Centre for European and International Studies Research (CEISR)

Profile

I have worked in English language teaching and teacher education for over 20 years, mostly overseas, in South-East Asia, South Asia and the Middle-East. My PhD research focused on my work with English language teachers in the Sultanate of Oman.

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.

I am currently first supervisor of five PhD students working in a range of Asian and Middle-Eastern educational contexts.

Qualifications

PhD in Education – University of Leeds
MA in TESOL – University of Edinburgh
Licentiate Diploma in TESOL (LTCL) – Trinity College London

Research Clusters

Language Across Borders

Discipline Areas

English language and linguistics, and language teacher education

Research CV

There are several strands to my research activities. These include:

• Qualitative research into teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs
• Language teacher cognition, particularly with regard to communicative language teaching, materials design, developing reading skills and using group work
• Motivation
• Reflective practice and mentoring
• Action research for language teachers
• The impact of language teacher education, in terms of empowerment and the role of context
• Case studies of educational change in Oman and Nepal

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.

Reviews

In recent years, I have carried out peer-reviews for the following journals:

• American Educational Research Journal
• International Journal of Educational Development
• International Journal of Mentoring and Coaching in Education
• Language, Culture and Curriculum
• Language Teaching Research
• System

I recently joined the editorial board of the Argentinian Journal of Applied Linguistics