Eric Baber

With a background in teaching English as a Foreign Language, Eric has been involved in online education since the 1990s. In 1998 he founded NetLearn Languages , an online language school, of which he is still a director. From 2002 to 2006 he worked for Royal Holloway University of London as Online Course Designer; this role encompassed working with academics in order to produce online content for a number of undergraduate and postgraduate courses. He also devised and still runs training seminars for academics in pedagogical issues involved when writing and delivering online courses, as well as courses in the skills of e-moderation.

He is now Associate Lecturer with the Open University ; online tutor with the Institute of Education ; and online tutor for The Consu ltants-E . He also develops and runs bespoke training seminars for institutions such as the British Council on issues revolving around the use of ICT and teaching and learning, and delivers consultancy services for organisations including Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ESOL, the British Council and on behalf of the University of London's Centre for Distance Education. His teaching and training has taken him to far-flung places such as Thailand, Laos and Oman as well as places closer to home including France, Poland and the UK.

He has been active in IATEFL's Business English Special Interest Group ( BESIG ) for more years than he can remember and is currently joint coordinator. Finally, he is the proud dad of a small boy who keeps him busy when he's not online or travelling!

Publications

Books

Author of the book 50 Ways to Improve Your English... Using the Internet , Summertown Publishing, 2007.

Co-author of the book Teaching English with Information Technology , Modern English Publishing, 2005. An extract in Adobe Acrobat format is available here .

Co-author of the chapter "Best Practice and Practical Considerations of Language Instruction via Internet Audio/Videoconferencing" in U. Felix (ed.) Language Learning Online: Towards Best Practice , Lisse: Swets & Zeitlinger, 2003.

Articles

Numerous articles in publications including the BBC English magazine, the EL Gazette, IATEFL Issues, the BESIG Newsletter, the Learning Technology SIG newsletter et al.