Language and Literacy Education Staff
Academic Staff
Ms Helen Cozmescu
Lecturer (Primary Language and Literacy)
Helen Cozmescu joined the University of Melbourne in 2006 and lectures in Language and Literacy, across the Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Teaching and Bachelor of Early Childhood courses. She also works as a Clinical Specialist with a group of Master of Teaching students from both the Primary and Secondary streams. Prior to working at the University, Helen taught in Catholic schools in the North/Western zone of Melbourne. She has held various roles in schools included classroom teaching and co-ordinating roles in literacy, mathematics, curriculum and special needs. Helen’s teaching interests include the teaching of literacy across the curriculum and literacy development beyond the Early Years.
Dr Michele de Courcy
Senior Lecturer (TESOL)
Michèle de Courcy is a Senior Lecturer in TESOL in the Faculty of Education. She has taught in high schools for over ten years, teaching French, Music, English (as first, second and foreign language) and Geography in France, Scotland, and several Australian states. After retraining as an ESL specialist, she taught ELICOS before moving into univeristy research and teaching in the area of Second Language Teacher Education. She is a member of the editorial board for the "International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism" and "Language and Education". She is the coordinator of the Postgraduate programs in TESOL and the Chair of the Faculty Human Ethics Advisory Group.
Michèle's research, teaching and publications centre on bilingual education with an emphasis on second language acquisition processes and content-based language instruction. She has written and supervised theses in a number of areas including: content-based language teaching and learning, acquisition of character-based languages and cross-cultural communication.
Dr Russell Cross
Lecturer (TESOL)
Russell Cross’s research focuses on the knowledge base of language teacher education, with an interest in the social, cultural, and political dimensions of language teachers’ practice, identity, and professional learning from a Vygotskian sociocultural perspective. His teaching includes Learning Area Studies, Methodology and Curriculum Design, Innovation and Change in Language Education, and Content and Language Integrated Learning within the Master of Teaching and Master of TESOL programs, and he is coordinating the Master of Education (Teaching English Through Content) program which commences in 2009.
His current research project, Literacy and Teaching English Outside of the Mainstream, examines what it means for ESL teachers to ‘teach literacy’ when learners come to the classroom already literate in a language other than English.
Russell is a member of the Australian Association for Research in Education, the Australian Council of TESOL Associations, and the Australian Federation of Modern Language Teachers. From 2008, he is co-editor of TESOL in Context, the peer-reviewed journal of the Australia Council of TESOL.
Dr Julie Hamston
Senior Lecturer (Primary)
Julie Hamston is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Education and is also the deputy leader of the Language and Literacy Education cluster. Julie lectures in undergraduate, pre-service and Master’s language and literacy programs. She also co-ordinates and teaches the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching Studies of Asia.
Julie’s teaching profile ranges in scope and interest from: the relationship between language and culture; early years and middle years literacy; discourse analysis; popular culture and multimodal text practices; critical literacy practices; and studies of Asia curriculum. Julie also supervises research at PhD. Doctoral, Master’s level and co-ordinates the supervision of Undergraduate and Pre-service Research projects for the Faculty of Education.
Julie has established a broad-based research and scholarly profile that has focused on issues of identity and diversity; ethical dialogue in the primary classroom; boys and reading; critical literacy practices; texts in an integrated curriculum; studies of Asia in the primary and secondary context; English as a global language; and the transitions of graduate teachers of English into primary schools in the United Arab Emirates. This body of research is connected through a common theoretical orientation that has allowed her to open up new fields of exploration. Julie has made this research and scholarship accessible to the education community through publications for teachers and students, conference presentations, keynote and plenary addresses, seminars, workshops and action based research with teachers in schools.
Mr John Ingamells
Lecturer (TESOL)
John Ingamells is a Lecturer (TESOL) at the Faculty of Education. He teaches a number of subjects including TESOL learning area study for Diploma of Education, TESOL Methodology and Curriculum Design, Language and Language Acquisition and assessment. John is a committee member and treasurer of the Victorian Association of TESOL and Multicultural Education and has contributed to a number of government publications including The ESL Companion to the English Curriculum and Standards Framework (CSF) (Board of Studies 2000) and ESL Course Advice material in CD-ROM, 'curriculum@work' (Department of Education, Employment and Training 2000).
Professor Joe Lo Bianco
Chair of Language and Literacy Education,
Associate Dean International
Joe Lo Bianco is Chair of Language and Literacy Education; Associate Dean (International). As well as this, Professor Lo Bianco is the Director (with Professor Simon Marginson) of the Collaborative Strategic Research Initiative: The emerging educational needs of knowledge economies in the Asia-Pacific region and is an Honorary Professor, University of Hong Kong. His teaching areas include: English as a second language, international English, Asian studies and Australian education and literacy education and multi-literacies.
