School of Languages and Area Studies (SLAS)

Profile

Teaching areas

I teach and coordinate various BA and MA units related to English language and linguistics, communication and language teacher education. Units I currently coordinate include English in a Historical Perspective and Mass Communication.

Experience

I worked for the Ministry of Education in Oman between 2000 and 2008, first as a Regional Teacher Trainer / Advisor and then as a Regional Tutor on the University of Leeds BA Educational Studies (TESOL) Project. Prior to that, I worked for the British Council in Nepal.

Qualifications

I have a PhD in Education from the University of Leeds.  My thesis, which was entitled: ‘Growth in practical knowledge and teachers’ self-efficacy during an in-service BA (TESOL) programme’, was short-listed for the Christopher Brumfit Award 2008 and ‘highly commended’ by the judges. I also have an MA TESOL and a Trinity College London Licentiate Diploma in TESOL (LTCL). I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).

Research interests

I am particularly interested in how teachers’ knowledge, attitudes and beliefs develop, influenced by language teacher education, and in how these changes in their cognitions influence their classroom practices. My own research has involved the use of qualitative case study methodology.

MA & PhD supervision

I supervise dissertations in areas including the following:

• Language teacher education, professional development, mentoring
• Teacher cognition, teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
• Communicative language teaching, task-based learning, group work, reflective practice, motivation
• The history of English

I am currently first supervisor of five PhD students working in some of the above areas and in a variety of Asian and Middle-Eastern contexts.

Publications

Edited Book

Wyatt, M. & Atkins, J. (Eds.) (2009). Research perspectives on education in Oman. Muscat: Ministry of Education, Sultanate of Oman. Click here to read the introduction. 

Articles

Tungtakanpoung, M. & Wyatt, M. (2012). Spirituality and cultural values in the reported cognitions of female cabin attendants on Thai Airways. Journal of Air Transport Management 27, 15-19. (first published online November 30, 2012)

Wyatt, M. (2012). Issues in supporting the teaching of reading in English as a second language to Arabic-speaking children. The Reading Matrix 12 (2) 146-162. 

Wyatt, M. (2012). Towards a re-conceptualization of teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs: tackling enduring problems with the quantitative research and moving on. International Journal of Research and Method in Education (Advance access, first published online November 12, 2012)

Wyatt, M. & Arnold, E. (2012). Video-stimulated recall for mentoring in Omani schools. International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education 1 (3) 218-234

Wyatt, M. (2011). Becoming a do-it-yourself designer of English language teaching materials. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 12 (1), Art 33, 1-38. 

Wyatt, M. (2011). Overcoming low self-efficacy beliefs in teaching English to young learners. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education. (Advance access, first published online October 18, 2011) 

Wyatt, M. & Borg, S. (2011). Development in the practical knowledge of language teachers: a comparative study of three teachers designing and using communicative tasks on an in-service BA TESOL programme in the Middle East. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching 5 (3), 233-252. (first published online January 13, 2011) 

Wyatt, M. (2010). An English teacher’s developing self-efficacy beliefs in using groupwork. System 38 (4), 603-613. 

Wyatt, M. (2010). One teacher’s development as a reflective practitioner. Asian EFL Journal 12 (2), 235-261.

Wyatt, M. (2010). Teachers researching their own practice. ELT Journal 65 (4), 417-425. (first published online December 27, 2010) 

Wyatt, M. (2009). Practical knowledge growth in communicative language teaching. TESL-EJ, 13 (2), 1-23. 

Chapters

Indiran, N., Wyatt, M., Naysmith, J. & Gibbs, S. (2012). School visits during pre-service teacher education: a study of Malaysian Bachelor of Education students in the UK preparing to teach English as a second language. In T. Coverdale-Jones (Ed.), Transnational higher education in the Asian context. Basingstoke: Palgrave (pp. 226-242).

Wyatt, M. (2009). Supporting change in teachers’ ideas and practices: the influence of the BA Educational Studies (TESOL) on classroom teaching. In: J. Atkins, M. Lamb & M. Wedell. (Eds.), International collaboration for educational change: The BA project. Muscat: Ministry of Education, Sultanate of Oman. (pp. 86-94)

Conferences and knowledge transfer

In July 2012, I spoke at a symposium on empowering learners, which was organized by the School of Education and Continuing Studies, University of Portsmouth. The paper was entitled: “Are they becoming more reflective and/or efficacious?” How do teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs grow? 

In April 2012, I presented on the topic of supporting Omani teachers to research their own practices at the Oman International ELT conference at Sultan Qaboos University: ‘Quality in ELT: Raising pedagogical standards’.

In February 2012, I gave a talk on supporting language teachers’ engagement in action research at the Nepal English Language Teachers Association 17th international conference in Kathmandu.

In September 2010, (with John Naysmith and Susan Gibbs) I presented a paper on school visits during pre-service teacher education at the University of Portsmouth conference: Transnational dialogues in Higher Education: Responding to the needs of the Asian learner.

In June 2010, I presented a paper on developing teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs through teacher education at the World Council of Comparative Education Societies’ 14th conference in Istanbul.

In January/February 2010, I visited IPDA, the university’s partner institution in Malaysia. During my stay, I visited primary and secondary schools and ran workshops on various topics: mentoring, observing lessons and giving feedback, styles of supervision and teaching pronunciation.