My mom, June Ridge, who has died aged 94, was one of many UK’s earliest specialists in English for audio system of different languages (Esol), specializing in instructing English to youngsters of immigrants.
She turned a lecturer in instructing English as a second language at Leeds College from 1963 to 1965, then turned senior analysis fellow on the college’s Institute of Schooling.
In 1966, underneath her maiden identify, June Derrick, she wrote a textbook, Educating English to Immigrants, as a part of the Longmans Schooling At present sequence. From 1966 to 1971, primarily based on the college, she led a nationwide Colleges Council undertaking, generally known as Scope, to provide Esol instructing supplies for secondary colleges.
In 1972, after finishing that undertaking, she was appointed senior lecturer at York College, the place she launched a analysis unit in its Language Educating Centre to discover new methods of instructing English to immigrant youngsters and tips on how to prepare lecturers for that goal. In 1974 she joined the Nationwide Basis for Academic Analysis in Slough as principal analysis officer.
Round that point she was additionally a member of an impartial committee, chaired by Alan Bullock, that regarded into the instructing of English within the nationwide curriculum. Her enter knowledgeable the following Bullock Report (titled A Language for Life) that was revealed in 1975.
Born in Landaff in Cardiff to George Derrick and his spouse, Mercia, June went to Howell’s college within the metropolis after which to College Faculty London, the place she gained an English diploma, adopted by an MA and a postgraduate instructor’s certificates.
Her early experiences instructing Cypriot youngsters in inside London sparked her curiosity in instructing English to audio system of different languages. Following a interval instructing overseas, together with in Sweden, Thailand and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), she started lecturing at Leeds.
After a quick relationship, June gave delivery to me in 1963 and needed to steadiness being a single mom – comparatively uncommon for the time – with a demanding educational profession.
In 1975 she married Jeff Ridge, a businessman and previous buddy with whom she had lately reunited. This started a protracted interval of residing overseas, first in Hong Kong, then in Kenya and Australia, and again to Hong Kong. She largely gave up her educational profession, though she briefly did some instructing at Hong Kong College and in Singapore as much as 1980.
Ultimately June and Jeff returned to the UK and settled in Lancaster in 1990, the place they may benefit from the countryside and indulge their love of fishing.
Jeff died in 2011. She is survived by me.
