Rate My Professor Anne Feryok

Dr Anne Feryok recently retired from her position as Senior Lecturer in the Department of English and Linguistics within the Division of Humanities at the University of Otago. She holds a BA and MA in philosophy from Syracuse University and a PhD in language teaching and learning from the University of Auckland.

Most of Dr Anne Feryok's research is based on the premises that human development is socially mediated and language is the primary means of mediation. Her investigations center on language teacher cognition and development, drawing on Vygotskian sociocultural theory, including activity theory. She explores the conditions under which new or changed attitudes, beliefs, and practices emerge as language teachers engage language to address practical teaching demands like lesson planning, conventional genre requirements such as narrative, or critical interlocutor demands including those from researchers. She has also incorporated complex dynamic systems theory to analyze processes of emergence, inter-contextual relationships, and timescales. Feryok edited Language Teacher Identity and Wellbeing: A Holistic Approach (Multilingual Matters, 2025), authoring the introduction and conclusion chapters. Other significant publications encompass "Activity Theory and Language Teacher Agency" (The Modern Language Journal, 2012), "Teaching for learner autonomy: the teacher's role and sociocultural theory" (Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 2013), "An Armenian English language teacher's practical theory of communicative language teaching" (System, 2008), and "The impact of TESOL on maths and science teachers" (ELT Journal, 2008).

Dr Feryok supervised numerous postgraduate students, including primary supervision for PhD theses by Ian Moodie (2015), Benjamin Wall (2015), Jo Oranje (2016), Mutahar Al-Murtadha (2017), and Elisa Gordon (2018), several of which earned placements on the University of Otago Humanities Exceptional Theses list or other accolades. Her work has advanced sociocultural perspectives on teacher agency, identity, and wellbeing in second language education.