Dara Sheahan

Background

About Dara Sheahan

I am a native English speaker with a Master's Degree in English literature and 17 years' experience teaching English, primarily for academic purposes (EAP). I have worked at South Korean and Sino-British universities for 15 years and have extensive experience in course, material, and assessment design. In my position as Professional Development and Training Manager at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), I managed the induction, training, professional development, and teaching-related quality assurance provisions for the university's School of Languages, which employs over 230 teaching staff. This included my leading an intensive trainee teacher program; heading the induction of all new staff; organising weekly PD/training sessions; and coordinating the probationary, annual peer, and interdepartmental observation programs. I also managed 3-4 annual in-house PD Symposia, full-day PD events involving both guest and in-house speakers. There were numerous other responsibilities including attending regular Management Team meetings to address strategic and operational issues, chairing hiring panels, line managing staff, reviewing staff performance, and participating on numerous university committees. Beyond these, I am always keen to show initiative and set a number of high-impact projects in motion. For instance, using a data-led approach, I identified and addressed key staff concerns, which led to my contributing to changes in the Work Allocation Model and the Annual Performance Review procedures. I also took time out to develop and maintain one-to-one relationships with all new staff, offering myself as a point of contact and helping to resolve personal and professional issues as they arose, particularly throughout the coronavirus/remote teaching period. I consider myself something of a techie and am comfortable using a wide range of technologies relevant to the fields of education and training. These include MS Office, Moodle, WordPress, Camtasia, iMovie, Adobe Photoshop, Zoom, MS Teams, Jira, Notion, EtherPad, Padlet, Socrative, Quizlet, and Kahoot. I'm a lover of languages and all things creative. I am a keen singer-songwriter, and I am currently studying Spanish (B1), but also speak Irish (B2), Korean (B1), and French (B1). In short, I am a dedicated, organised, creative, and friendly educator, content creator, and operations manager. I posess excellent communication, time management, and problem-solving skills, and I have a proven ability to perform to high standards when working either independently or as part of a team.