James Thomas
Curriculum Vitae, Publication and Presentations
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James Thomas is a linguist, educator, and author based in Brno, Czech Republic, following nearly four years in Uzbekistan (2019–2023). There, he worked as a teacher trainer for the British Council before becoming Visiting Professor and Director of MA TESOL at Webster University in Tashkent.
Previously, he spent 20 years at Masaryk University (1997–2016), where he headed the teacher training section of the English Department, overseeing an innovative in-house practice teaching model. Between his Masaryk and Tashkent years, he worked as a freelance teacher trainer in China, Algeria, and beyond, while developing books, e-courses, and this website. James’s research and publications focus on language acquisition, corpora, and the grammar of vocabulary. |
He believes in learning language from language, equipping students with independent learning skills through task-based and inquiry-driven approaches. His online text tool, VersaText, was developed to support these principles.
He has delivered teacher training, workshops, and presentations in over 15 countries, organised the Teaching and Language Corpora (TALC) conference, and chaired the Corpus SIG at EuroCALL. His publications include books, e-courses, and journal articles for CLIL, EMI, EAP, ESP, and 1-2-1 teachers. One of his co-authored books won a British Council ELTon for innovation. Through his e-courses and publications, James continues to share insights with language teachers worldwide. |
Publications
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
| 2025 | Five Words a Day – a series of vocabulary workbooks (forthcoming) |
| 2024 | After IELTS – 280-page workbook and e-course |
| 2025 | Pattern-hunting and pattern-defining in DDL in The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Computer-Assisted Language Learning |
| 2024 | How words on the vocabulary lists in the Chinese New National English Curriculum are used by British native speaker children in Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics (submitted) |
| 2023 | Teaching English through Text, an e-course and 50-page workbook |
| 2023 | Discovering Academic English. (200-page coursebook – used by 500 students but hitherto unpublished) |
| 2021 | Discovering English with VersaText. Brno: Versatile Publisher. ISBN 978-80-907060-7-1 |
| 2021 | VersaText for Teachers. A ten-week e-learning course in teaching language through texts. |
| 2021 | The Versatile Blank Book. Brno: Versatile Publisher. ISBN 978-80-907060-3-3 |
| 2020 | The Book of How to do things in ELT. Brno: Versatile Publisher. ISBN 978-80-907060-6-4. |
| 2020 | Two web-based tools for learning language from language. An inhouse publication by The Academy of Armed Forces of the Republic of Uzbekistan. |
| 2019 | Four skills or five. A ten-week e-learning course training teachers in the four skills |
| 2018 | Out of Your Seats. (Thomas & Igel). Brno: Versatile Publisher. ISBN 978-80-907060-2-6. |
| 2018 | Versatile Teacher Training: Focus on Teaching. Brno: Versatile Publisher. ISBN 978-80-907060-1-9. |
| 2018 | International Language Symposium, Brno. The 2017 Papers. Editor. Brno: Versatile Publisher. ISBN 978-80-907060-0-2 |
| 2016 | Discovering English with Sketch Engine. Second Edition. Brno: Versatile Publisher. ISBN 978-80-260-8360-3 |
| 2015 | Stealing a march on collocation: Deriving extended collocations from full text for student analysis and synthesis. In Multiple Affordances of Language Corpora for Data-Driven Learning. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company |
| 2015 | Discovering English with Sketch Engine. Brno: Versatile, 2015. ISBN 978-1-326-23213-9. |
| 2011 | Global Issues in the ELT Classroom: Thomas, J - Pavlíčková, M. Newsletter of the IATEFL Global Issues Special Interest Group. |
| 2010 | Using ICT in ELT (Educa) - a blended learning course manual, CD and e-learning platform. |
| 2009 | Co-translation of a musicological book on Monteverdi. |
| 2008 | Global Issues, an ELT teachers' resource book. Methodology consultant and editor. |
| 2005 | Using Corpora in Language Teaching and Learning (Teaching English with Technology) |
| 2002 | A Ten-step Introduction to Concordancing through the Collins Cobuild Corpus Concordance Sampler (self-published on internet) |
| 2000 | Academic Writing handbook (self-published on internet) |
