by the European Union where we explored the opportunties of language teaching and learning in Second Life (AVALON Project: www.avalonlearning.eu).