Rod Nesbitt has worked in the field of educational reform in Africa and the Middle East as well as in the United Kingdom.

Qualifications: MA, MSc (Applied Linguistics), PGCE.
Nationality: Irish/British
Profession: syllabus designer and materials writer in TEFL and TESL, part-time writer.

At present a Research Associate at the University of Montana, Rod has worked in the field of educational reform in countries in Africa and the Middle East as well as in the United Kingdom. In Syria, the West Bank, Malawi and Botswana he established university English language units with the emphasis on ESL and teacher training. In Namibia he produced materials for the in-service training of teachers, organised and ran workshops and seminars for qualified teachers, and wrote materials to support upgrading programmes for poorly qualified and unqualified teachers. He has participated in a wide range of consultancies and training courses in all the countries in which he has worked, writing and running workshops for staff at Universities and teacher training colleges and for teachers at all levels. He has produced text books for ESL, EFL and English literature, but has also written books on astronomy and religious and moral education and collaborated in writing texts on science and mathematics. He was, for a number of years, the editor of the very successful Junior African Writers Series (JAWS) published by Heinemann. He has written articles on topics as varied as curriculum design and development, the learner-centred classroom, developing English language materials, and developing proper skills in English Language teaching. In addition he has written two Junior dictionaries published by Macmillan.

Rod has enjoyed exploring the countries in which he has lived. He has had a number of interesting adventures including driving a Land Rover from Belfast in Northern Ireland to India, driving from Belfast to Cairo and back, driving from Nairobi to Addis Ababa. He has been a keen sportsman, playing first class rugby and cricket in Ireland and international cricket for Kenya. He plays golf (badly) and tennis (very badly).