IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Language (ACL) > ACL2020

ACL2020

ACL2020

March 30–31, 2020 | Toshi Center Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

The Asian Conference on Language (ACL) is an interdisciplinary conference that explores the many fields, theories and practices of the study of language, from questions of language acquisition, psychology and linguistics, through those of culture, communication, and technology, to the teaching and learning of language.

In its written and spoken forms language dominates and shapes our lives. Far from just being the tool of communication, language can be beautiful or ugly, sparse and succinct, or overblown, technocratic; direct or obfuscatory; it can be mediocre, lazy, hurtful, spiteful, libellous, slanderous, or false, but it can also be uplifting, joyous, salutary, truthful, and even divine. Language brings us our first and dying words, and accompanies our journeys, helping us to formulate concepts, sentences, and lives, and helps us negotiate meanings, ideas, and each other.

The study of language and languages is an immense opportunity to engage with international, intercultural, and interdisciplinary content and issues that lie at the heart of the IAFOR mission. Since its founding in 2009, IAFOR has brought people and ideas together in a variety of events and platforms to promote and celebrate interdisciplinary study, and underline its importance. Over the past year we have engaged in many cross-sectoral projects, including those with universities (the University of Barcelona, Hofstra University, UCL, University of Belgrade, Moscow State University and Virginia Tech), think tanks/research centers (the East-West Center, APHERP, The Center for Higher Education Research), as well as collaborative projects with the United Nations in New York, and here in Tokyo, with the Government of Japan through the Prime Minister’s office.

With the IAFOR Research Centre at Osaka University’s Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), we have engaged in a number of interdisciplinary initiatives we believe will have an important impact on domestic and international public policy conversations. It is through conferences like these that we expand our network and partners, and we have no doubt that ACL2020 will offer a remarkable opportunity for the sharing of research and best practice, and for the meeting of people and ideas.

At the intersection of theory, pedagogy, and praxis the Asian Conference on Language invites researchers and teachers to submit proposals in the following areas:

  • Language Acquisition
  • Language and Communication
  • Language and Culture
  • Language and Psychology
  • Language and Technology
  • Language Learning and Teaching
  • Linguistics

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Plenary Presentations

Keynote Presentation
Dislocation/Invitation
Donald E. Hall, University of Rochester, USA

Keynote Presentation
Making Communicative Teaching Viable through “Bottom-up” Task-based Assessment
Marcos Benevides, J. F. Oberlin University, Japan

Keynote Presentation
The Ups and Downs of Language Learning
Christina Gkonou, University of Essex, UK

Keynote Presentation
Language and Power in Interfaith Dialogue: Inclusion, Exclusion and Essentialism
Stephen E. Gregg, University of Wolverhampton, UK

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Programme

  • Making Communicative Teaching Viable through “Bottom-up” Task-based Assessment
    Making Communicative Teaching Viable through “Bottom-up” Task-based Assessment
    Keynote Presentation: Marcos Benevides
  • The Ups and Downs of Language Learning
    The Ups and Downs of Language Learning
    Featured Presentation: Christina Gkonou
  • Language and Power in Interfaith Dialogue: Inclusion, Exclusion and Essentialism
    Language and Power in Interfaith Dialogue: Inclusion, Exclusion and Essentialism
    Keynote Presentation: Stephen Gregg
  • Dislocation/Invitation
    Dislocation/Invitation
    Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

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Speakers

  • Marcos Benevides
    Marcos Benevides
    J. F. Oberlin University, Japan
  • Christina Gkonou
    Christina Gkonou
    University of Essex, UK
  • Stephen E. Gregg
    Stephen E. Gregg
    University of Wolverhampton, UK
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA

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Organising Committee

  • Steve Cornwell
    Steve Cornwell
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) & Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Donald E. Hall
    Donald E. Hall
    University of Rochester, USA
  • Barbara Lockee
    Barbara Lockee
    Virginia Tech., USA
  • Jo Mynard
    Jo Mynard
    Kanda University of International Studies, Japan
  • Diane Hawley Nagatomo
    Diane Hawley Nagatomo
    Ochanomizu University, Japan
  • Dexter Da Silva
    Dexter Da Silva
    Keisen University, Japan

