Dr. Ahmad Al-Issa, is an Associate Professor and the Interim Head of the Department of English.  He holds a PhD from Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the field of rhetoric and linguistics. Prior to joining AUS in 1998, he worked at the US State Department’s Office of Language Services, and taught graduate and undergraduate courses in linguistics and communication in the United States, Germany and Jordan. His areas of research include cross-cultural communication, language, culture and identity, global English, interlanguage and intercultural pragmatics, classroom research, teaching effectiveness and curriculum design. He has published many articles and book chapters in these areas. He is a member of several international organizations and has presented papers at both national and international conferences in many parts of the world.

Dr. Fatima Badry,

Professor, holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley. She has extensive experience in teaching English as a second/foreign language and teacher education. Her research interests are in the areas of first and second language acquisition, ESL, Arabic morphology and sociolinguistics, bilingual education and impact of Global English on identity. In addition to numerous conference presentations on ESL-related issues in the US, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, her publications include Acquiring the Arabic Lexicon: Evidence of Productive Strategies and Pedagogical Implications (Bethesda, MD: Academica Press, 2004); “Productivity in Child Language: Evidence from Arabic,” in M. Alhawary and E. Benmamoun (eds.), Perspectives on Arabic Linguistics XVII- XVIII. Current Issues in Linguistic Theory (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2005); “Positioning the Self, Identity and Language: Moroccan Women on the Move,” in S. Ossman (ed.), The Places we Share  (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, Rowman and Littlefield, 2006); “Acquisition of Arabic as a First Language,” Encyclopedia of the Arabic Language and Linguistics (Leiden: Brill, 2006); and “Vocabulary in ESL Writing: Lessons from Research in the Classroom,” in Midraj, S. Jendli, A. Sellami, A. (eds.) Research in ELT Contexts (Dubai: TESOL Arabia Publications, 2007).

Dr. Maher Bahloul, Associate Professor, holds a PhD degree in linguistics from Cornell University and an MA degree from the Sorbonne University. He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in language and linguistics in the United States, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for the past 15 years. Dr. Bahloul’s areas of interest include linguistics and language teaching, second language acquisition, teaching pedagogy and the incorporation of instructional technology. Lately, Dr. Bahloul has been researching the acquisition of second language spelling, discrepancies between language textbook and actual language use, and corpus linguistics. Dr. Bahloul has presented papers at international TESOL and applied linguistic conferences in the United States, Europe and the Middle East. His publications relate to both theoretical and applied linguistics. Dr. Bahloul was a visiting scholar at the Summer Institute of Applied Linguistics held at Pennsylvania State University in July 2002.

Dr. Peter Crompton, Assistant Professor, holds a PhD in linguistics from the University of Lancaster, UK, an MA in TEFL from the University of Birmingham, UK, an MA in English Literature from the University of Reading, UK, and a Postgraduate Certificate in Education from Bedford College of Higher Education, UK. Prior to joining AUS in August 2006, he taught EFL, EAP, and applied English linguistics at universities and colleges in China, Saudi Arabia, Brunei, Lithuania and the UK. His first EFL post was at a private language school in Italy in 1982. His areas of interest include EAP, academic writing, corpus linguistics, learner corpora, written text analysis and intercultural rhetoric. He has published papers in international journals such as English for Specific Purposes (1998, 1998), The Journal of Language for International Business (2003), Functions of Language (2004), and Text and Talk (2006). He has presented at various international conferences on ELT and applied linguistics, most recently at the First AUS International TESOL Conference (2008). He is currently the editor of the MA TESOL newsletter.

Dr. Cindy Gunn, Associate Professor, holds a PhD from the University of Bath, UK. Prior to joining AUS in August 2001, she taught ESL/EFL courses in Canada, the United States, Japan, Turkey, Thailand and New Zealand. Since 1988, she has worked with young adults at the university level, and teenage and pre-teen second language learners in international school settings. She has been responsible for setting up a number of ESL programs and has had extensive experience designing, preparing and evaluating ESOL teaching materials in a variety of countries. Her main research paradigm is Exploratory Practice focusing on the contributions teachers and learners make to classroom research. Her main research interests are reflective teaching and learning, integrated skills teaching and materials development and technology use in Education. Her recent publications include an edited book for TESOL Arabia entitled, TESOL practices in the Arabian Gulf, published in 2009, an article entitled,   Exploring MATESOL students’ ‘resistance’ to reflection published in 2010 in Language Teaching Research 14, 2 and a chapter entitled, Investigating Student Perceptions and Use of Technology in the ESL Classroom, published in 2010 in Computers in ELT. She has presented at both international and local TESOL, language studies and teacher education conferences in Canada, Hungary, Japan, Lebanon, New Zealand, Slovenia, Spain, Thailand, Turkey, the UAE, the United Kingdom and the United States. She is currently serving as the Reviews’ Editor for Perspectives, a journal published by TESOL Arabia.

Dr. Betty Lanteigne, Assistant Professor, holds a PhD in rhetoric and linguistics from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, specializing in sociolinguistics, language assessment and cross-cultural communication. She has taught ESL/EFL in the USA, Palestine, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE for 14 years, developed an intensive English program and an English education bachelor’s degree program. As an English Teaching Fellow, she was the English language specialist on a case study team for students with learning disabilities, and as a Fulbright Dissertation Fellow, she investigated tasks of non-Western English for culturally appropriate language assessment. A member of Phi Kappa Phi, Pi Lambda Theta and TESOL, she has given presentations in numerous countries about language assessment, the use of music in teaching English, stylistic variation, pragmatics, corpora in language teaching, and cross-cultural issues in teaching. Recent publications include “Knowing Who’s in Your Audience:  Task-based Testing of Audience Awareness” (forthcoming in Task-based Learning and Assessment), “Is It from a Different Culture or Just Plain Rude?”  (in Language and Politeness), Task Descriptions of Non-Western English Language Use, “Evaluating Three Types of Assessment in a Public Speaking Course:  Traditional Pencil-and-paper Tests, Online Tests, and a Performance-based Assessment Project,” and “Regionally Specific Tasks of Non-Western English Language Use.”

Dr. Rodney Tyson, Associate Professor, has an MA in TESOL and a PhD in Second Language Acquisition and Teaching from the University of Arizona. He has taught ESL/EFL at universities in the United States, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. Before joining the faculty of AUS in 2001, he helped to develop and taught in a new MA TESOL program at Daejin University in Korea. He received an outstanding teaching award from the same university in 2000. His interests include second language reading and writing, communicative language teaching, and qualitative research methods, as well as Korean language and culture. He has published papers in international TESOL-related journals and presented at TESOL and linguistics conferences in a number of countries. He is currently the editor of the MA TESOL newsletter.