Joe is best known as the author of the 1987 National Policy on Languages, adopted as a bipartisan national plan for English, Indigenous languages, Asian and European languages, and Interpreting and Translating services and now used worldwide as a model of rational language planning.
Professor Lo Bianco has been an invited short-term consultant on constitutional language planning in many settings: post-Apartheid South Africa; language education in the US State of Hawaii; integration of Muslim immigrants in European Schools for the Council of Europe; indigenous and foreign languages in Alberta (Canada); Chinese teaching in the state of Alberta (Canada); official English and heritage languages in the United States for the several national organisations and agencies; Tamil and Malay in Singaporean language education; bilingual literacy in Western Samoa and eight other Pacific Island.
He has over 120 scholarly refereed articles and has written/edited 25 books and major reports.
Associate Professor Kristina Love
Leader, Language and Literacy Education Cluster,
Kristina Love has worked at the University of Melbourne since 1987, having taught English in secondary schools for 13 years prior to that and having completed her Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics at Melbourne University. Her Ph.D thesis, entitled "The Whole Class Text Response Discussion Genre: A Case Study", used a systemic functional grammar (Halliday, 1994) to analyse the spoken discourse of secondary English classrooms. Kristina has since been using the grammar extensively in both her pre-service and post-graduate teaching and in her research.
At the Masters and D.Ed level, Kristina teaches the subjects Language Education: Functional Perspectives, Doing Discourse Analysis, ICT's in English and Literacy and Practical Language Awareness. In addition, she teaches in the Bachelor of Teaching and Diploma of Education courses, specifically in the Secondary English Learning Area Studies and in the core Language and Education subject, which she has co-ordinated for ten years. In 2005, she developed a new learning area study entitled English Language and Literacy which prepares pre-service teachers for teaching the VCE subject English Language and for working with literacy within English and across the secondary subjects.
Kristina's major research interest for the last ten years has been in the area of classroom discourse, where she has focussed on a sociolinguistic examination of the talk that accompanies exploration of texts in secondary English classes. Other research interests include: the application of multimedia tools as learning technologies in secondary English classrooms and in classrooms across the key learning areas and boys and reading.
Mr Nigel Lutersz
Lecturer (English, Language and Literacy)
Nigel Lutersz joined the Faculty of Education in January of 2002. After completing his secondary teaching qualifications at Monash University, Nigel taught English, Literature, ESL, Drama, SOSE and Special Education in both the Independent and Catholic systems. Nigel has also held the position of Professional Development Co-ordinator and has administered an innovative whole school reading program designed to improve the reading practices of boys within a large metropolitan school. He has also taught overseas in the area of Business English. Apart from his lecturing responsibilities at the University of Melbourne, Nigel is employed by the Victorian Curriculum Assessment Authority as an examiner of both the GAT and Yr 12 English.
Nigel's main areas of interest include: the application of multiple intelligences in the English classroom, boys and gifted education in secondary English classrooms and boys and literacy development.
Dr Larissa McLean Davies
Lecturer (Secondary English Education)
Larissa McLean Davies is a Lecturer in Secondary English Education in the Graduate School of Education. Her research interests are in the areas of Australian literature; gender in English education; critical literacy; and in the impact of literature on students’ conceptions of identity, culture and belonging. Larissa is an experienced English and Literature teacher who has taught in a range of secondary schools. She has also co-authored English textbooks and made a significant contribution to the professional development of English teachers in Victoria.
Associate Professor Ray Misson
Director, Learning and Teaching
Ray Misson is Director and Associate Dean (Learning and Teaching). Prior to this, he was Head of the Department of Language, Literacy and Arts Education. Other roles he has held in the Faculty include Associate Dean (Preservice) and Associate Dean (International). He was Head of the School of International Communication and Languages in Melbourne University Private. He currently chairs the University's Postgraduate Coursework Programs Sub-COmmittee.
Ray began his teaching career in the English departments at the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney, teaching medieval literature. His M.A. thesis is on the Icelandic sagas, and his PhD thesis is on medieval drama (the plays of the Wakefield Master). After coming to the predecessor institutions of the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, he initially taught widely in the field of Literature, but then began to specialise more in the areas of Literary Theory and Cultural Studies, with particular emphasis on popular culture, sexuality studies and critical literacy. He had a long association with Year 12 English in the state of Victoria, including being Chief Examiner for VCE English (1991-1996) and Convenor of the VCE English Text Selection Committee (1995-1997). He has been invited to give many plenary and keynote addresses at conferences for English and literacy teachers.
