You are here

  1. Home
  2. Professor Assia Rolls

Professor Assia Rolls

Profile summary

Professional biography

I studied in Algeria (BA in language teaching education at the University of Algiers), in the USA (M.Ed in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the University of Columbia, New York) and in the UK (Ph.D in Applied Linguistics at the University of Lancaster). I am a Principal Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (PFHEA) and a Fellow of the Staff Educational Development Association (FSEDA).

I have over 35 years of teaching experience in higher education institutions in Algeria (University of Algiers and Institut Supérieur d’Electricité and d’Electronique) and in the UK (Universities of London (Goldsmith College), Middlesex, Westminster, and Regent’s University-London). I was also a visiting academic at the University of Southampton and currently a Visiting Professor at The Open University (OU) contributing to the OU professional doctorate programme. I have taught modern languages at undergraduate level, modern language teachers on pre-service teacher education programmes and academic practice to staff in higher education (HE). I have taught cross-cultural business communication studies at master’s level, and I supervised doctoral candidates in TESOL education at Regent’s University London and Southampton University.

I started my career in higher education as an academic researcher. My passion for teaching led me to develop an interest in practitioner research, namely exploratory practice, which I established as central in the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in HE that I initiated at Regent’s University. My current position of editor of the Practitioner Research section in the Language Teaching Research Journal has put me in contact with national and international academics generating further interest in disseminating practitioner research https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/journal/language-teaching-research#editorial-boardMy most recent publications are two special issues directly related to practitioner research (see below under Collaboration, International Links and Publications). 

My academic interests led me to examine a large number of doctoral theses in national and international universities (e.g., Bristol, Leicester, Exeter, Southampton, UCL, The Open University, Northampton and Macquarie (Australia) Universities, and the IMT Institute for Advanced Studies in Lucca (Italy). I have also examined programmes for a PGCHE and an MA in Teaching and Learning at Limerick University. At undergraduate level, I examined language programmes at Liverpool University, The Open University and as chief external examiner of all language for Polylang at Westminster University.

I have reviewed books and research articles for the following internationally refereed Journals: Language Teaching Research, Language Teaching, Systems, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Innovation in Education and Teaching International, Learner Development, Migration Letters.

I have reviewed conference paper abstracts for various annual international conferences including the British (BERA) and American (AERA) Educational Research Associations, the Association of French Language Studies and the Regent’s Centre of Transnational Studies. 

I have acted as a reviewer for the National Teaching Fellowship scheme; a member of the Fellowship Award for the University of East London HEA accredited programme and a project assessor for Escalate, a former HEA Subject Centre.

Research interests

Academic literacy, continuing professional development, pedagogy and education, practitioner research in particular exploratory practice, teacher identity, teacher mentoring and teacher written dissemination of their understanding.

Teaching interests

Supervising doctoral students in TESOL education, mentoring teachers to develop practitioner research skills, teaching academic practice.

Impact and engagement

I sustained a record of effective strategic leadership in academic practice at my previous workplace, Regent’s University London. As Chair of the Senate Learning and Teaching Committee, I developed the first Learning Teaching and Assessment (LTA) strategy to bring college-wide consistency into the operations of academic management and to encourage the development of staff LTA scholarship in the five schools which, at the time, constituted Regent’s College. I spearheaded fundamental staff development processes: pioneering the development of pedagogic research including creating effective structures to enable funding, encourage research activities and support the dissemination of research outcomes; initiating the creation of the College’s own Postgraduate Certificate of Teaching in Higher Education (PGCHE); championing the Higher Education Academy UKPSF and enhancing internationalisation of the curriculum. These activities were instrumental to opening opportunities for a large number of staff to develop into professional academics, researchers and Fellows and Senior Fellows of the HE Advanced whom I mentored.  My activities were also fundamental to allowing Regent’s College to seek successfully Taught Degree Awarding Powers (TDAPs) and become Regent’s University as we know it today.

Following the College obtaining TDAPs, I created a doctoral programme in TESOL Education to contribute to Regents’ University’s goal of seeking Research Degree Awarding Powers (RDAPs).

 

External collaborations

I am a co-founder and co-convener of the international Fully Inclusive Practitioner Research network (FIPR) hosted by L’ Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée (AILA). My co-conveners are from the University of Alabama (USA), the University of Leeds (UK) and the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro (Brazil). FIPR  (https://www.fullyinclusivepr.com/) aims to bring together researchers, practitioner researchers, teacher educators and scholars around the world to share ideas and build new opportunities for research collaboration. Building on many years of discussions within FIPR, I co-lead a special issue entitled “Challenges and Practices to Advance Sustainable and Inclusive Practitioner Research” for the Language Teaching Research Journal (LTR). The contributors, from Australia, Brazil, Japan, the UK and the USA, ask critical questions around the sustainability and inclusivity of practitioner research, its epistemologies and methodologies as well as tackling the complex issues of writing for and publishing practitioner research. 

I co-lead a special issue for the Learner Development Journal which is hosted by the Learner Development Special Interest Group in the Japan Association for Language Teaching (http://ld-sig.org/). Entitled “Exploring grassroots, innovative, and creative approaches to language learning materials development through inclusive practitioner research”, this special issue aims at critically situated understandings of language material development spanning the primary to the tertiary sectors with contributors from Brazil, Ecuador, Germany, the USA and the UK. 

My collaboration with the University of Southampton allowed the development of an internationally acknowledged Language Practitioner Research project (LPR) to enable language staff to use Exploratory Practice (EP), a form of practitioner research as part of their continuing professional development. This three-year long collaborative project led to the publication of Exploratory Practice for Continuing Professional Development: An Innovative Approach for Language Teachers (Palgrave Macmillan (2019).

https://www.waterstones.com/book/exploratory-practice-for-continuing-professional-development/assia-slimani-rolls/richard-kiely/9783319697628?_gl=1*b10wwg*_up*MQ

The outcomes of this enterprise were recognised as an excellent example of practice of educational research and scholarship at the annual conferences of the British (BERA) and American (AERA) educational research associations. 

My collaboration with two Brazilian researchers led to a successful bid from the British Council allowing the funding of an international project whose goal was to examine the impact of a form of practitioner research, namely exploratory practice, used in the pre-service teacher education programmes of two universities in Brazil. See the British Council report: https://www.britishcouncil.org.br/sites/default/files/s1_uk_report.pdf

I contributed to ‘Mapping the Landscape- Practitioner Research in the UK’, a national project involving many British higher education institutions to investigate the state of the art of practitioner research in the UK led by the University of Cambridge and University College London. 

 

Editor of the Practitioner Research Section in the Learning Teaching Research Journal  https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/journal/language-teaching-research#editorial-board

Member of the Mentoring Teacher Research Network MenTRnet@groups.io hosted by the University of Warwick. This network brings together teachers, practitioner researchers and mentors from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and South Asia to enable teacher agency and capacity-building for teachers to understand their classroom environment.

Other international links are embedded in the above external collaborations.

Publications

Introduction to the special issue: Challenges and practices to advance sustainable and inclusive practitioner research (2024-11-29)
Slimani-Rolls, Assia; Crane, Cori; Hanks, Judith and de Miller, Ines Kayon
Language Teaching Research ((Early Access))


The influence of Exploratory Practice (EP): How a group of former Brazilian ELT teacher-learners perceive the value of EP years after graduation (2024)
Slimani-Rolls, Assia and Miller, Inés Kayon de
Language Teaching Research ((Early Access))