Professional Bio

Deryn P. Verity is a language teacher and teacher educator who has taught in universities in Japan, the former Yugoslavia (on a Fulbright lectureship), Thailand, and Poland, as well as in the United States. She has been a member of the Applied Linguistics department at Penn State since 2012, where she teaches and advises in the MA TESL program and is Director of ESL/EAP Programs, including a first-year writing program for international and multilingual writers. Her research interests include the application of Vygotskian Sociocultural Theory to language instruction and teacher education, along with tutor training and development; writing pedagogy; curriculum design; and general TESOL skill development. She is a co-editor of the volume Integrational Linguistics and Philosophy of Language in the Global South (Routledge, 2021, with Sinfree Makoni & Anna Kaiper-Marquez) and a co-author, with Karen Johnson and Sharon Childs, of the 2023 book Praxis-Oriented Pedagogy for Novice L2 Teachers: Developing Teacher Reasoning. Besides serving as the department’s Undergraduate Studies representative, Deryn Verity has worked on the university committee engaged in the reformulation of the General Education Curriculum, the Dean’s Advisory Committee for Teaching Faculty affairs, and is currently an alternate from the College of the Liberal Arts for the Faculty Senate.  

Select Recent Articles and Book Chapters

Johnson, K. E., Verity, D. P., & Childs, S. (2020). Praxis-oriented pedagogy and the development of L2 novice teacher expertise. The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, 9(2), 1-24.

Verity, D. P. (2018). Coming around: Tutors, orientation, and prolepsis. Journal of Academic Writing, 8(2), 114-123.

Verity, D. P. (2017). Pedagogical grammar. In  J. I. Liontas, & M. DelliCarpini (Eds.), The TESOL Encyclopedia of English Language Teaching. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley

Verity, D. (2013). Secret agents of change: Or, life is a cabaret. Explorations in Teacher Education, 21 (2), 3-8.

Verity, D. P. (2013). Beyond borders, beyond expectations: Online education and responsive teaching. In S. Ben Said, & L. Zhang (Eds.), Language teachers and teaching: Global perspectives, local Initiatives. National Institute of Education, Singapore.

Verity, D. P. (2012). Lantolf, James P.. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. John Wiley.

Verity, D. P. (2011). The reverse move: Enriching informal knowledge in the pedagogical grammar class. In K. E. Johnson, &  & P. Golombek, (Eds.), Research on second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective on teacher professional development (pp. 153-167). NY: Routledge.

Verity, D. (2010). Big questions: A speaking practice exercise. The Language Teacher, 34(4), 59-60.

Verity, D. (2008). April. Orienting learners: An imaginary conversation. Learning Learning, newsletter of Learner Development SIG, JALT, Japan, pp. 27-33. [Online] Available:  https://hosted.jalt.org/pansig/2005/HTML/Verity.htm

Verity, D. P. (2007) Role play and orientation to task. Center for Human Activity Theory Technical Reports No. 6, Kansai University, Osaka, Japan.

Verity, D. P. (2006). Vygotskyan concepts for teacher education. PanSIG Lifelong Learning. Conference proceedings. https://hosted.jalt.org/pansig/2005/HTML/Verity.htm

Verity, D. P. (2000). Side affects: The strategic development of professional satisfaction. In J. P. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural approaches to second language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press.