Professor Anne Burns began her career as a teacher of English and worked in Australia in the Adult Migrant English Program (AMEP) and later in the National Centre for English Language Teaching and Research (NCELTR) and Department of Linguistics at Macquarie University for over 20 years. She has also held academic positions at UNSW, Sydney and at Aston University UK, where she is an Emeritus Professor. She is an Honorary Professor at the University of Sydney and The Education University Hong Kong, and is currently a Visiting Professor at Kanda University of International Studies, Japan. Since 2010 she has worked with English Australia as a key reference person for the national Action Research in ELICOS Program and has published extensively on this topic.