Mark Dawson-Smith

Team Manager

Contact info

Phone

Email

mark.dawson-smith@wintec.ac.nz

Location

About

I have worked in the field of English language teaching for more than 34 years, working as Team Manager at Wintec for more than 11 years. During this time my work has taken me to many countries including Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Korea, China, Australia and New Zealand.

My main passion is language assessment, and I always strive to make our assessments as fair, valid and reliable as possible. My passion for language assessment also led to my involvement in wider language testing, working as an IELTS examiner since 1998 and as an OET examiner since 2017.

Awards

Winner – Improvement and Opportunity Award, Wintec Staff Awards 2024
Winner – Internationalisation Award, Wintec Staff Awards 2017
Joint winner – Outstanding Team of the Year Award, Wintec Staff Awards 2014
Winner – 3 x IELTS Australia awards, 2005-09
Co-convenor of CLESOL Conferences, 2016 & 2026
Chair of Review Advisory Group for NZQA-led review of NZCEL qualifications and EAP & EL unit standards, 2022-24
Lead for review panel for NZCEL Supporting Document, 2023-25
Lead of NZCEL Providers’ Forum, 2019-
TESOLANZ Executive Committee member, 2019-25
ALTAANZ Executive Committee member, 2025

Qualifications

MA in Language Testing (Lancaster)
Postgraduate Diploma in Second Language Teaching (Distinction) (Waikato)
UCLES/RSA CTEFLA (Cambridge)
Diploma in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (London)

Areas of expertise

Industry experience, affiliations, and achievements

Research activity

Select publications

What do you enjoy about teaching/your job?

The thing that probably gives me the most satisfaction about my job is being able to help contribute to the success of our learners. This is not only reflected in success rates for learners in our own NZCEL programmes, but also the continued success of our learners after they graduate from our programmes and go on to succeed in other programmes. The success rate of our graduates in programmes like the Bachelor of Nursing and the Diploma in Enrolled Nursing is something I am especially proud of.

What do you love about your area?

Probably the thing I love most about my area of work is being able to make a difference. Many of our learners are from refugee backgrounds, and they can very definitely be considered to be disadvantaged learners. Being able to help learners gain the language skills to enable them to continue on to further studies, to find work, and to be able to better integrate into communities makes this work incredibly valuable for everyone involved.