Dr Sophia Skoufaki

Biography

Sophia did her undergraduate studies in English at the University of Athens, Greece. She then did an MPhil and a PhD in Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. Before coming to Essex, she worked as a lecturer in linguistics at the University of Greenwich and the Open University in the UK. She also conducted postdoctoral research on English learner corpus data at National Taiwan University. Between her degrees she worked as an English language teacher in Athens and in Cambridge and as an item writer for ASSET Languages, a language testing company in Cambridge. Her main research interest is the learning, teaching, and use of vocabulary in a second language. In her PhD research, she examined the comprehension, learning and teaching of English idiomatic expressions. While working as a postdoctoral researcher, she examined the role of vocabulary in second language oral fluency and writing quality. Her postdoctoral research is related to language testing because the data examined were past answers to a local proficiency examination. Sophia's current research examines a) English academic vocabulary learning and teaching and b) how people come to perceive a text as coherent or not.

Qualifications

• BA National and Kapodistrian University of Athens,

• MPhil University of Cambridge,

• PhD University of Cambridge,

Appointments

University of Essex

• Lecturer, Language and Linguistics, University of Essex (1/11/2010 - 30/6/2020)

• Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-east England (CHASE) Departmental Lead, Language and Linguistics, University of Essex (7/10/2019 - 30/6/2020)

• Director of Research Students, University of Essex (1/9/2019 - 2/1/2020)

• Assistant Director of Research Students, University of Essex (1/10/2018 - 30/6/2020)

• Director BA English language with Media Communication, Language and Linguistics, University of Essex (8/10/2018 - 30/6/2020)

• Deputy Director of Education (Linguistics), University of Essex (1/1/2019 - 27/6/2019)

• Undergraduate Admissions Coordinator (Linguistics), University of Essex (1/10/2014 - 5/4/2018)

• Disability Liaison Officer, University of Essex (1/10/2011 - 30/9/2014)

• Assistant Undergraduate Admissions Coordinator (Linguistics), University of Essex (1/9/2011 - 1/10/2014)

• Director BA English language and Literature, Language and Linguistics, University of Essex (10/10/2011 - 30/6/2020)

• Director BA English language and Sociology, Language and Linguistics, University of Essex (10/10/2011 - 30/6/2020)

• Director BA English language and History, Language and LInguistics, University of Essex (10/10/2011 - 30/6/2020)

Other academic

• Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Graduate Institute of Linguistics, National Taiwan University (1/9/2008 - 31/7/2010)

• Lecturer, Department of Languages and International Studies, University of Greenwich (3/9/2007 - 29/8/2008)

• Associate Lecturer, Faculty of Education and Language Studies, Open University (7/1/2007 - 30/9/2008)

• Visiting Lecturer, Department of Languages and International Studies, University of Greenwich (2/10/2006 - 31/5/2007)