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ACL2020 Review Committee

  • Dr Suhaily Abdullah, Politeknik Jeli Kelantan, Malaysia
  • Professor James Briganti, Nagasaki University, Japan
  • Dr Edgar R. Eslit, St. Michael's College, Philippines
  • Dr Khairul Aini Mohamed Jiri, English Language Teaching Centre, Ministry of Education Malaysia, Malaysia
  • Dr Paul Nepapleh Nkamta, North-West University, Mafikeng Campus, South Africa
  • Dr Merissa Ocampo, Fukushima Gakuin College, Japan
  • Professor Stuart Perrin, Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University, China
  • Dr Moriam Quadir, East West University, Bangladesh
  • Dr Smriti Singh, Indian Institute of Technology Patna, India
  • Dr Xiaofei Tang, Wuhan University of Technology, China
  • Dr Michinobu Watanabe, Toin Gakuen High School, Japan

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IAFOR Grant & Scholarship Recipients

Our warmest congratulations go to Orlyn Joyce Esquivel and Bita Naghmeh Abbaspour, who have been selected by the conference Organising Committee to receive grants and scholarships to present their research at ACL2020.

Orlyn Joyce Esquivel

IAFOR Scholarship Recipient

A Cross-Linguistic Investigation on “Outer Circle” Englishes: A Corpus-Based Approach
Orlyn Joyce Esquivel, University of the Philippines Diliman, Philippines

Orlyn Joyce D. Esquivel is a licensed professional teacher and an MA student in the linguistics program at the University of the Philippines Diliman. She is affiliated with the Linguistic Society of the Philippines, British Association for Applied Linguistics, and AsiaTEFL. She is a manuscript reviewer for The Electronic Journal for English as a Second Language (TESL-EJ), an editorial review board member of Journal of Languages for Specific Purposes (JLSP), and an abstract reviewer for international conferences abroad. She has published in international peer-reviewed and SCOPUS-indexed journals. Also, she has been accepted for research presentations in prestigious universities (University of Hawaii, Yonsei University, etc.). Her research interests are corpus linguistics, dialectology, language contact, multilingualism, language documentation, sociolinguistics, language variation, and language change.

Bita Naghmeh Abbaspour

IAFOR Scholarship Recipient

The Impact of Paratexts on the Ideology of Translation
Bita Naghmeh Abbaspour, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia

Dr Bita Naghmeh Abbaspour, is a senior lecturer in the School of Languages, Literacies and Translation, Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). She has more than 15-years experience in teaching translation in different institutes and universities. Her main areas of research are cultural studies in translation as well as translation and discourse studies.

IAFOR's grants and scholarships programme provides financial support to PhD students and early career academics, with the aim of helping them pursue research excellence and achieve their academic goals through interdisciplinary study and interaction. Awards are based on the appropriateness of the educational opportunity in relation to the applicant's field of study, financial need, and contributions to their community and to IAFOR's mission of interdisciplinarity. Scholarships are awarded based on availability of funds from IAFOR and vary with each conference.

Click here to learn out more about IAFOR grants and scholarships.

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Making Communicative Teaching Viable through “Bottom-up” Task-based Assessment
Keynote Presentation: Marcos Benevides

Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) is an approach to second language teaching that emphasises language as primarily a tool for communication. The importance of CLT is now widely recognised and research validated. However, in many Asian contexts the perception of communicative proficiency remains that it is impractical to target and to assess in the classroom. Task-based language teaching (TBLT), a refinement of CLT principles that introduces the "task" as a unit of instruction, can solve this problem.

In TBLT, communicative tasks are defined as pedagogical constructs that have meaningful, real-world-like outcomes; for example: Write a thank you letter or Fill out a job application. Tasks can be described according to clear features and parameters, they can be sequenced in a syllabus according to relative complexity, and they can be assessed in a valid and reliable manner by focusing on outcomes. In these ways, tasks provide a systematic and practical way to implement communicative lessons, solving many of the major concerns regarding CLT.

