Together with Dr Lixian Jin, he has been researching ‘cultures of learning’ particularly in Chinese contexts. He is also interested in ELT materials development, vocabulary learning, literacy, discourse and narrative analysis. These themes have been applied in many settings; for example, in 2004-6 he was invited to give presentations and workshops for British healthcare trainers and practitioners on intercultural communication, inter-professional education, narrative development, and phonetics and phonology for the Royal Colleges of Speech and Language Therapy, of General Medical Practitioners, of Nursing, and for several Postgraduate Deaneries for Medical Education.