Faidra Faitaki

Departmental Lecturer in Applied Linguistics | St Antony's College

About me

Faidra is a Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Department of Education, University of Oxford. She teaches and supervises on the MSc in Applied Linguistics & Second Language Acquisition and on the MSc in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching.

Prior to joining the Department as a Lecturer, Faidra received a BA in Linguistics from UCL, as well as an MSc in Applied Linguistics & Second Language Acquisition and a DPhil in Education from the University of Oxford.  Furthermore, she has a CELTA from UCL’s Centre for Languages and International Education and possesses substantial experience of teaching English to adults and children in diverse educational settings. Faidra is an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA), and serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Language and Culture in Education.

Faidra’s research explores the linguistic, cognitive, and educational factors that underpin (pre)school-aged children’s acquisition of English as a second language, with a focus on how children’s knowledge of a first language affects their development in the second language. She is also interested in how children’s second language knowledge is measured and can be improved. To this end, Faidra is currently engaged in designing and implementing interventions aimed at developing children’s oral language and soft skills. She is particularly interested in using drama as an intervention medium.

Doctoral Applications

Faidra accepts DPhil applications, and welcomes informal contacts from students who are interested in one or more of the following broad topics:

  • Crosslinguistic transfer in bilingual and second language acquisition.
  • Learning English as an additional/foreign language in (pre-)primary school settings.
  • Vocabulary development in (pre-)primary school children.

 

Research Funding 
  • ‘Oral language development through drama: Practitioner needs and perspectives’ (£2,754.00). Funding Scheme: Department of Education Small Grants. Role: Principal Investigator (Co-Investigator: V.A. Murphy). Funding Period: January 2024 – December 2024.
  • ‘Improving the oral language skills of children with English as an Additional Language through a drama-based intervention’ (£44,676.39). Funding Scheme: John Fell Fund. Role: Principal Investigator (Co-Investigator: V.A. Murphy). Funding Period: September 2022 – September 2023.
  • ‘From the page to the stage: A feasibility study on using theatre to improve EAL children’s communicative skills’ (£2,996). Funding Scheme: TORCH Theatres Seed Fund 2019-2020. Role: Co-Investigator (Principal Investigator: V.A. Murphy). Funding Period: January 2020 – March 2020 (Interrupted due to COVID-19).

 

Publications

Journal Articles 

  • Faitaki, F., Liggins, S., & Meara, P.M.(under review). ‘Lex-15’: Adapting the Lex-30 expressive vocabulary test for young learners.
  • Faitaki, F., Liggins, S., Li, J. & Murphy, V.A. (under review). Developing young language learners’ oral language through drama-based activities: A systematic review.
  • Faitaki, F.,Liggins, S. & Murphy, V.A. (under review). The effectiveness of drama-based intervention for developing young children’s oral language and communication skills.
  • Chen, Z. & Faitaki, F. (in press). The effects of the French grammatical gender system on French-English bilingual adults’ perception of objects. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition.
  • Chalmers, H. Faitaki, F. & Murphy, V.A. (2023). Setting Research Priorities for English as an Additional Language: What do research users want from EAL research?. Language Teaching for Young Learners, 6(1), 5-31. https://doi.org/10.1075/ltyl.00043.set
  • Faitaki, F.& Murphy, V.A. (2023). Subject realization in Greek preschool learners of English. Second Language Research, 0(0), 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1177/02676583231195308

 

Book Chapters

  • Faitaki, F. & Murphy, V.A. (2022). “Using theatre to improve English as an Additional Language learners’ communication skills: A feasibility trial”, in B. Cortina-Pérez, A. Andúgar, A. Álvarez, S. Corral, N. Martínez & A. Otto (Eds.). Addressing Future Challenges in Early Language Learning and Multilingual Education(pp.141-148). Madrid: Dykinson.
  • Faitaki, F., Hessel, A.K. & Murphy, V.A. (2022). “Vocabulary and grammar development in young learners of English as an Additional Language”, in M. Schwartz (Ed.). International Handbook of Early Language Education(pp. 428-444). Cham: Springer.
  • Faitaki, F.& Murphy, V.A. (2020). “Oral elicitation tasks in language acquisition research”, in H. Rose and J. McKinley (Eds.). The Routledge Handbook of Research Methods in Applied Linguistics (pp. 360-369). London: Routledge.

 

Proceedings Papers

  • Faitaki, F., Nation, K., & Murphy, V.A. (2021). Immersion in the Early Years: The future of education and children’s key to success. Proceedings of the Yidan Prize Doctoral Conference, 1, 125-136.

 

Book Reviews

  • Faitaki, F. (2023). [Review of the book Performative Language Teaching in Early Education: Language Learning through Drama and the Arts for Children 3-7, by J. Winston]. Language Teaching for Young Learners, 5(2),245-251. https://doi.org/10.1075/ltyl.00036.fai

 

Edited Volumes

  • Tawell, A., Davison, K., Faitaki, F., Oldaç, Y.I. (Eds.). (2019). Proceedings of the 2018 STORIES Conference: Technology Matters. Department of Education, University of Oxford, Oxford: STORIES Conference.

 

Web Publications

  • Faitaki, F.(2023). Developing Oral Language through a Drama-Based Intervention. Oxford Education Deanery Digests.
  • Faitaki, F.(2021). Using theatre to improve children’s communication skills: Reflections on the project and plans for the future. TORCH Blog.
  • Faitaki, F.(2018). Becoming bilingual at preschool: Greek children’s acquisition of subject pronouns in English. EAL Journal.

 

Other Materials

Subjects Taught

  • MSc in Applied Linguistics for Language Teaching
  • MSc in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition