Amira Hussain PhD

Amira Hussain

Dubai Campus
EAP Teaching Fellow

Contact details

Address
Birmingham International Academy

I am an English for Academic Purposes Teaching Fellow at Birmingham International Academy Dubai. I have experience teaching Business English, Preparatory University EAP and Academic Skills across Iraq, Uzbekistan and the UAE. Working across international education contexts has shaped my interests in intercultural communication and how these intersect with academic practice. My teaching focuses on supporting students’ development of academic and research literacies.

Qualifications

  • SFHEA Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
  • DProf at IELLI, University of St Andrews (in progress)
  • MSc TESOL, University of St Andrews
  • MA (Hons) International Business, University of Edinburgh
  • International Strategic Management, Copenhagen Business School Denmark (ERASMUS)
  • CELTA
  • PGCHEA

Biography

I am currently an EAP Teaching Fellow at the University of Birmingham Dubai where I work on the Foundation Programme teaching Advanced Academic Skills. I previously worked as a C1/C2 curriculum coordinator and have also taught in-sessional classes. Before this I was part of the founding academic team at the British University of Tashkent in Uzbekistan where I supported the development of EAP provision within a validated transnational model led by the University of Reading. These experiences have informed my interest in how educational practices, curricula and institutional priorities are adapted and enacted across international contexts.

My doctoral research explores transnational education within international branch campuses focusing on the relationship between policy and practice through the lens of faculty enactment and institutional discourse. Methodologically, I am interested in critical discourse approaches and autoethnographic inquiry as ways of examining institutional practices, professional identities and higher education environments.

Alongside my teaching and research, I contribute to practitioner blogs and research communities within EAP and TNE. I am a committee member of the BALEAP Transnational Education Special Interest Group.

Teaching

  • Advanced Academic Skills
  • Academic English and Study Skills
  • In-sessional Dissertation Support (Postgraduate)
  • Pre-sessional Language Support (Undergraduate)

Research

Research Interests

  • Transnational higher education
  • Academic citizenship and professional identity
  • English medium education
  • Intercultural competence
  • Discourse and representation within HE contexts

Conferences

  • Integrating Practise with Policy: Curriculum Design Considerations within an International Branch Campus (Applied Linguistics and Language Teaching at Zayed University 2025)
  • Foundations that Fit: Adapting Curriculum into Context within a TNE Setting (InForm Conference at Kings College London 2025)
  • EMI in Uzbekistan: EAP Practitioners Case Study (Middlesex University Dubai Conference  2024)
  • An Investigation Into The Effects Of Student Negotiation: Active Involvement In Decision-making (Action Research Conference at University of Birmingham Dubai 2023)