David Kent

David Kent (1973-) was born in Sydney, Australia, and raised in the multicultural suburbs of the southwest, and became interested in other cultures and languages from a very young age. This arose during his school years from the great friendships that he made with refugees from Asia and the Middle East, and migrants from Europe, plus the necessary learning of snippets of language to talk to and greet their parents. Of course there was the everyday lunchtime swapping of foods on the playground and learning the value of those foods and associated traditions in the culture and minds of peers. From this background, David decided to seek out a career that would come to focus on providing learning opportunities to those of non-English speaking backgrounds (NESB).

After beginning work in the field of adult education, David taught the Certificate in General Education for Adults (CGEA), the Certificate in Written and Spoken English (CSWE), and literacy and numeracy in adult migrant education programs. He also prepared candidates to undertake the International English Language Testing System (IELTS), and taught English for academic purposes, English for business, and English language intensive courses for overseas students (ELICOS) at various colleges across Australia.

Since leaving Australia in 1995, he has lived, worked in, and travelled around the globe, which has seen him teach general English and English for Specific Purposes (academic – tertiary, business – managerial), as well as prepare candidates to undertake the Test of English for International Communication (TOEIC) and the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL). He has also taught courses focusing on advanced academic writing, pronunciation theory and practice, speech and discussion, writing composition, and pre-college and pre-PhD preparatory classes, and provided professional development courses and teacher training initiatives.

In addition to teaching, he has developed content for English language learner radio programs, such as business English and news English materials, for the Educational Broadcasting System in Korea. He has worked as a host on radio programs for English language learners, and as an editor for English language learner magazines. He has provided counseling services to international students, and marketing, website development, and program promotion for universities and research institutes, developed a multimedia curriculum, dictionary, and workbook for use by first-year university students in Korea. As well as constructing e-learning content, he has developed and managed web servers and learner management systems for university departments.

For over a decade now, he has worked as a graduate school professor in Korea, and during this time has come to develop face-to-face, distance, online, and blended learning materials for graduate teaching programs worldwide. In addition to working with thesis students, he has taught content courses relating to pedagogy, curriculum and materials design, testing, analysis and evaluation techniques, the teaching of reading, writing, listening and speaking, applied linguistics, e-learning, multimedia development, and teaching with technology.

Completing his doctorate allowed him to gain specializations in computer assisted language learning (CALL) and the teaching of English as a foreign and second language. His research interests include CALL, e-learning, the design and development of multimedia for language learning, as well as mobile learning (m-learning), social networking, and the implementation of content and services for linguistic development in the EFL (English as a foreign language) and ESL (English as a second language) contexts.

He currently serves on the review board of a number of journals, and has been invited to present at numerous international conferences, present teaching techniques and provide teacher training at government request, as well as published journal articles, books, and book chapters on his areas of expertise.