COIL/Virtual Exchange; Third Space Learning; Language Teacher Education; Threshold Concepts Pedagogy; Blended and Online Learning; Intercultural Communicative Competence; MOOCs; CALL; Internationalisation of the Curriculum

Marina Orsini-Jones is  Professor in Global Higher Education Practice (Applied Linguistics) in the Research Centre for Global Learning.  She obtained her doctorate in 2012 with a dissertation titled: Towards a Role-reversal model of action-research-supported threshold concepts in languages and linguistics. She pioneered research on e-learning innovation in the 90s, when, as then Head of Italian, she created an action-research-informed multimedia CD-ROM to teach Italian language, culture and society with her students that was adopted by the Edexcel examination body for ‘A’ level Italian and by various HE Italian departments worldwide.  Marina has organised many research workshops for HE Institutions over the last 25 years, both in the UK and overseas, for example on e-portfolios in language learning, on the effective use of Virtual Learning Environments, on threshold concepts pedagogy, on Massive Open Online Courses and Collaborative Online International Learning/Virtual Exchanges. Marina has presented at over 100 national and international conferences, is part of the editorial review boards of various journals and conferences and Associate Editor of IJCALLT  (international Journal of Computer Assisted Language Learning and Teaching).  Marina has been awarded pedagogical research grants from the Higher Education Academy and the British Council and has published in her areas of expertise, often in collaboration with her students, as she is interested in exploring her research and practice through their 'looking glass'. Marina has engaged in collaborative research projects with numerous international partners, for example from Austria, Brazil, Mexico, China, Spain, Italy, Germany, Poland Sweden, the Netherlands and Viet Nam. In 2013 Marina was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship from the HEA (Higher Education Academy), in recognition of the national and international impact of her innovative work in languages and linguistics. In 2016, she obtained a Principal Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. Marina also has extensive experience as external examiner in the HE UK sector. Marina is passionate about knowledge-sharing on e-learning for applied linguistics and has recently set up a Research Network for AILA - Association Internationale de Linguistique Appliquée or International Association of Applied Linguistics - (in collaboration with Prof. Kyria Finardi from UFES in Brazil and Prof. Azirah Hashim from Universiti Malaya in Malaysia): English as a Medium of Education, Multilingualism and the SDGs: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion. Marina’s most recent publications are:

Orsini-Jones, M., Cerveró-Carrascosa, A. & Finardi, K. (2022). A ‘Glocal’ Community of Practice to Support International ELT (English Language Teaching) Students in the UK: Project BMELTET (pp. 306-325). In C. Smith & G. Zhou (Eds.), Successful Teaching Strategies for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse International Students. IGI.

Wimpenny, K., Finardi, K., Orsini-Jones, M., & Jacobs, L. (2022). Knowing, Being, Relating and Expressing through Third Space Global South-North COIL: Digital Inclusion and Equity in International Higher Education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 26 (2), 279-296 https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/10283153221094085