Alan Evison, Head of Language and Learning Unit

As Head of the Language and Learning Unit, Alan has lead responsibility for providing English language and study skills support for Queen Mary students, as well as foundation courses and revenue-earning English courses for prospective students. He also supervises the Thinking Writing initiative and Language Learning courses. He is a member of the Student Support Committee and the Information Services Board.

Alan read English at New College, Oxford, and then taught English at Rajshahi University in Bangladesh. Subsequently, he gained postgraduate qualifications in TEFL from the Universities of Leeds and Reading and went on to teach English overseas and in the UK. Working for the British Council, he was a Key English Language Teaching (KELT) expert in a team that established a language centre for the University of Sana'a, Yemen, and was deputy director of the Council's flagship school in Tokyo. Alan joined Queen Mary in 1997, having run the College's English Language Unit for the previous five years under the auspices of the Bell Educational Trust.

Stuart Perrin, Deputy Head of LLU/Deputy Director of ELSS

Stuart came to Queen Mary in November 2007 and is responsible for managing the delivery of all the English language and academic skills programmes within the unit, including the flagship IFP and in-sessional programmes, at a strategic level. As part of this remit, he is actively involved in areas as diverse as student recruitment, internal and external marketing initiatives, business planning and income generation initiatives, staff development and resource management, as well as deputising for the Head of the Language and Learning Unit whenever necessary. Stuart is completing his PhD at Kings College, London where he is researching the relationship between Learner Identity, the Language learning Environment and Second Language Acquisition from a socio-cultural perspective. He is a member of the British Association of Applied Linguists (BAAL) and IATEFL.

Rosa María Martín, Director of Language Learning/Deputy Head of LLU

Rosa is Director of Language Learning within the L&LU and has been responsible for organising courses in languages other than English in QMUL since 1993. She manages the development and implementation of the provision of language teaching at all levels for students who are pursuing degrees in all areas and to members of staff, postgraduate students and members of the local community and external clients.

A native speaker of Spanish, Rosa holds a Licenciatura (BA) in Romance Philology (Spanish and French) from the University of Zaragoza in Spain and an MA in Language and Literature in Education – Modern Languages, from the Institute of Education , University of London . She also studied French Linguistics and Literature at the Sorbonne University in Paris and attained a further teaching qualification from the University of Barcelona.

Rosa has many years experience of teaching Spanish at HE, FE and secondary level and was Advisory Teacher for language Diversification in Hackney and Islington LEAs, supporting teachers and helping t expand languages in these areas. She also helped to introduce language teaching in primary and special schools. She has held Qualified Teacher Status in Britain since 1989 and is a member of the Association of Language Learning and the national Association of Language Advisors.

She has run courses and given talks for language teachers and is author of successful published courses for learners of Spanish, notably Pasos for adult learners and Aventura for secondary school students. She has also written materials for television (BBC and Channel 4 education) and for the internet.