Mrs Anita Wood

About me:

I began my teaching career in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets where I worked for ten years with children from Reception to Year 6. During my time working in Tower Hamlets I worked extensively with children and families with English as an Additional Language. I held various positions at this time, humanities co-ordinator; literacy co-ordinator; EAL co-ordinator; and Lead Literacy teacher. I also worked as a key member of the senior management team in two very large primary schools.

My interest in EAL and bilingualism led me to work overseas with a teacher training charity in Nepal, where I worked with teachers in urban and very rural primary schools, developing phonics programmes and introducing interactive teaching methods.

My first role in Initial Teacher Education was at the Institute of Education, University of London where I contributed to both the standard PGCE and a five term distance learning PGCE.

Since moving to Devon fifteen years ago, I have worked on the Primary and Secondary PGCEs at the Graduate School of Education and I lead four education and employability modules for undergraduates. I also continue to work as a primary classroom teacher and lead creative day workshops for primary-aged children through the University of Exeter widening particpation programme.

My interest in EAL has led to consultancy work in schools and I am currently working with Dr Gabriela Meier on a the M-soc project.

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Go to -- M-SOC Self-Study Unit and Survey

We have developed a self-study unit for educators at all levels and subjects that provides a structure to reflect on experience, practice and contexts, as well as to raise awareness of challenges and opportunities of using several languages in education. It takes about 30 mins to complete and works best on a bigger screen.

Study materials included: 1) a framework for reflection, 2) a downloadble PDF with your responses, 3) external URL links with teaching ideas, 4) a related article (Meier, 2018) free of charge.

Resource for teacher educators and for professional development: PDFs generated by the survey can be used for group discussions as part of pre-service and in-service training. However, participation should always be voluntary. The survey is based on an article that can act as alternative self-study material: Meier (2018).

Go to -- M-SOC Self-Study Unit and Survey

What survey users say:

• “Wow, what an interesting unit! I really enjoyed it and it got me thinking.” (teacher educator, UK)
• “Very simple to use and a great audit tool.” (primary teacher, UK)
• “It really made me want to give multilingualism more/a space in my lessons”. (English teacher, vocational college, Switzerland)

Self-study unit designed by Gabriela Meier and Anita Wood (2019)

Read more at http://socialsciences.exeter.ac.uk/education/staff/profile/index.php?web_id=gabriela_meier#tdPpFx0XbOHxuSud.99

BA(ed) in English and Drama with Primary Education (First class); University of Exeter

MA in Literacy Learning and Literacy Difficulties (with distinction) Institute of Education, University of London