Dr Sue Garton, Lecturer in TESOL, has recently returned from a successful first visit to South Korea promoting the School of Languages & Social Sciences and exploring possible new collaborations for the School.
The South Korean visit was centred around an academic lecture delivered at the British Council in Seoul. Every year, the British Council Korea offers British universities the opportunity to address students on a range of popular topics. This is the second year that Aston has been successful in gaining a place following Professor David Bennett from ABS last year.
Due to the popularity of English language programmes in Korea, Dr Garton’s lecture, entitled Method or Interaction? Creating learning Opportunities in the English Classroom attracted an audience of 92 people which the British Council confirmed as the highest number to attend any of the lectures since their inception two years ago! 34% of the audience were university students including prospective students and 42% were English teachers and out of 10 scale base, the recommendation rate was 8.23, which was one of the highest marks to date. The lecture was so popular that Hankook University in Seoul asked Sue to repeat it later that week at their institution.
Capitalising on her time in Korea, Dr Garton visited a number of prestigious universities in the capital Seoul and the second city, Pusan where she met with senior academic and International Relations staff to discuss ways in which Aston might collaborate. Several of these leads are being followed up currently and one has already led to an incoming visit this month. Dr Garton also visited our existing Korean partner university, carried out some staff training at the premises of our official representative in Korea, UKEO and found time to meet with some of our Korean alumni so she certainly crammed a lot into a very short visit!
Dr Garton’s visit was arranged by David Tobin in the International Office. For assistance with future visits or market intelligence on one of the countries that we visit and for a list of regional marketing and recruitment responsibilities, click here.
Further photos.
Words by David Tobin
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