The key speakers for New Directions 2021 include key thought leaders, policy makers, educational experts and tertiary education specialists in the field of English Language Assessment.
Please also see our speaker list in the conference platform here.
Sir Nigel Shadbolt is Principal of Jesus College Oxford and a Professor of Computing Science at the University of Oxford. He is chairman of the Open Data Institute.
Judit Kormos is a Professor in Second Language Acquisition at Lancaster University.
Professor Low Ee Ling is Dean, Academic & Faculty Affairs and the immediate past Dean, Teacher Education at the National Institute of Education (NIE), Nanyang Technological University (NTU).
Dr. Jayanti Banerjee is the Director of Language at Trinity College London.
Stevie Spring became Chairman of the British Council in August 2019, and is also Chairman of Mind, the mental health charity.
Scott McDonald is the Chief Executive of the British Council.
Loh Gek Khim is Director of SkillsFuture Singapore Agency (SSG).
Professor Barry O’Sullivan is the Head of Assessment Research & Development at the British Council.
Helen Basturkmen works at the University of Auckland, where she convenes courses on Discourse Analysis and English for Specific Purposes on the MTESOL programme
Professor Paul Giller is a graduate of Queen Mary and Imperial College London and is an Emeritus Professor in Ecology at University College Cork (UCC), National University of Ireland.
Venguswamy Ramaswamy alias “Swamy”, globally heads TCS iON, platform solutions addressing the needs of Assessments, Learning and Business Process Operations.
Professor Kensaku Yoshida is Professor Emeritus of Sophia University, and the Honorary President of the Eiken Foundation of Japan.
Geoff Stead is the Chief Product Officer (CPO) at Babbel, leading the digital learning experience for millions of digital language learners.
Danny Whitehead is the Deputy Director at the British Council China.
Christopher Graham is a freelance English language teaching consultant, teacher educator and author based in the UK.
Vicky Evans is the newly appointed head of sustainability for Cambridge University Press & Assessment.
Yasmin Hatt is a Senior Statistical Analyst in the Pearson Tests of English Psychometrics & Measurement team,
Steve Adams is Director of British Council’s largest exams operation in East Asia.
Dr Nicola Galloway is Senior Lecturer in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages at the University of Glasgow.
Heath Rose is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Oxford.
Catherine Gater is an equality and diversity programme manager at the British Council for English and Exams.
Gemma Bellhouse is the Test Product Quality Assurance Manager for the British Council Aptis test.
Ann is British Council’s global lead for English Medium Education and Multilingual Education (EME and MLE).
Test Development Researcher, British Council
Carolyn Westbrook is a Test Development Researcher at the British Council.
Trevor Breakspear is an Innovation Projects Manager for the British Council
William Bayliss is an Assessment Solutions Consultant for the British Council