Ahmar Mahboob is a Pakistani linguist. Currently he is an associate professor at the Department of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. He has worked in the fields of language policy development,pidgin and creole languages,NNEST studies,English language acquisition,English language teaching and teacher education,World Englishes,pragmatics,and minority languages in South Asia. Ahmar earned his PhD from Indiana University Bloomington in 2003,and has published extensively. He was the co-editor of TESOL Quarterly,alongside Brian Paltridge,for several years. He was also the Associate Editor of Linguistics and the Human Sciences and serves on the editorial boards of a number of journals. Ahmar has organised a number of regional,national,and international conferences and is the convenor and the co-creator of the Free Linguistics Conference.
Composition studies is the professional field of writing,research,and instruction,focusing especially on writing at the college level in the United States.
Sandra McKay is Professor Emeritus of San Francisco State University. Her main areas of interest are sociolinguistics,English as an International Language,and second language pedagogy. For most of her career she has been involved in second language teacher education,both in the United States and abroad. She has received four Fulbright grants,as well as many academic specialists awards and distinguished lecturer invitations.
Allan Luke is an educator,researcher,and theorist studying literacy,multiliteracies,applied linguistics,and educational sociology and policy. Luke has written or edited 17 books and more than 250 articles and book chapters. Luke,with Peter Freebody,originated the Four Resources Model of literacy in the 1990s. Part of the New London Group,he was coauthor of the "Pedagogy of Multiliteracies:Designing Social Futures" published in the Harvard Educational Review (1996). He is Emeritus Professor at Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane,Australia and adjunct professor at Werklund School of Education,University of Calgary,Canada.
Scott Thornbury is an internationally recognized academic and teacher trainer in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT). Along with Luke Meddings,Thornbury is credited with developing the Dogme language teaching approach,which emphasizes meaningful interaction and emergent language over prepared materials and following an explicit syllabus. Thornbury has written over a dozen books on ELT methodology. Two of these,'Natural Grammar' and 'Teaching Unplugged',have won the British Council's "ELTon" Award for Innovation,the top award in the industry.
Beverly Derewianka is Emeritus Professor of linguistics at the University of Wollongong,Australia. She is a leading figure in educational linguistics and Sydney School genre pedagogy. Her major research contributions have been in the field of literacy education. Her research projects tracing students’literacy development have had a direct and substantial impact on curriculum and syllabus development in Australia and internationally. She has (co-)authored 11 books and numerous book chapters and journal articles in the field of literacy education.
Merrill Swain is a Canadian applied linguist whose research has focused on second language acquisition (SLA). Some of her most notable contributions to SLA research include the Output Hypothesis and her research related to immersion education. Swain is a Professor Emerita at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. Swain is also known for her work with Michael Canale on communicative competence. Swain was the president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics in 1998. She received her PhD in psychology at the University of California. Swain has co-supervised 64 PhD students.
TESOL Quarterly is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of TESOL International Association. It covers English language teaching and learning,standard English as a second dialect,including articles on the psychology and sociology of language learning and teaching,professional preparation,curriculum development,and testing and evaluation. The editors-in-chief are Charlene Polio and Peter De Costa,both at Michigan State University. TESOL also publishes TESOL Journal.
Gayane Hovhannisyan is an Armenian linguist,Doctor of Sciences in Philology/Linguistics (2000),Professor (2005). Hovhannisyan was the first Chair of English Teaching Methodology at Armenian State Pedagogical University after Khachatur Abovyan,Yerevan. Currently she is the (acting) head of English Communication and Translation Chair at Brusov State University.
Diane Larsen-Freeman is an American linguist. She is currently a Professor Emerita in Education and in Linguistics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor,Michigan. An applied linguist,known for her work in second language acquisition,English as a second or foreign language,language teaching methods,teacher education,and English grammar,she is renowned for her work on the complex/dynamic systems approach to second language development.
Donna Mary Brinton is an American applied linguist,author,and global educational consultant on second language education. She is the daughter of Mary Mies Brinton and Robert K. Brinton and the sister of epidemiologist Louise A. Brinton and linguist Laurel J. Brinton.
