Tony Clark
Senior Research Manager
Tony manages research on the IELTS exam and related projects. His PhD focused on how Chinese and Japanese students learn to write in academic English, and how test preparation in their country of origin relates to their subsequent UK university experience. His ESRC-funded PhD thesis (supervised by Dr Guoxing Yu and Dr Talia Isaacs) was entitled ‘Relearning Academic Conventions: Intensive IELTS Writing Preparation in China and Japan,’ and received a British Council Research Assessment Award in 2014.
In 2015/2016 Tony was a recipient of the Newton Fund Scholarship (a grant to promote researcher mobility and encourage British-Chinese academic relations), and also received funding from the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) and the ESRC to support overseas research trips. In 2016 he spent two months at the British Council in Tokyo and six months at Zhejiang University in China.
Tony has contributed to research projects on language and admissions testing, language acquisition and test development, collaborating with Bristol University, Swansea University and Assessment Europe.
Prior to his current role, Tony was an exam preparation instructor for the British Council (Japan and Morocco), and worked as a teacher in Italy and Hungary, and as a Cambridge Examiner. In his free time, Tony enjoys playing and watching football, and running.
Key publications and conference presentations
Clark, T and Yu, G (forthcoming) Intensive IELTS writing preparation in China and Japan and ‘relearning’ academic conventions.
Clark, T and Yu, G (forthcoming) Relation of overseas IELTS preparation to subsequent academic writing.
Fitzpatrick, T, Morris, S, Clark, T, Mitchell, R, Needs, J, Tanguay, E and Tovey, B (2018) Rapid Evidence Assessment: Effective Second Language Teaching Approaches and Methods, Cardiff: Welsh Government, GSR Report Number 31/2018.
Yu, G and Clark, T (2017) Extracting words from IELTS Writing Task 1: Is it like extracting sunlight from cucumbers?, paper presented at the British Association of Applied Linguistic Vocabulary Special Interest Group (BAAL SIG) Joint Plenary, University of Reading, Reading, UK, August 2017.
Clark, T (2015) English language assessment, entrance criteria and current practice, internal report for Claire Axel-Berg, Head of Bristol International Student Office, Bristol, UK.
Clark, T (2015) International students: A comparison of application grades and academic performance, internal report commissioned by UK NARIC, through Bristol International Student Office, Bristol, UK.
Johnson, S, Clark, T and Johnson, R (2015) Grading and standard setting for high-stakes assessment, a review conducted for the Scottish Qualifications Authority. Summarized contents presented at University of Bristol, UK, December 2015.
Johnson, S, Clark, T and Johnson, R (2015) Skills assessment in National 5 Qualifications, a validity study commissioned by the Scottish Qualifications Authority.
Brereton, P and Clark, T (2014) IELTS: How to read under exam conditions, The Japan Times, University Times Section (7 July 2014), 34.