Foreign Director
See also: Staff History and Management.
David Cotter grew up traveling between western Canada and northern Ireland. He did his undergraduate degree in literature at the University of Calgary, in Canada. He did his M.Phil and his PhD at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. While at college, he had a number of poems and short stories published in local literary journals.
After completing his doctorate, he spent seven years revising his doctoral thesis, in order to have it published as a book. The book was published by Routledge of London and New York one year after David came to China.
While working on his book, David delivered papers at a number of academic conferences and seminars in England and Ireland. He had an article included in the book Critical Ireland: New Essays in Literature and Culture. He also taught a number of programs in Dublin.
He taught introductory literature programs for undergraduate students at UCD and St Patrick’s College Maynooth. He also devised and delivered programs for UCD’s adult education department. These included courses on critical theory, Romantic literature, and reading Ulysses, by James Joyce. He taught middle school students at Old Bawn Secondary School, Tallaght. He devised and delivered a supplementary English program for Chinese students coming to study at Griffith College, Dublin.
While at Griffith College, David was very impressed by the character of the Chinese people that he met. Together with Chen Xi, he decided come to China and open an English school. They worked on a plan for a year, and then sought out financial backing. Swan Training, Dublin, agreed to put up backing, and on January 2nd, 2002, David and Chen Xi flew to China to open Aihua.