Research

Research projects

Projects include:

• Becoming a professional in the new global market: Language, mobility and inequality (UCL Global Fund, UCL IOE Seed corn grant, Beijing University of International Business and Economics, Nanjing Technological University, 2017–20)
• British Academy teaching-research nexus
• British Council reading and writing in second language
• Child bilingual brain imaging
• CITTI research project, analysing interactions within virtual learning environments for students of citizenship
• Cognitive benefits of language learning
• Development of a strategy for EAL in the teaching workforce
• Digital literacies as a postgraduate attribute
• Dimension-selective attention and second language acquisition (ESRC Research Grant, 2021–25)
• Examining language-related eligibility criteria in patient recruitment to randomised controlled trials
• Exploring the neuro-cognitive demands of writing in a foreign language in crisis situations (UCL-Tohoku Strategic Partner Funds, 2022–23)
• Family language policy
• How does having a good ear promote L2 speech learning? (Leverhulme Trust Research Project, 2020–24)
• How does literacy experience in more than one language shape cognition?
• How does training a good ear promote L2 speech learning? (Spencer Foundation Research Project, 2020–24)
• How tutors use masters degree studies in education to support teachers
• Investigating IELTS Academic Writing Task 2: Relationships between cognitive writing processes, text quality, and working memory (British Council, 2015–16)
• Investigating the impact of multilingual children’s identity on language and literacy (UCL Global Engagement Fund, 2024–25)
• Investigating the integrated and independent TOEFL iBT writing tasks: Writing behaviours, underlying cognitive processes, and their relationships to test scores and text quality (Educational Testing Service, 2017–18)
• Investigating the predictive validity of the Duolingo English Test
• L2 reading and reading-while-listening in multi-modal learning conditions: An eye-tracking study (British Council English Language Teaching Research Awards, 2016)
• Language and moral judgements: (Eye)Tracking emotions and decisions (bLaME) (British Academy/Leverhulme, 2024–25)
• Language of voice-hearing
• Lexical coverage and its effect on second language reading comprehension: An examination of readers’ cognitive effort (CCM Small funds, 2017)
• Maximising the impact of second language vocabulary on the design of language learning apps
• Monitoring and evaluation of the hearing all voices project
• Multilingual universities
• Multilingualism in healthcare: Exploring the lived experience of maternity professionals
• Neurocognition and second language learning: exploring neurocognitive processes during L2 speech in crisis situations (UCL-Tohoku Strategic Partner Funds, 2020–21)
• Promoting English language learning: the role of reading in vocabulary acquisition (UCL Global Engagement funds, 2020)
• Questioning vaccination discourse: Quo VaDis
• Social Mobile Network to enhance community building for adults informal learning
• Sustaining multilinguals' well-being through AI-based neurocognitive and language training (UK-ISPF Research Collaboration Project, 2024–26)
• Tasks and assessing second language writing processes and outcomes (Trinity College London, 2013–14)
• The complexity-accuracy-fluency triad, communicative adequacy, and revisiting the IELTS speaking band descriptors
• The impact of writing proficiency on second language writing behaviours and text quality (Trinity College London, 2015–16)
• Translanguaging and learning
• Translanguaging in diverse contexts
• Translanguaging in the workplace
• Using computational tools to analyse the language demands of informed consent documents in health intervention research.
• Using eye-tracking as an educational tool: An investigation into the effects of interactive eye-tracking on second language vocabulary knowledge (Spencer Foundation, 2023–25)
• Writing in the city (HKU–UCL Strategic Partnerships, 2017–18)

See also UCL Profiles to find more about our researchers, publications, activities, groups and themes.

Collaborations

• Cross-London Sociolinguistics Seminars (CLSS)
• International Consortium for Communication in Healthcare (IC4CH)
• London Second Language Acquisition Research Forum (L-SLARF)
• London TESOL Research Forum (LTRF) 
• MIRCo International Centre for Interdisciplinary Research (Multilingualism, Social Identities, Intercultural Relationships and Communication)

Research groups

• Language, Space & Political Economy Lab
• Second Language Acquisition and Bilingualism Lab
• UCL Health Communication Network