From the Back Cover
This book explores cross-international experiences in the field of adult English language teaching and learning, using cross-cultural dialogues to hear voices from different countries and different settings - formal, informal and non-formal - discussing how their lifelong learning has or is still in the process of helping them to change their lives. The book addresses two major questions: (1) How do adults learn languages and transform themselves through learning? (2) How do authorities and societies build capacity for sustainable language development? It will be of interest to researchers, policymakers and adult language teachers, concerned with diverse aspects of teaching and learning English as lingua franca for enhancing the public good internationally.
The book draws on the way in which the Western paradigm of lifelong learning was applied by an international team of inspired professionals to English language education in the Tempus project "Lifelong Language Learning University Centre Network for New Career Opportunities and Personal Development (UNICO)". This project was undertaken by eleven universities in three countries: the Siberian Federal District of the Russian Federation, the Kyrgyz Republic, and the Republic of Tajikistan, in partnership with the Charles University in Prague, the Institute of Education from the University College London, and the University of Córdoba in Spain.
Valentina Kononova is an Associate Professor at Siberian Federal University, Russia. She heads the university UNICO langugae centre (UNIversity-Career-Opportunities) for personal and professional development which is rooted in TEMPUS project, EACEA. V. Kononova teaches language arts for university students as well as general population in the region, and nationally in online environments. She is an author of "Companion-dictionary for those who study Economics" and "Nobel Memorial Prize Laureates in Economics", a textbook, Krasnoyarsk, co-authored with V. Razumovskaya. Her research lies mainly in three spheres - lifelong language learning, English language teaching, and corpus linguistics. She works internationally and does her research as an active participant of educational projects, conferences and other events, and a member of world associations, incl. EUCEN (Brussels).
Dr Natasha Kersh is a Lecturer in Education and a member of the Centre for Post-14 Education and Work at the UCL Institute of Education (UK). Her research interests and publications relate to the study of VET, school-to-work transitions and adult education in the UK and international contexts. Natasha has extensive experience of working and directing national and international projects such as EU-funded projects and UK-based ESRC (Economic and Social Science Research Council) funded initiatives. Natasha has recently acted as a Local Coordinator on a Horizon 2020 project (European Commission) 'Adult Education as a Means to Active Participatory Citizenship' (EduMap). She has authored/co-authored over 50 publications related to her field of study. Her recently co-edited book Young Adults and Active Citizenship: Towards Social Inclusion through Adult Education (Kersh et al. 2020, Springer) focused on the topic of social inclusion and experiences of vulnerable young adults.
Tatiana I. Dobrydina is an Associate Professor, Cand. Sc. Pedagogics, Head of the Department of Foreign Languages in Professional Communication of Kemerovo State University, Russia. Her PhD thesis and current research interests are devoted to the problems of developing students' professional creative activity and implementing innovative teaching/learning methods in practice. She is a coauthor of the chapter "Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in VET in Russia: New Developments" in: McGrath S. et al (eds) 2019, Handbook of Vocational Education and Training: Developments in the Changing World of Work; Springer. Dr Dobrydina is Head of KemSU Programme of Professional Retraining "Translator in the Sphere of Professional Communication", a lecturer and a designer of English courses for the Programme. She participated in implementation of two Tempus projects as a teacher in the TOULL project (530750-TEMPUS-1-2012-1-DK-TEMPUS-JPHES) and as KemSU coordinator and Director of UNICO Language Centre in the Tempus UNICO project (544283-TEMPUS-1-2013-1-ES-TEMPUS-JPHES). Dr Tatiana Dobrydina is responsible for coordinating the Third-age University movement in KemSU.
