A Fond Farewell: Celebrating Pete Westbrook's 16 Years at CIP
As Pete Westbrook is retiring at the end of June 2025, we would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the invaluable contribution he has made to CIP.
Pete started at CIP back at the beginning of 2009, just after the Centre officially opened. He was hired to run tailor-made English courses for staff, which has formed the core of his work at CIP ever since.
Over the years, Pete has designed, taught and evaluated a wide range of English courses and workshops for both academic and administrative staff. As these courses make up a crucial element of the services CIP offers, he is already laying the groundwork for his colleagues to continue the teaching of these courses following his retirement.
Pete was also instrumental in developing the needs analyses questionnaires that are sent out to all participants before a course. These questionnaires help establish individual needs and wants for language training and continue to serve as a foundation for how CIP shapes its language courses for staff. Recently, Pete has noticed a growing demand for tailor-made courses over the more standard, scheduled courses, indicating a need for courses to become ever more specialized.
Contributions to Communication and Research
Pete's contribution extends beyond teaching. He has translated texts from Danish to English and proofread various English texts – from course diplomas to webpages to research articles - ensuring clarity and professionalism in English communication across the university. He is also an examiner on the TOEPAS (Test of Oral English Proficiency for Academic Staff) certification programme and was part of the team that developed the first version of the programme back in 2009.
During his time at CIP, Pete has conducted a few small-scale research projects, notably a case study with a lecturer from the Department of Psychology, and an investigation into domain-specific collocations together with former director of CIP, Birgit Henriksen, based on his MA dissertation in Applied Linguistics from Birmingham University.
Sharing Knowledge and Building Networks
Pete has been an active member of professional networks such as the Engelsk Netværk at UCPH and the Forum for International Universitetsterminologi (FIU) for university translators in Denmark. He also contributed to a major cross-university project, which looked at strategies to provide support for lecturers teaching in the multicultural classroom through the medium of English. He has presented at numerous conferences, the main one being the annual IATEFL (International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language) conference in Britain.
Thanks to Pete’s dedication and expertise, CIP continues to evolve and respond to the language training needs of the university community.