Visiting Professor in Applied Linguistics

Stephen Bax joined CRELLA as Reader in 2009 and was made Professor in Applied Linguistics in 2012. He continued in a Visiting Professorship role as he took up a post at the Open University in September 2015.

Professor Bax died in 2017.

He was awarded the 2014 TESOL Distinguished Researcher Award for his work on eye tracking, presented at the TESOL convention in Portland Oregon. His personal website has more about his research and other studies.

He has a PhD from the University of Kent in the area of Discourse, and an MLitt and MSc in Applied Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh, as well as a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from University of North Wales, Bangor. He also holds the Final Diploma in Arabic Translation from the Chartered Institute of Linguists.

At CRELLA he is involved in supervising research students. Most recently he has been using eye tracking to research reading and reading tests. His 2013 article in Language Testing, the first article on eye tracking in the journal, won the 2014 TESOL Distinguished Research Award. You can also listen to him discussing it on the Language Testing journal's podcast.

Before joining CRELLA as a Reader Stephen lectured at Canterbury Christ Church University and was director of the CRADLE research centre. Prior to that he worked for Edinburgh University. He has also worked extensively in the Middle East, Asia and Latin America, and speaks Arabic and Spanish. 

You can visit his personal website has more about his research and other studies.

His publications include the British Council research monograph Researching English Bilingual Education in Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, the book 'Discourse and Genre' (2011, Macmillan), his 2013 book Researching Intertextual Reading in the series Contemporary Studies in Descriptive Linguistics, as well as leading articles in the fields of teacher education, CALL and ICT, and areas of discourse. His 2003 article on CALL won an Elsevier prize. See his list of recent publications below.

He has done extensive consultancy work around the world for the British Council and for publishers, and he acted as book reviewer for CUP, OUP and other major publishers.

In terms of the web, he has produced numerous internet-based learning resources for the BBC World Service website, including a major interactive language learning series "Ten Days" for Latin America and internationally, as well as numerous other interactive language learning modules. He has also been interviewed by BBC World Service Radio as a specialist in online language learning and teaching, and has been commissioned to write in the Guardian newspaper on language teaching methodology and on the use of computers in language education.

Professor Bax is regularly invited to speak at international conferences. He is also on the referee panel for System (the international journal for educational technology in language education).

Selected publications

• 2013 Book: Bax, S. Researching Intertextual Reading in the series Contemporary Studies in Descriptive Linguistics, Peter Lang. Oxford, Bern, Berlin, Bruxelles, Frankfurt am Main, New York, Wien, 2013. 355 pp ISBN 978-3-0343-0769-7
• 2013 'The cognitive processing of candidates during reading tests: Evidence from eye-tracking' Language Testing Sage - first published on May 16, 2013
• 2012 Bax, S. and C. Weir (2012) Investigating learners' cognitive processes during a computer-based CAE Reading test, Cambridge Esol : Research Notes: Issue A7 / February 2012, pp3-14
• 2011 Book: Bax, S. Discourse and Genre Palgrave Macmillan 9780230217966
• 2011a "Normalisation Revisited: The Effective Use of Technology in Language Education" International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 1(2), 1-15, April-June 2011
• 2011b "Digital Education: Beyond the "Wow" Factor" chapter in Digital Education: Opportunities for Social Collaboration ed. M. Thomas, in press for 2011, Palgrave Macmillan.
• 2010 'Magic Wand or Museum Piece? The Future of the Interactive Whiteboard in Education in Thomas, M & E. Cutrim Schmid (eds.) Interactive Whiteboards for Education: Theory, Research and Practice Pennsylvania: Global IGI
• 2009a with M. Pegrum 'I wasn't invited to the party': Lurking in multicultural online educational forums In Ragusa, A. (forthcoming)  Interaction in Communication Technologies & Virtual Learning Environments: Human Factors IGA Global, chapter 10, pp145-159
• 2009b CALL - Past, present and future. In Howard, P. (2009)  (ed.) Computer Assisted Language Learning: Critical Concepts in Linguistics (New York and London: Routledge), Chapter 5, pp. 117-133, in Volume I: Foundations of CALL.
• 2009c with  R. Cullen ' Generating and evaluating reflection through teaching practice' in Hedge, P., N. Andon & M. Dewey (2009) (eds) English Language Teaching: Major Themes in Education Routledge Vol. VI