 about
professor jack c. richards
Born in New Zealand, Dr. Richards obtained a Master of Arts
degree with first class honours in English from Victoria University
in Wellington, New Zealand, in 1966. He obtained his Ph.D.
in Applied Linguistics from Laval University (a French-Language
University) in Quebec City, Canada in 1972.
 He has worked in many parts of the world, including New Zealand,
Canada, Indonesia, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the United States.
After completing his PhD, he taught in Indonesia and was then
appointed specialist in applied linguistics at the Regional
Language Centre Singapore, under the auspices of the New Zealand
Government. Later he was Senior Lecturer in English at the
Chinese University of Hong Kong, before being appointed Full
professor in the Department of English as a Second Language
at the University of Hawaii in 1981. In 1989 he returned to
Hong Kong to set up a new department of English at the City
University of Hong Kong, where he was head of the department
of English and also chair professor. In 1996 he returned to his home country for two years to set up an MA program at the University of Auckland. In 1999 Dr. Richards retired from full-time university teaching and administration and since then has taught for part of each year at the Regional
Language Centre, (RELC), in Singapore, while making his primary residence in Sydney Australia. At RELC,
Dr. Richards teaches on the MA
in Applied Linguistics, as well as the RELC Post Graduate Diploma
in Applied Linguistics.
 Dr. Richards is a frequent speaker at conferences and workshops
for language teachers, and visits some 12 countries every
year.
He has written over 60 articles and 20 books. Many of his
books and articles
are classics in the field of second language teaching and
have been translated into many different languages, including
Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Arabic. Among his
well known professional books are Error Analysis, (1974),
Reflective Teaching in Second Language Classrooms (1996, with
Charles Lockhart), Beyond Training (1998), The Language Teaching
Matrix (1990), Curriculum Development in Language Teaching (2001), Approaches and Methods in Language Teaching (second
edition 2001, with Ted Rodgers), Longman Dictionary of Language
Teaching and Applied Linguistics (4th edition 2010, with Richard
Schmidt) and Professional Development for Language Teachers (with Tom Farrell), Cambridge University Press 2005.
 His classroom textbooks are also widely used and have helped
millions of students around the world learn English. These
include Springboard, Person to Person, Tactics for Listening,
Passages, and the best-selling series Interchange.
Professor
Richards has for many years made himself available as a speaker
at many professional conferences without a fee, and supported
scholarship programs
in different parts of the world. In recognition of this the
Presidents of De La Salle University, Manila and of Philippine
Normal University, Manila, presented Professor Richards with
a citation in 2001 which states:
"Generous in sharing his expertise with junior members
of the profession, unstinting in his efforts to promote excellent
language teaching in all parts of the world, indefatigable
in showing the applications of theory to teaching practice
in the classroom, Dr. Richards is a fine example of what English
language education and applied linguistics can accomplish."
Please see Applied Linguistics and Beyond for a short video introducing Dr. Richards.
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