Nevertheless, TBLT remains little-used in many instructional contexts due to a scarcity of easy-to-use teaching materials and assessment tools. In particular, there remains a lack of options for task-based assessments that are practical in the classroom. In order for TBLT to be more widely accepted and implemented, assessment tools are needed that are not only valid and reliable, but also easy to use by classroom teachers of varied experience.

This talk will introduce a new task-based assessment tool designed for the classroom. If successful, this has the potential to both inform and transform communicative language teaching in Asian contexts and beyond.

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The Ups and Downs of Language Learning
Featured Presentation: Christina Gkonou

Emotions play an important role in our daily life and interactions, and language learning is no exception. Our learners may sometimes feel energetic, motivated and confident, and at other times indifferent, embarrassed and nervous. Research into language learning psychology has grown exponentially in recent years, with motivation predominantly being the most prolific area in the field. Students who do not perform satisfactorily may indeed lack motivation, but they may also be faced with a number of concerns and anxieties, which they are not always keen or given the chance to verbalise. Educators and/or researchers should take these complexities into account if they are to better understand learners and address their academic and emotional needs in their practice. In this talk, I examine the constructs of emotion and anxiety – which is the most frequently studied emotion within second language acquisition – and how they impact on learners’ classroom experiences. I then discuss the role of emotion regulation in 21st-century classrooms and ways of helping our learners become autonomous, both emotionally and academically.

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Language and Power in Interfaith Dialogue: Inclusion, Exclusion and Essentialism
Keynote Presentation: Stephen Gregg

Interfaith dialogue is often portrayed as a way of bridging cultural gaps and allowing a “safe space” for mutual respect between different religious worldviews and communities. Whilst it is certainly true that this can occur, in this presentation I will be proposing that interfaith dialogue is, in its framework and performance, a complex projection of inclusion, exclusion and reinforcing of pre-existent relational religious identities. By focusing upon the historic case study of the first ever World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893, and bringing in recent and contemporary examples of interfaith encounter (including religion and non-religion) from the UK, I will discuss the particular importance of language and power discourse in the projection of religious identities which seek to both embrace and highlight difference.

Read presenter biographies.

Dislocation/Invitation
Keynote Presentation: Donald E. Hall

IAFOR’s special theme in 2020 is “Embracing Difference”, which builds on two previous years’ themes: examinations of fear for what the future might hold (2018), followed a year later by explorations of our ability to shape alternate futures (2019). The continuing timeliness of both topics has been fuelled not only by global political trends, but also (and in ways that largely account for those trends) the fact that individuals today are being confronted incessantly with forms and intensities of “difference” as never before in human history. Unless we are wholly off the grid of media and extra-communal encounter (as we might find with self-isolating religious communities), we are confronted daily with lifestyles, belief systems, languages, and ways of being that are radically different from our own. Whether face-to-face or mediated, these continuing micro-shocks of encounters with epistemological difference can be terrifying, exhilarating, disorienting, or even erotically stimulating (if not several of those at once). Much hinges on how we decide to process such encounters, a choice for which, I argue, we bear responsibility. To the extent that we can actively choose to frame such “dislocations” as desirable “invitations”– to question the rightness of our own stances, the security of our own “truths,” and the limitations of our own knowledge – we can welcome encounters with difference as necessary for learning and growth. Too often, of course, they are processed much more narrowly as violent threats to insular selfhood, to national and cultural primacy, and to religious absolutes. We as teachers, scholars and public intellectuals have a role to play in reframing a public debate on the fundamental value of “difference”. Beyond our common and often tepid proclamation of respect for “diversity”, it is imperative that we promote and defend the inherently generative effect of the “unsettledness” that terrifies so many of our fellow citizens. Invitations to rethink our “selves”, our beliefs, and our values should be celebrated as inherently educational opportunities, rather than feared as apocalyptic threats to coherence or community.

