Ruby Rennie

My teaching career started with a PGCE qualification from Jordanhill College, Glasgow, in English literature and language. I then taught in secondary schools in Scotland for three years before moving to Peru and developing an interest in foreign and second language teaching and learning. I gained a position as Head of department in the English section of a primary and secondary school in Lima. I worked in contact with other British and American schools in Lima, and also with the British Council.

I returned to Scotland in 1994 and completed my Master's degree in Applied Linguistics. I had various English language teaching posts in Edinburgh, including IALS, Telford College, Jewel and Esk Valley College and Heriot-Watt University. I later left Edinburgh to work in South Korea as a university lecturer, and then returned to Edinburgh and took up various posts again. I joined Moray House Institute of Education as Director of Studies for the English Language Centre, and was seconded to MPIK (in Kuala Lumpur) on a joint Malyasian-UK teacher training programme at the time of the merger of Moray House with the University of Edinburgh (Moray House then became the Faculty of Education, and then later changed name again to the Moray House School of Education).

I returned to the UK in 1999 to continue working as a lecturer in TESOL, literature and language, teaching on both undergraduate and post-graduate programmes.

I have been involved with consultancy with the British Council (the LAMP project, Slovakia) and LTScotland (Masterclass).
My current research brings together various strands in my academic interests: stylistics analysis of literature and discourse, TESOL, and e-learning and technology developments.
I have for some time been researching student and tutor use of plagiarism software for learning academic referencing conventions. If you are using Turnitin and would like to comment on aspects of academic writing development and plagiarism, please get in touch!
I am engaged in researching views of international professionals on the value of school observation visits in Scotland