Professor's Profile

Michael Handford

Hi, I'm Mike and this is my third year at Todai. Before that I was teaching and lecturing on English at the University of Nottingham in England, where I am from. I chose to be an English teacher because I love language, and I like working with people. I really enjoy working here because the students are wonderful: we have a good international mix, and I don't have to motivate them very much because they are so motivated anyway. Seeing my students become independent language users is really satisfying. When they don't need me anymore I think I've done a good job!
As for my teaching philosophy, I think the concept of English as an international language is key to what we do in class: rather than attempting to be like idealised native speakers of English, the goal is to express our own selves, to understand what others mean, and to get them to understand us. As such, we look at negotiating meaning, meaning in context and developing in particular strategic, discourse and sociocultural competence. We measure success in class by effective co-construction of meaning. Everything else is secondary to that. If you don't understand any of this, then join my classes and find out! It's really quite simple.
I graduated from the LSE in 1993, where I studied Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method. After teaching in Japan for six years I returned to the UK to do an MA in English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, which really inspired me, and opened my mind to language and teaching. I recently completed my PhD in Linguistics, also at the University of Nottingham. I analysed the language in business meetings, so if you have any questions about business English, please come in for a chat.