Terry Lamb began his career as a languages teacher in secondary (high) schools in London and Derbyshire, before moving to posts in the Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield, where he focused mainly on postgraduate teacher education and urban education.
Having received his first personal Chair at the University of Sheffield, he is now Professor of Languages and Interdisciplinary Pedagogy at the University of Westminster, London, based in the Centre for Education and Teaching Innovation (which he established) and the School of Humanities, where he leads on education research and research ethics across the University. He is Co-director of HOMELandS – Hub on Migration, Exile, Languages and Spaces – which recently was made into an interdisciplinary University Research Centre.
He has published widely in areas such as pedagogy for autonomy, motivation, multilingual education, multilingual cities, and activist research that challenges social, cultural and linguistic injustices. He is also founder editor of the international journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. His projects have included several at the European Centre for Modern Languages of the Council of Europe, e.g., Supporting Multilingual Classrooms.
He has had major roles in the development of language policy nationally and internationally and has been President of ALL, a member of the government's National Languages Steering Group and a governor of CILT, the National Centre for Languages. In 2008 he was given a personal appointment as Chair of the Languages Diploma Development Partnership.
He is currently President of FIPLV, the Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes, an NGO of UNESCO and the Council of Europe.
As well as honorary membership of Polskiego Towarzystwa Neofilologicznego, the Polish Association of Modern Languages, he has been awarded the honour of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French Prime Minister. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.