The Future of English: meet the authors

Meet the authors

Meet the authors and editors of our recent publication The Future of English: Global Perspectives.

Mina Patel

Mina is a researcher with the Assessment Research Group at the British Council. Her background is in English language teaching and training. Mina has presented at numerous national and international conferences on ELT-related matters and is currently Conference Chair for the New Directions in English Language Assessment Conference, Latin America. She also leads on the British Council’s assessment research grants scheme. Her academic interests lie in the area of English language assessment literacy and the impact of testing and assessment. She is currently a PhD student with CRELLA at the University of Bedfordshire, UK.

Mike Solly

Mike is Head of English Research in the Research and Policy Insight Unit at the British Council. Mike has worked in English language education for more than 30 years, as a teacher, trainer, materials writer and academic project manager. He also worked as a senior lecturer in international education for seven years at the Open University, where his research and publications were in the area of the language needs of migrant workers.

Steve Copeland

Steve is Research and Insight Lead for the English Programmes team at the British Council. He was previously the British Council’s Global Examiner Manager and Head of Examiner Standards for IELTS. Prior to this, he spent 20 years in English language education as a teacher, examiner, teacher trainer, materials writer and academic director.

Professor Barry O’Sullivan OBE FAcSS FAALA

Barry is the British Council’s Head of Assessment Research & Development. He has been involved in language testing for thirty years and during this time has written extensively on the subject and has presented his work at conferences globally. He has worked on numerous test development and validation projects globally and advises ministries and institutions on assessment policy and practice. Barry is the founding president of the UK Association of Language Testing and Assessment, holds a visiting professorship at the University of Reading, UK, and is Advisory Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. He was awarded Fellowship of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK in 2016 and was elected to Fellowship of the Asian Association of Language Assessment in 2017. In 2019 he was awarded an OBE by the UK government for his contribution to language testing.

Professor Yan Jin

Yan Jin is a professor of linguistics and applied linguistics at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China. She started her career as a language tester in 1991 and has been involved in the development and research of large-scale, high-stakes language tests for three decades. She is currently chair of the National College English Testing Committee of China. She is co-editor-in-chief of the Springer open-access journal Language Testing in Asia and is also on the editorial boards of Language Testing, Language Assessment Quarterly, and a number of academic journals published in and outside China. She received the Cambridge/ILTA Distinguished Achievement Award in 2021.

What lies ahead for the world's most spoken language?

How we learn and speak English is evolving, with significant implications for educational institutions, government agencies, NGOs and policy makers. Learn about these findings and more in our book.

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