Before coming to King’s, Dr Melanie Cooke taught EFL in Spain and ESOL to adult migrants in London. Since 2003 she has worked as a researcher and lecturer in the School of Education, Communication and Society and the School's Centre for Language, Discourse and Communication.

Research 

Melanie's research is concerned with teaching and learning in adult ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) classrooms in the UK, in particular, the social and political contexts of migrant language education.

She is convenor of the Hub for Education and Language Diversity (HELD), a collaboration between the Centre for LDC and English for Action. Most recently she worked on an edited collection, Brokering Britain, Educating Citizens (2019, with Rob Peutrell) about the role of citizenship in ESOL. She has also collaborated on several projects exploring the application of participatory pedagogy in ESOL classrooms. The most recent of these is Our Languages which aimed to raise awareness about sociolinguistic issues with teachers and learners of ESOL.

Melanie was the co-organiser of Queering ESOL, an ESRC funded seminar series on the cultural politics of LGBT issues in adult ESOL.

Teaching

BA English Language & Linguistics

• Introduction to Sociolinguistics
• Qualitative Research Methods 
• Introduction to Language and Linguistics
• Language, People and Boundaries

MA Applied Linguistics and ELT

• Principles & Practice in Communicative Language Teaching
• Qualitative Research Methods

MA Language and Cultural Diversity

• Researching Linguistic Diversity
• Multilingualism, Migration and Diversity

MA TESOL

• Qualitative research methods

PhD supervision

Melanie is happy to consider supervising PhDs on ESOL teaching and learning, language and citizenship, language and migration.

You can learn more on Melanie's work on her research staff profile.