Read presenters' biography
Marcos Benevides
J. F. Oberlin University, Japan

Biography

Marcos Benevides is a teacher, researcher, and multiple award-winning author/editor of English language teaching materials. His latest work, a second edition of task-based coursebook Widgets Inc., was recently awarded the 2018 British Council ELTon for Course Innovation. The first edition of Widgets (2008) has been widely credited as the first internationally successful task-based course. His other notable works include Fiction in Action: Whodunit (2011 ELTon and 2010 ESU Award) and the Atama-ii multi-path series (two 2015 and one 2016 Extensive Reading Foundation awards). Marcos is the president of Atama-ii Books and an Assistant Professor and English Language Program Coordinator at J. F. Oberlin University. His research interests include task-based language teaching, particularly course design and assessment, and extensive reading. Marcos lives in Tokyo with his family.

Christina Gkonou
University of Essex, UK

Biography

Dr Christina Gkonou is Associate Professor of TESOL and MA TESOL Programme Leader in the Department of Language and Linguistics at the University of Essex, UK. She is also Deputy Director of Education in the same Department. She convenes postgraduate modules on teacher education and development, and on psychological aspects surrounding the foreign language learning and teaching experience. She is the co-editor of New Directions in Language Learning Psychology (with Sarah Mercer and Dietmar Tatzl) and New Insights into Language Anxiety: Theory, Research and Educational Implications (with Jean-Marc Dewaele and Mark Daubney), and co-author of MYE: Managing Your Emotions Questionnaire (with Rebecca L. Oxford). Her new book, entitled The Emotional Rollercoaster of Language Teaching (co-edited with Jean-Marc Dewaele and Jim King) will be out in June 2020.

Featured Presentation (2020) | The Ups and Downs of Language Learning
Stephen E. Gregg
University of Wolverhampton, UK

Biography

Dr Stephen E. Gregg is Senior Lecturer in Religious Studies at the University of Wolverhampton, and the Hon. Secretary of the British Association for the Study of Religions. His research interests are focused on Religious Identity, Contemporary Religion, Minority Religions, and Religion and Comedy/Performance. His recent books include Swami Vivekananda and Non-Hindu Traditions (Routledge, 2019), The Insider/Outsider Debate: New Approaches in the Study of Religion (Equinox, 2019), The Bloomsbury Handbook to Studying Christians (Bloomsbury, 2019), Engaging with Living Religion (Routledge, 2015) and Jesus Beyond Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2010).

Stephen received his BA and PhD from the University of Wales, where he was subsequently appointed Lecturer in Religious Studies. He was then appointed as Fellow in the Study of Religion at Liverpool Hope University and is now Senior Lecturer at Wolverhampton, the multicultural heart of the UK. He has delivered invited papers at universities in India, Turkey, Australia, the USA, and across the UK and Europe. In 2013 Stephen was the lead coordinator for the European Association for the Study of Religions and the International Association for the History of Religions Conference in Liverpool, UK.

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Language and Power in Interfaith Dialogue: Inclusion, Exclusion and Essentialism
Donald E. Hall
University of Rochester, USA

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA. Prior to moving to Rochester, he was Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Dean Hall has published widely in the fields of British Studies, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies, and Professional Studies. Over the course of his career, he served as Jackson Distinguished Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English (and previously Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages) at West Virginia University. Before that, he was Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for 13 years. He is a recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN, was a visiting professor at the National University of Rwanda, was Lansdowne Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria (Canada), was Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Studies at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, and was Fulbright Specialist at the University of Helsinki. He has also taught in Sweden, Romania, Hungary, and China. He served on numerous panels and committees for the Modern Language Association (MLA), including the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, and the Convention Program Committee. In 2012, he served as national President of the Association of Departments of English. From 2013-2017, he served on the Executive Council of the MLA.

His current and forthcoming work examines issues such as professional responsibility and academic community-building, the dialogics of social change and activist intellectualism, and the Victorian (and our continuing) interest in the deployment of instrumental agency over our social, vocational, and sexual selves. Among his many books and editions are the influential faculty development guides, The Academic Self and The Academic Community, both published by Ohio State University Press. Subjectivities and Reading Sexualities: Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies were both published by Routledge Press. Most recently he and Annamarie Jagose, of the University of Auckland, co-edited a volume titled The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. Though he is a full-time administrator, he continues to lecture worldwide on the value of a liberal arts education and the need for nurturing global competencies in students and interdisciplinary dialogue in and beyond the classroom.

