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New British Council Director

Tony O'Brien has recently taken over from Susan Maingay as the Director of the British Council in Sri Lanka. He has been with the British Council for 24 years and has served in Morocco (twice), London (twice), Singapore and Hong Kong, as well as visiting over 50 other countries in an advisory role, states a British Council press release.

In his last post in London, where he was Director for English Langauge Teaching (ELT) from 1997 to 2002, he was responsible for global policy development and for a number of interesting projects.

Tony is not new to Sri Lanka. He came first about 10 years ago when he spent 3 days examining in Colombo, then travelled to Kandy, Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa, Anuradhapura and Nuwara Eliya. In 2000 he presented at the first international conference of the Sri Lanka English Language Teachers Association (SLELTA), and in 2001 he attended a South Asia workshop near Dambulla (which allowed him to climb Sigiriya a second time!). So he knew what he was taking on when he applied for his new post, which he says was right at the top of his list.

Tony is accompanied by his wife Yolanda, who is a teacher and a counsellor, and by two of his three daughters.

Tony has been involved in teacher training, curriculum and materials development, the management of large teaching centres, and a wide range of ELT projects. Before joining the Council he taught as a volunteer in Egypt, and as a lecturer in ESP in Iran.

Tony has a law degree from Cambridge, a Postgraduate Diploma in Teaching English Overseas from Manchester, and an MA in Language and Literature in Education from the Institute of Education in London.

Tony is the author of "Nucleus: Medicine", of works on teacher development and on video in ELT, and has been involved in the production of video-based packages for teacher training ("Teaching and Learning in Focus") and classroom teaching ("Television English", with the BBC).

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