Dave AllanPresident and Founder

Dave Allan, who co-founded NILE in 1995, has over 40 years' experience as an ELT teacher, trainer, manager and consultant. Previously Principal of the Bell Educational Trust’s teacher training centre in Norwich, he designed and delivered Masters’ Level programmes for the Universities of Nottingham and East Anglia (UEA) before setting up NILE as co-provider of an MA in ELT with UEA, as well as of a wide range of courses for teachers and trainers.

Following his first degree in French and German and a PGCE at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, Dave worked as a teacher and researcher at the Bell Educational Trust in Cambridge, gaining an RSA Dip. TEFL followed by an MA in ELT and Linguistics at the University of York. While at Bell, he also completed a DMS (Ed.).

Since the 1970s Dave has organised and taught on hundreds of teachers’ courses in over 40 countries, presenting and running workshops for teachers all round the world. He has worked as an international consultant for the Council of Europe, the British Council and the ODA/DfiD. He was a Visiting Fellow at the University of East Anglia, Chair of MATSDA, an IATEFL TEASIG Co-ordinator and long-term committee member, and an author and test developer for Oxford University Press, as well as Chair of the ARELS Education Committee and an ‘expert member’ of the BC Accreditation Committee. Most recently Dave has been a member of the British Council’s English Language Advisory Group.

As NILE’s President Dave still works for NILE on the MA programme and is a member of the NILE Advisory Board.