NCLL : printer friendly version [switch back to web view]

Viv Edwards

Professor of Language in Education (Viv's profile on academia.edu)

Research interests

Linguistic diversity; language and education; language in multilingual classrooms; literacy in developing countries; minority languages.

Recent research awards

Interdisciplinary perspectives on African language materials for children. Leverhulme Trust
Meeting the needs of Chinese Students in British Higher Education. Sino-British Foundation
British Council Higher Education Link with PRAESA, University of Cape Town to develop training materials for Early Literacy Learning.
Review of the literature on Phonics teaching for ESTYN (The Office of Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Education and Training in Wales)

Recent publications

Edwards, V. (2009) Learning to be literate: multilingual perspectives. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.

Edwards, V. (2009) Vocabulary, education and diversity. In B. Richards, Daller, M. Malvern, D., Meara, P. Milton, J. & Treffers-Daller, J. (eds) Vocabulary studies in first and second language acquisition: the interface between theory and application. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 59–73.

Edwards, V and An Ran (2009) Building on Experience: Meeting the Needs of Chinese Students in British Higher Education. In T. Coverdale & P. Rastall (eds) Internationalising the University: the Chinese Context. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 185–205.

Edwards, V., An Ran & Daguo Li (2007) Playing Field or Falling Standards: Chinese students’ competence in English. Race, Ethnicity and Education 10 (4): 387–400

Edwards, V., Rassool, N. & Bloch, C. (2006) Language and Development in Multilingual Settings: A Case Study of Knowledge Exchange and Teacher Education in South Africa. International Review of Education 52 (6): 533–52.

Edwards, V. & Pritchard Newcombe (2005) Language transmission in the family in Wales: an example of innovative language planning. Language planning and language problems 29 (2): 135–50.

Edwards, V. (2004) Multilingualism in the English-speaking world. Oxford: Blackwell. Winner of the 2005 British Association for Applied Linguistics Book Award

Recent papers delivered at international conferences

Keynote speaker: Interdisciplinary perspectives on African language materials for children. Multilingualism, Regional & Minority Languages: Paradigms for ‘Languages of the Wider World’. School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 17 April.

Plenary speaker: Promoting Multilingual Student Identities Across the International School Curricula. European Council of International Schools ESL and Mother Tongue Forum, Geneva March 2008.

Keynote speaker: From pathology to promotion: linguistic diversity in the UK. Föderung von Kinderen und Jugendlichen mit Migrationsintergrund FÖRMIG, Potsdam 15–16 November, 2007

Keynote speaker: The economics of minority languages. X1 International Conference on Minority Languages, Pecs Hungary. July, 2007.

External roles and links

Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Editor: Language and Education: An International Journal. [http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/0950-0782]
Series Editor: New Perspectives on Language and Education, Multilingual Matters. [www.multilingual-matters.com/series/series_nple.asp?TAG=&CID=]
Editorial board member: Race, Ethnicity and Education and International Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education.