Rosalind Ivanić is a Yugoslav-born British linguist. She is currently an honorary professor at the Department of Linguistics and English Language of Lancaster University,United Kingdom. Her research focuses on applied linguistics with a special focus on literacy,intertextuality,multimodal communication,adult literacy,educational linguistics,critical language awareness,punctuation,and second language writing. Along with Theo van Leeuwen and David Barton,she is considered one of the most prominent researchers on literacy.
The Sydney School is a genre-based writing pedagogy that analyses literacy levels of students. The Sydney School's pedagogy broadened the traditional observation-based writing in primary schools to encompass a spectrum of different genres of text types that are appropriate to various discourses and include fiction and non-fiction. The method and practice of teaching established by the Sydney School encourages corrective and supportive feedback in the education of writing practices for students,particularly regarding second language students. The Sydney School works to reflectively institutionalise a pedagogy that is established to be conducive to students of lower socio-economic backgrounds,indigenous students and migrants lacking a strong English literacy basis. The functional linguists who designed the genre-based pedagogy of the Sydney School did so from a semantic perspective to teach through patterns of meaning and emphasised the importance of the acquisition of a holistic literacy in various text types or genres. ‘Sydney School’is not,however,an entirely accurate moniker as the pedagogy has evolved beyond metropolitan Sydney universities to being adopted nationally and,by 2000,was exported to centres in Hong Kong,Singapore,and parts of Britain.
Frances Helen Christie,is Emeritus professor of language and literacy education at the University of Melbourne,and honorary professor of education at the University of Sydney. She specialises in the field of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and has completed research in language and literacy education,writing development,pedagogic grammar,genre theory,and teaching English as a mother tongue and as a second language.
Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir is an Icelandic linguist. She is Professor of Second Language Studies at the University of Iceland,Director of the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute of Foreign Languages and Dean of the Faculty of Languages and Cultures.
Jenny Hammond is an Australian linguist. She is known for her research on literacy development,classroom interaction,and socio-cultural and systemic functional theories of language and learning in English as an Additional Language or dialect (EAL/D) education. Over the course of her career,Hammond's research has had a significant impact on the literacy development of first and second language learners,on the role of classroom talk in constructing curriculum knowledge and on policy developments for EAL education in Australia. She is an Honorary Associate Professor in the School of Education,University of Technology Sydney.
Elizabeth A. Thomson is an Australian linguist. She is an adjunct professor in the Division of Learning and Teaching at Charles Sturt University,and Principal Honorary Fellow of the School of Humanities and Social Inquiry at the University of Wollongong. She is known for her research in linguistics,language education and training,language other than English and curriculum &assessment design,and has made contributions to the field of English and Japanese linguistics from the Systemic Functional perspective. She is a foundation member of the Japan Association of Systemic Functional Linguistics (JASFL),a member of the International Systemic Functional Linguistics Association (ISFLA) and the Australian Systemic Functional Linguistics Association (ASFLA),and also an associate member of The Council of Australasian University Leaders in Learning and Teaching and The Australasian Council on Open,Distance and e-Learning (ACODE).
Jane Torr is an Australian academic in the fields of early childhood language and literacy development in home and early childhood education and care settings. She is an honorary associate in the department of educational studies at Macquarie University,where she has been teaching and researching for over 30 years. Torr's research draws on systemic functional linguistic theory to explore the relationship between context and meaning in adult-child interactions,and the implications for children's learning. She has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters,as well as publications in professional journals.
Mary J. Schleppegrell is an applied linguist and Professor of Education at the University of Michigan. Her research and praxis are based on the principles of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL),a theory derived from the work of social semiotic linguist Michael Halliday. Schleppegrell is known for the SFL-based literacy practices she has continuously helped to develop for multilingual and English language learners throughout her decades long career,which she began as an educational specialist before transitioning to the field of applied linguistics. As a result,her publications demonstrate a deep understanding of both the theories and practices related to teaching and learning.
Ingrid Piller is an Australian linguist,who specializes in intercultural communication,language learning,multilingualism,and bilingual education. Piller is Distinguished Professor at Macquarie University and an elected fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. Piller serves as Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Multilingua and as founding editor of the research dissemination site Language on the Move. She is a member of the Australian Research Council (ARC) College of Experts.
