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Nicola Whittingham
Nicola Whittingham is a teacher of English language, particularly to speakers for whom English is a second language. She has over 25 years’ experience of teaching language and literacies including academic literacies in adult, further and higher education. She has worked in teacher education, mainly with teachers of English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) and of Literacy in the post-16 sector. She believes language should be learned in context, and models of teaching that embed language learning into subject specialisms are the most effective. Current research interests in linguistics are how spoken language is used in classroom discourse. She uses Conversation Analysis to understand the relationships between teachers and students, and between students themselves, focusing on ways of equalizing power relations in the classroom and in opening up space for students to talk.