Innovation in Language Learning

Richard Chapman is Researcher in English Language in the Department of Human Sciences at the University of Ferrara.

Richard graduated with a first-class degree in history from the University of Cambridge in 1987. He obtained a Diploma in English Language Teaching in 1999 and a Masters Degree in Teaching and Professional Development in 2001 from the University of East Anglia. He has worked in education for over 35 years, and has published widely in the field of English language teaching.

After spending a year in Germany and working in the UK, he settled in Italy, where he has lived for most of the last 30 years. Besides working in teaching, training and research, Richard was Resident Director of the CIEE study programme in Ferrara from 2003 to 2013. He was a teacher trainer with NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education) from 2001 to 2006.

Richard has published numerous course books in English language teaching, including PET Practice Tests, Eli 2003; and KET Practice Tests, Eli 2005; English in the Workshop, Hoepli 2008 (with Caterina Rinaldi); Switch on Your English, Hoepli 2011 (with Caterina Rinaldi); Flash on English Advanced, 2017 (with Laura Clyde).

Research interests include testing and assessment, pragmatics, corpus linguistics, current developments in English language teaching approaches and language change. Research publications include “New Sport Media Language: Lexicon and Culture in New Media” (2012), “The deceiving ELF? Can English fulfil the role of a Lingua Franca?” (2015); "The Role of Subtitles in Language Teaching." (2017), "Naming or Shaming? Presentations of the Self in specialised Weblog discourse." (2017); "Is the Current Role of English Sustainable?" (2018); "The Words that Count: Exploring Theoretical Questions in CADS" (2019); "New Medium but old messages?" (2021) and “Sustaining Languages and the Language of Sustainability. The need for change.” (in press).

Area/s of Expertise: English language teacher training,; testing, assessment and evaluation, adult education, developments in English language, the use of corpora for pragmatic and linguistic research.