Dr Paul Molyneux
Lecturer (Primary)
Paul Molyneux lectures in the area of primary school language and literacy pedagogy. His teaching duties encompass subjects within the Bachelor of Education, Bachelor of Early Childhood Education, and Bachelor of Teaching courses. Paul also supervises research at postgraduate level, and supports students engaged in undergraduate, pre-service research projects. Paul commenced full-time lecturing duties within the Faculty of Education (at the time in the Department of Language, Literacy and Arts Education) in January, 2005. Prior to taking up this position he worked as a teacher and curriculum leader in Victorian government schools, and as a literacy/curriculum consultant in the United States and Vietnam.
Paul’s research interests centre on issues of educational access and success for students from linguistically and culturally diverse backgrounds. He is particularly interested in student identity formation, as issues of language, culture, and socio-economic status intersect with schooling.
Paul's Ph.D. thesis investigated bilingual education arrangements for students from immigrant and refugee backgrounds learning in inner city Melbourne. This largely qualitative study drew heavily on the perspectives of bilingual education arrangements articulated by the students themselves, their parents and their teachers. He obtained a Faculty of Education grant in late 2005 to further investigate students' perspectives on national identity, and the role of language in these constructions.
Earlier, for his Master of Education thesis, Paul investigated key stakeholders’ perceptions of curriculum change in a multigrade, bilingual education project catering for ethnic minority students in Vietnam.
Dr Kieran O'Loughlin
Senior Lecturer (TESOL),
Associate Dean International Programs
Kieran O'Loughlin is Assistant Dean, International Programs in the Faculty of Education. He also lectures in the postgraduate TESOL program, supervises postgraduate research projects and conducts research and is the Anti-Discrimination Advisor at the University of Melbourne. Kieran is a member of the Victorian Association of TESOL and Multicultural Education (VATME), the Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA) the Applied Linguistics Association of Australia (ALAA) and the International Language Testing Association (ILTA).
His main research interests are in a)second language assessment, b)English for academic purposes and c)social identities in second language learning and education more broadly.
Dr Jane Orton
Honorary Senior Fellow
Jane Orton is an Honorary Senior Fellow in the Language and Literacy Cluster of the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, and a member of the strategic research program Knowledge Economies in the Asia-Pacific Region. She is a member of the Asia Education Foundation Board and a founding member of the Gesture Studies Network Australia. Jane's academic interest is in intercultural learning: the opportunities and challenges, content and means for human education through intercultural interaction, especially through learning to use a new language.
Ms Catherine Reid
Lecturer (Secondary)
Catherine Reid lectures in the Language and Literacy Education Cluster.
Dr Janet Scull
Lecturer (Primary)
Janet Scull is the co-ordinator and lecturer of Language and Literacy 2 and 3. She joined the Faculty of Education in 2003. Prior to taking up this position she was a member of the Early Years of Schooling team responsible for the development and implementation of the Early Years Literacy Program. Janet is also a Reading Recovery trainer and has worked with Reading Recovery Tutors and teachers to support the implementation of this program in Victoria. She continues to provide professional development for teachers through conference presentations, seminars and workshops with teachers in schools.
Janet’s teaching interests focus on literacy acquisition in particular the relationship between language, literacy and teacher/student interactions. She is also interested in the development of children’s literacy competence, supporting constructive, creative and critical engagement with text. She is currently completing her PhD thesis examining the role of comprehension during the early stages of literacy learning.
Professional Staff
Miss Emma Brimfield
Senior Administrator
Emma Brimfield is the Senior Administrator for Artistic and Creative Education and Language and Literacy Education. Her main duties include management of cluster finances such as research grants and consultancies, website development and graphic design. She is currently involved with the redevelopment of the ACE, LALE, Viewpoint magazine and LASS websites. She is also a member of the Faculty's Communication Working Party and has instigated a number of faculty-wide initiatives including the redevelopment of the Faculty's intranet and website.
Emma holds a Bachelor of Commerce Degree (University of Tasmania) with majors in Human Resource Management and Marketing. She has worked within the higher education sector for a number of years undertaking diverse roles including Alumni Relations Officer, Student Administrator and Development Assistant.
Miss Marie-Claire Moloney
Administrative Officer
Miss Marie-Claire Moloney is the Administrative Officer of both the Artistic and Creative Education Cluster and the Language and Literacy Education Cluster. Coming from a background of hospital administration and school-teaching, she handles daily problem-solving and administrative requirements of the two clusters, including management of colloquiua and meetings, maintenance and I.T. issues, and assistance with project work.
Marie-Claire’s university life started with her degree in Arts and Music, with a special interest in Ethnomusicology, major in History and minor in French. She has worked as a Casual Relief Teacher for 2 years and as Admissions officer in various Melbourne hospitals.