Conference presentations and workshops
| Year | Location | Presentation / Workshop Title |
|---|---|---|
| 2023 | Tashkent | How native-speaker children use the vocabulary we teach to young non-native speakers. |
| 2020 | Perpignan | Exploring Language using VersaText (online workshop) |
| 2019 | Suzhou | Three-week junior secondary school teacher training. |
| 2019 | Brno | International Language Symposium Brno: plenary presentation |
| 2019 | Guangzhou | Stage One EMI training at Guangdong University of Technology. |
| 2019 | Liverpool | IATEFL presentation, Collocation Plus. |
| 2019 | Algiers | A large-scale Department of Education and British Council project training school English inspectors. Dec to Mar. |
| 2018 | Guangzhou | Stage One EMI training at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. |
| 2018 | Wuhan | A two-stage EAP teacher training project at Wuhan University. Stage 1: seven days training on campus. Stage 2: observation of teaching via video and phone interview. And submission of a course syllabus. |
| 2018 | Kunming | A two-stage EMI training project at Kunming Medical University. August and November |
| 2018 | Suzhou | Four-week teacher training course (British Council) |
| 2018 | Northern Cyprus | Eastern Mediterranean University: invited presentations on vocabulary teaching and syllabus development. |
| 2017-8 | Algiers | A large-scale Department of Education and British Council project training school English inspectors. Dec to Mar. |
| 2017 | Kostanay | One-week intensive course for final year teacher trainees in tril-lingual CLIL in the Nazarbaev University project. |
| 2017 | Suzhou | Three-week teacher training course (British Council) |
| 2017 | Brno | International Language Symposium: Presentation launching Topic Trails. |
| 2017 | Brno | International Language Symposium: Committee member/organiser |
| 2017 | Beijing | Twice x one-week English as a Medium of Instruction training (British Council) April and June. |
| 2016 | Suzhou & Zhuzhou | Three-week and two-week teacher training courses (British Council) |
| 2016 | Birmingham | IATEFL conference presentation: Answering language questions from data. |
| 2015 | Padova | EuroCALL Conference: presentation |
| 2015 | Manchester | Invited talk for Learning Technology SIG at IATEFL |
| 2015 | Chongqing & Suzhou | 10-day training: 4 days in Chongqing, 3 days in Suzhou, twice |
| 2014 | PALC Conference, Lodz | Presentation: Teacher Trainees create and Exploit a Graded Reader Corpus |
| 2014 | Groningen | EuroCALL Conference: presentation Discovering English with the Sketch Engine. |
| 2014 | Slovenia IATEFL | Change happens if … (a presentation of the innovative structure of our MA in teacher training) |
| 2013 | Padua (Italy) | Comparing lexical data in native and learner corpora to raise teacher trainees’ awareness of lexico-semantic phenomena (conference presentation) |
| 2013 | Porto (Portugal) | Just a Native Speaker – conference presentation |
| 2012 | Gothenberg | Give me one good reason why I should use corpora and then tell me how – presentation at EuroCALL |
| 2012 | Gothenberg | Corpus Workshop EuroCALL |
| 2012 | Warsaw | Stealing a March on Collocation – presentation at TALC |
| 2012 | Warsaw | Let’s Marry: a call for corpus and language acquisition research to co-operate – opening plenary of TALC conference |
| 2011 | Nottingham (UK) | Co-presenter of all-day workshop at EuroCALL annual conference on corpus use in language teaching. |
| 2010 | Vienna (Austria) | One-day workshops for the Paedagogische Hochschule. |
| 2009 | Lodz (Poland) | PALC Conference: Concordancing as a Subversive Activity |
| 2008 | Lisbon | TALC: corpora in language education research and teaching |
| 2007 | Beijing (China) | British Council: teacher training course (one month) |
| 2006 | Paris (France) | TALC: corpora in language education research and teaching |
| 2005 | Gliwice (Poland) | Using Corpora in Language Teaching and Learning |
| 2005 | Stara Lesna (Slovakia) | Invited lecture at conference: “Znalosti”. Linguistic Resources available on the Web |
| 2004 | Granada (Spain) | TALC: using corpora in language education |
| 2001 | Poznan (Poland) | Using computers in testing, in vocabulary study |
| 2000 | St Louis (USA) | National TESOL Conference |
| 1999 | Plzen (Czech Republic) | National and International English Teachers’ Conference |
| 1998 | Prague (Czech Republic) | Czech National ELT Conference |
