Getting to know....David Albery

1. What does your job involve?

I'm responsible for developing new short courses. This involves proposing ideas for courses,  and responding to requests from outside organisations and from the Marketing Business and Development team at CLIE. Having established that a course could be developed, I'm then responsible for seeing that development through to delivery. I'm also responsible for coordinating the existing short courses, most of which run in the summer months.

2. How long have you been at UCL? What did you do before this role?

I've been at UCL 8 years. Before this, I managed the Distance Delta course, worked for Cambridge English Assessment developing the new Delta scheme, and wrote various books for Pearson and CUP.

3. What do you most enjoy about your position and why?

I very much enjoy planning and producing new courses - because it's creative and brings into play all other aspects ELT.

4. What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

Not sure. Possibly revising the design of the Distance Delta Programme for the British Council, or maybe re-designing the syllabus and assessment criteria of the Delta award for Cambridge, or perhaps a book I did for CUP a few years ago about language.

5. What's your favourite film and book?

I don't have a favourite film, really, though The Story of the Weeping Camel and Brief Encounter come pretty high up the list.

Book: Middlemarch...probably.

6. Who would be your dream dinner guests?

No idea, though I did once do a recording for a Pearson coursebook in which I claimed it would be Marge Simpson (a lie).

7. What's your favourite place in the world?

Soller in Majorca, at the moment. But I've travelled and lived in many places so it's very hard to choose.

8. Silva's question for you from the last newsletter: "If you could visit anywhere in the world you've never been, where would you go (and why)?"

Bhutan - because I've not been there, despite a couple of near misses.

9. What's your question for the next colleague?

What's your favourite hour in the day?