About Me: Derek Philip-Xu

I have always enjoyed working in the field of education so it feels natural to set up Refreshing Publishing to help publishers and educational clients with their digital components and projects.

And here's why:

I spent almost 10 years teaching English to speakers of other languages, a big part of which was showing people how to be better writers. After all, writing is such an essential part of communication.
Following on from English teaching, I moved into educational publishing where, as an editor, I mentored authors and helped develop effective digital English language learning materials. I did this for EF Education First in Shanghai and then Macmillan Education Ltd (part of the Springer Nature group) in London.
As an editor, the language learning materials I produce have to be understood by people of any level of English language ability. So, instructions and text have to be clear and concise.
My publishing experience has also provided me with a great deal of project management experience - working to tight deadlines and to budget as well as being able to effectively solve problems quickly.
My publishing experience has similarly provided me with experience in UX design and UX writing which is very useful when it comes to reviewing digital content in platform (and during earlier editorial reviews).
I am a professional member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading.
I am a published writer. I wrote an academic paper that was published in the International Journal of Bilingual and Multilingual Teachers of English. You are more than welcome to read it on the University of Bahrain's Scientific Journals website.
I blog about ELT, publishing, education and other topics. My LinkedIn article about Gatekeeping in ELT Publishing was well received and shared widely, most recently by the Raise Up for ELT team.
I have a master's degree in applied linguistics from The Open University (handy for education) and another master's degree in research from the University of Exeter.
Finally, I qualified as a professional member of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors in 1997 and worked as a commercial practice surveyor (property and facilities management) for eight years.

Please do get in touch and we can have a chat about how I can best help you.

Thanks

Derek

Alongside his passion and knowledge for the subject, Derek brought with him an eagle eye for detail, impeccable organisation skills and a can-do attitude.
Publishing Manager, EF Education First

Avallain Author Certified

Professional Member of the Chartered Institute of Editing and Proofreading

Association for Project Management