Christina Kanouta, a recent graduate of the MA in Applied Linguistics for TESOL has received a commendation from the British Council for the potential impact of her dissertation on the field of English Language Teaching.

Christina entered the British Council Dissertation Award Competition after receiving a Distinction for her dissertation on the teaching of pragmatics to English language learners in state schools in Greece. The competition is open to students who obtain a Distinction in their dissertation, although only one entry is allowed from each institution.

There were entries from 24 institutions in this year’s competition, many from acknowledged leading providers in the field. The dissertations, which are anonymised for the judging process, are scrutinised by Panels from both the British Council and the participating universities. To obtain a commendation competitors have to reach the final stage of the competition. Christina’s dissertation will soon be published in full on the British Council website where it will remain permanently.

Dr Michael Hughes, Christina’s supervisor, said:

‘Christina took a relatively neglected area in English language teaching and carried out a very thorough investigation into its status in the Greek state school system. She produced a high quality report of her findings which has implications for English language teaching worldwide.’

Christina was in the first cohort of the new MA in Applied Linguistics for TESOL offered by the Department of English Language and Linguistics.

For more details about the competition, please see the British Council webpage.

Sent in by secl@kent.ac.uk