Thom Kiddle
About
About
Who is he?
Thom Kiddle was born in Burnley, UK. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Renaissance History, University of Warwick; a Master’s degree in Language Testing, Lancaster University, and the Cambridge ESOL Delta.
Professional life
Thom has worked in many countries around the world (Chile, Portugal, the UK, Australia and Thailand), always in the fields of language teaching, teacher training and language assessment.
In Chile, he was head of academic research and educational technology at the Chilean-British University.
Thom Kiddle currently works at NILE, where he has been since 2011.His role as Director there involves strategic and organisational management, and training and consultancy in a range of areas including testing and assessment, learning technologies, materials development and language teaching methodology.
Thom is also Chair of the Eaquals Board of Trustees, and treasurer and a founding director of AQUEDUTO – the Association for Quality Education and Training Online. (source)
Thom has published in educational journals Applied Linguistics, Language Assessment Quarterly, and System, and has written chapters for a number of ELT publications, including in 2019, two chapters in Quality in TESOL and Teacher Education (Routledge) and one in the Routledge Handbook of Language Teacher Education. Thom was also a plenary speaker at IATEFL 2021.
Interests
Thom has two sons, and so much of his time is spent at the side of a youth football pitch, as coach or spectator, or in a karate dojo. He also enjoys fixing, then riding, then fixing again, his 1961 Vespa scooter.
Professionally, he’s interested in:
- Humanising language testing and assessment
- Quality in online language teacher education
- Mediation in language learning and teaching
- Peer-to-peer organisational development in language education
- Language awareness, the linguistic landscape and language change
Biographical Sources
Social Profiles
Thom Kiddle
Recommended books
The English Verb: An Exploration of Structure and Meaning.
Michael Lewis.
Language Test Construction And Evaluation.
J. Charles Alderson, Caroline Clapham, Diane Wall.
About Language: Tasks for Teachers of English.
Scott Thornbury.
Psychology for Language Teachers.
Marion Williams, Robert L. Burden.
Discover English.
Rod Bolitho, Brian John Tomlinson.
A History of English Language Teaching.
Anthony P. R. Howatt, Henry Widdowson.
Doing Task-based Teaching.
Dave Willis, Jane Willis, J.
Lexical Priming: A New Theory of Words and Language.
Michael Hoey.
The Power Of Tests: A Critical Perspective on the Uses of Language Tests.
Elana Shohamy.
The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language.
Steven Pinker.
Place in HLT
I think my main contributions to HLT have been in the areas of two traditionally non-humanistic areas of language education: language testing and assessment, and the integration of digital technology in language learning and teaching.
On the testing side, many of my projects, courses, presentations and workshops have focused on alternative approaches to assessment, assessing integrated skills, and developing teacher assessment literacy for empowerment in classroom-based assessment.
In terms of technology, I have aimed to support teachers in dealing with technology overload, and being critically selective of what tools, platforms and other resources may be effective in their classes and their learners’ learning. I strive to emphasise the central role of the tutor / trainer in online education, both language education and teacher education.
Through my work with AQUEDUTO and Eaquals, I aim to bring a consideration of quality to all aspects of education, which for me is centred around a humanistic approach to the learner and the learning environment.