Professor Donald E. Hall is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Arts, Humanities, Media & Culture division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation
Steve Cornwell
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR) & Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan

Biography

Steve Cornwell is the President of IAFOR, and President of the Academic Governing Board. He coordinates and oversees the International Academic Advisory Board, and also serves on the organisation's Board of Directors. He is Chair of the Language Learning section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Dr Cornwell is Vice President of Osaka Jogakuin University, Japan, where he is also a Professor of English and Interdisciplinary Studies. He helped write and design several of the courses at the New School in New York, and currently teaches on the online portion of the MA TESOL Programme, having been involved with the programme since its inception.

He has also been involved with the Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT) serving on its National Board of Directors as Director of Programme from 2012 to 2016; where his duties involved working with a volunteer team of over 50 people to organise JALT’s annual, international conference each autumn.

Since 2012 he has been the Committee Chair of Osaka Jogakuin University’s Lifelong Learning Committee and is responsible for their evening extension programme geared towards alumni and community members. He is also the Vice-Chair of Osaka Jogakuin University’s English Education Committee, which is responsible for suggesting policy regarding English education and for developing material for the integrated curriculum.

Joseph Haldane
The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan

Biography

Joseph Haldane is the Founder, Chairman and CEO of IAFOR. He is responsible for devising strategy, setting policies, forging institutional partnerships, implementing projects, and overseeing the organisation’s business and academic operations, including research, publications and events.

Dr Haldane holds a PhD from the University of London in 19th-century French Studies, and has had full-time faculty positions at the University of Paris XII Paris-Est Créteil (France), Sciences Po Paris (France), and Nagoya University of Commerce and Business (Japan), as well as visiting positions at the French Press Institute in the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas (France), The School of Journalism at Sciences Po Paris (France), and the School of Journalism at Moscow State University (Russia).

Dr Haldane’s research and teaching is on history, politics, international affairs and international education, as well as governance and decision making. Since 2015 he has been a Guest Professor at The Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP) at Osaka University, where he teaches on the postgraduate Global Governance Course, and is Co-Director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre, an interdisciplinary think tank situated within Osaka University.

A Member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network for Global Governance, Dr Haldane is also a Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Philology at the University of Belgrade (Serbia), a Visiting Professor at the School of Business at Doshisha University (Japan), where he teaches Ethics and Governance on the MBA programme, and a Member of the International Advisory Council of the Department of Educational Foundations at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Education (USA), collaborating on the development of the Global PhD programme.

Dr Haldane has given invited lectures and presentations to universities and conferences around the world, including at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and advised universities, NGOs and governments on issues relating to international education policy, public-private partnerships, and multi-stakeholder forums. He was the project lead on the 2019 Kansai Resilience Forum, held by the Japanese Government through the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet Office in collaboration with IAFOR.

From 2012 to 2014, Dr Haldane served as Treasurer of the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (Chubu Region) and he is currently a Trustee of the HOPE International Development Agency (Japan). He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society in 2012, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in 2015.

Critical Discussion Session (2022) | Is the Pen Really Mightier than the Sword?
Donald E. Hall
University of Rochester, USA

Biography

Donald E. Hall is Dean of the Faculty of Arts, Sciences, and Engineering at the University of Rochester, USA. Prior to moving to Rochester, he was Dean of Arts and Sciences at Lehigh University, USA. Dean Hall has published widely in the fields of British Studies, Gender Theory, Cultural Studies, and Professional Studies. Over the course of his career, he served as Jackson Distinguished Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English (and previously Chair of the Department of Foreign Languages) at West Virginia University. Before that, he was Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English at California State University, Northridge, where he taught for 13 years. He is a recipient of the University Distinguished Teaching Award at CSUN, was a visiting professor at the National University of Rwanda, was Lansdowne Distinguished Visiting Scholar at the University of Victoria (Canada), was Fulbright Distinguished Chair in Cultural Studies at Karl Franzens University in Graz, Austria, and was Fulbright Specialist at the University of Helsinki. He has also taught in Sweden, Romania, Hungary, and China. He served on numerous panels and committees for the Modern Language Association (MLA), including the Task Force on Evaluating Scholarship for Tenure and Promotion, and the Convention Program Committee. In 2012, he served as national President of the Association of Departments of English. From 2013-2017, he served on the Executive Council of the MLA.

