Mark Wyatt

Biography

I am an ELT Consultant, working on English in Education projects. My last full-time academic role was as Associate Professor of English at Khalifa University in the UAE (2015-2023), where I was Vice-Chair of the Institutional Review Board. Prior to that, I worked for the Universities of Leeds (on a BA TESOL Project with in-service English language teachers in Oman) and Portsmouth (where I worked with pre-service B.Ed TESL students from Malaysia). I have continued to work with both these universities, as an External Examiner for MA TESOL-related programmes at Leeds (2015-2018), and as a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Portsmouth. I am an external PhD supervisor at the University of Malta, and supervise postgraduate Education students part-time for the University of Hull.

Earlier in my career, I worked in Thailand and then for the British Council in Nepal. In Nepal in the late 1990s, I first researched self-efficacy beliefs in English language learners, and my interest in language teachers' self-efficacy beliefs (which has resulted in numerous articles and several book chapters) grew from there.

I have long been a member of the IATEFL Research SIG, and previously moderated their discussion board, co-organized ReSIG conferences in Turkey and co-edited various publications connected with the SIG. My more recent co-editing (2022 and 2023 publications) includes that of a special issue of the European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL on TESOL teacher motivation, identity, engagement and agency. I have also co-edited books on mentoring in English language education (for Palgrave) and on English as a medium of instruction on the Arabian Peninsula (for Routledge).

Even more recent co-edited volumes (2024 publications) include one on developing reflective practitioners through language teacher education in 14 Asian countries (for Springer) and one on building English language learners' and teachers' self-efficacy beliefs (for Routledge). The topics of these volumes reflect research interests that also include practitioner research, continuing professional development, the history of English, Gricean maxims in the teaching of English for academic purposes, and qualitative case study research methodology.

Besides such academic work, I write poetry. When I was in my 20s, I was published in various periodicals including Acumen, Ambit, Between the Lines, Echo Room, Iron, Litmus, New Statesman, North, Outposts, P.E.N. New Poetry II (Arts Council/Quartet), PN Review, Poetry Durham, Poetry London Newsletter, Poetry Nottingham, Rialto, Slow Dancer, Staple, Westwords, Weyfarers, Wide Skirt. Some of this poetry was 'pattern poetry' or 'shape poetry', an interest that I discuss in a 2016 special issue of ELTED. Since 1992, all the poetry I have written has been in shapes or patterns, though for many years until 2023 I wrote very little poetry, as my focus was on academic work. Since December 2023, however, I have developed a sequence of 60 pattern poems that take inspiration from Ovid's Metamorphoses. These poems have started to appear, in Ink Sweat and Tears (https://inksweatandtears.co.uk/mark-wyatt/), Osmosis (https://osmosispress.com/2025/03/09/mark-wyatt-how-ascalaphus-became-an-owl/), Sontag Mag (https://sontagmag.com/sontag-mag-third-volume/mark-wyatt-pelops), Streetcake Magazine (https://www.streetcakemagazine.com/uploads/2/4/7/1/24713274/issue_95.pdf), and The Greyhound (https://thegreyhoundjournal.com/featured/three-poems).