Profs. Bee Bond and Alex Ding - Joint Inaugural Lecture

In this joint inaugural we draw on our scholarship and professional practices to outline the challenges (and the successes) in making language visible and valued in higher education. In doing so we stress the importance of legitimising the practices of university language educators.

Our inaugural will be structured around the trope of language and language educators as pharmakon: a remedy, cure, charm, poison and drug. Pharmakon mirrors our own intrinsic ambivalence about (our) roles and practices as language educators in the fields of English for Academic Purposes and higher education more broadly.

Pharmakon, however, also suggests language and language educators as potent and full of potential and we argue that this potential and potency needs to be recognised more fully and, most importantly, governed by an ethics that strives to reduce the gap from the real to the ideal for the benefit of the whole university community.

This event will be open to in-person and hybrid attendance. The Lecture will be held in the Rupert Beckett Lecture Theatre between 5pm and 6pm, followed by a drinks reception between 6pm and 7pm.

Please note, that children under the age of 18 years old must be accompanied/supervised by an adult at all times.

About us - Bee Bond

Bee Bond is Professor of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) at the University of Leeds. She has worked in the Language Centre at the University of Leeds since 2001. She was initially employed as an hourly paid language tutor before becoming a permanent and full-time member of staff in 2003, whilst still studying for her Masters degree in English Language Teaching.

Bee also holds a PGCE in Secondary Education (History and English) and taught at Norwood High School for Girls from 1995-1996. Whilst working here, she took the Cambridge Certificate in English language teaching to adults at International House, London and then worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language at International House Krakow, Poland (1996-1997); International House Heliopolis, Cairo, Egypt (1997-1998); International House Buenos Aires, Argentina (1998-1999) and Harrogate Language Academy, UK (2000-2001). Whilst working in Argentina, she also completed the Cambridge Diploma in English Language Teaching to Adults.

Whilst working at the Language Centre in Leeds, Bee has developed and led a range of programmes, including presessional programmes for undergraduate and for postgraduate students. In 2016, she was responsible for the curriculum development work involved in the creation of 14 bespoke content-focused summer presessionals. She then extended this focus on collaboration with specific disciplines into the development of a sector leading approach to embedded insessional EAP provision. She was awarded a National Teaching Fellowship on the basis of this work.

Bee has held several leadership positions in the Language Centre, most recently as one of two Deputy Directors. She has also worked to strengthen links with the Language Centre’s parent School of Languages, Cultures and Societies (LCS) by taking on the joint role of Deputy Head of School for LCS whilst also working as Deputy Director for the Language Centre.

She has been a Senior Fellow of Advance HE since 2014. She is also a TEAP (teaching EAP) Senior Fellow, mentor and assessor for BALEAP’s (the British Association for Lecturers of EAP) individual accreditation scheme, and is currently a member of BALEAP’s Executive Committee as TEAP Officer. In this role, she is working to strengthen and develop the scheme, collaborating with other mentors and assessors to build in a focus on training, development and scholarship.

As one of the first fellows of the Leeds Institute for Teaching Excellence, Bee undertook a project looking at the intersection of language and disciplinary knowledge. She developed this work into her single authored book ‘Making Language in the University. English for Academic Purposes and Internationalisation.’ (Multilingual Matters, 2020). This has led to other publications and projects aimed at developing and building in a focus on language as an integral aspect of academic learning.

Currently, she co-leads the new online MA in Teaching English for Academic Purposes with Alex Ding.

About us - Alex Ding

Alex Ding started his teaching career briefly in Milan before settling in Lyon France in 1990 to teach English for Specific Purposes at the University of Lyon III, Ecole nationale supérieure des sciences de l’information et des bibliothèques, Ecole Normale Supérieure and Institut National des Sciences Appliquées. In 2001 he moved to Nottingham to take up a teaching role in English for Academic Purposes at the University of Nottingham. Working full-time, he also completed a MEd at the University of Manchester and a PhD at the University of Nottingham. Alongside teaching English for Academic Purposes, he also supervised PhD students, convened a number of modules on MA programmes and co-developed and led an MA in Teaching English for Academic Purposes.

In 2015, he was appointed Lecturer in English for Academic Purposes at the University of Leeds. His remit was to develop and lead practitioner scholarship across the School of Languages, Cultures and Societies and the Language Centre. He was the inaugural Director of Scholarship for LCS and LC and inaugural Director of the Centre for Excellence in Language Teaching. He also instigated the creation of the scholarship journal, The Language Scholar. Currently, he co-leads, with Bee Bond, the new online MA in Teaching English for Academic Purposes.

He initiated and co-edits a book series ‘New Perspectives for English for Academic Purposes’ (Bloomsbury) and has co-edited with Michelle Evans ‘EAP and Social Theory: Foundations and Perspectives’ as well as ‘Practitioner Agency and Identity in English for Academic Purposes’ with Laetitia Monbec.

His publications include ‘The English for Academic Purposes Practitioner: Operating on the Edge of Academia’ (Palgrave, 2017) co-authored with Ian Bruce, as well as chapters and articles exploring the politics and sociology of EAP, the role of associations, scholarship, and the knowledge-base of EAP practitioners. His forthcoming publications signal a shift to wider issues in Higher Education, ‘Recovering Language in Higher Education: Social Justice, Ethics and Practices’, co-authored with Laetitia Monbec (Palgrave) and, with his long-term collaborator and friend Ian Bruce, ‘Language, Knowledge and Society in Higher Education’ (Bloomsbury, 2025).