His current and forthcoming work examines issues such as professional responsibility and academic community-building, the dialogics of social change and activist intellectualism, and the Victorian (and our continuing) interest in the deployment of instrumental agency over our social, vocational, and sexual selves. Among his many books and editions are the influential faculty development guides, The Academic Self and The Academic Community, both published by Ohio State University Press. Subjectivities and Reading Sexualities: Hermeneutic Theory and the Future of Queer Studies were both published by Routledge Press. Most recently he and Annamarie Jagose, of the University of Auckland, co-edited a volume titled The Routledge Queer Studies Reader. Though he is a full-time administrator, he continues to lecture worldwide on the value of a liberal arts education and the need for nurturing global competencies in students and interdisciplinary dialogue in and beyond the classroom.

Professor Donald E. Hall is a Vice-President of IAFOR. He is Chair of the Arts, Humanities, Media & Culture division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Keynote Presentation (2020) | Dislocation/Invitation
Barbara Lockee
Virginia Tech., USA

Biography

Dr Barbara Lockee is Professor of Instructional Design and Technology at Virginia Tech, USA, where she is also Associate Director of the School of Education and Associate Director of Educational Research and Outreach. She teaches courses in instructional design, message design, and distance education. Her research interests focus on instructional design issues related to technology-mediated learning. She has published more than 80 papers in academic journals, conferences and books, and has presented her scholarly work at over 90 national and international conferences.

Dr Lockee is Immediate Past President of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology, an international professional organisation for educational technology researchers and practitioners. She earned her PhD in 1996 from Virginia Tech in Curriculum and Instruction (Instructional Technology), MA in 1991 from Appalachian State University in Curriculum and Instruction (Educational Media), and BA in 1986 from Appalachian State University in Communication Arts.

Professor Barbara Lockee is a Vice-President of IAFOR. She is Chair of the Education & Language Learning division of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Jo Mynard
Kanda University of International Studies, Japan

Biography

Dr Jo Mynard is a Professor and Director of the Self-Access Learning Centre (SALC) at Kanda University of International Studies (KUIS) in Japan. At KUIS, she advises language learners, and oversees academic support, research and the general direction of the SALC. She also teaches an undergraduate course on Effective Language Learning at KUIS and a graduate course on Learner Autonomy as part of the MA TESOL programme at the KUIS graduate school. She is a part-time faculty member on the Doctor of Education programme in TESOL at the University of Anaheim (USA), an occasional supervisor at the university of Birmingham (UK) on the MA TESOL programme, and an advisor to doctoral candidates at the Education and ICT programme at the Open University of Catalunya (Spain). She has co-edited four books. Two on learner autonomy (2011; 2014), and two on advising in language learning (2012). She recently co-authored a book (with Satoko Kato) on reflective dialogue / advising which was published by Routledge (New York) in August 2015. She has been the editor of SiSAL (Studies in Self-Access Learning) Journal --a peer review, open access publication-- since 2010.

Diane Hawley Nagatomo
Ochanomizu University, Japan

Biography

Dr Diane Hawley Nagatomo is an associate Professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Science at Ochanomizu University, Japan. She has taught graduate and undergraduate courses in Japanese universities for more than thirty years. She is the author of 21 EFL textbooks for the Japanese audience, numerous academic articles, and has presented at numerous conferences. Among her books are Exploring Japanese University English Teachers’ Professional Identity (2012) and Gender, Identity and Teaching English in Japan (2016). Her research interests include teachers’ and students’ beliefs, professional identity, gender issues, and materials development.

Dexter Da Silva
Keisen University, Japan

Biography

Dr Dexter Da Silva is currently Professor of Educational Psychology at Keisen University in Tokyo. He has taught EFL at junior high school, language schools, and universities in Sydney, Australia, and for more than two decades has been living, and teaching at the tertiary level, in Japan. Professor Da Silva was educated at the University of Sydney (BA, Dip. Ed., MA), and the University of Western Sydney (PhD). He has presented and co-presented at conferences in Asia, Australia, Europe and the United States, co-edited two books on Motivation in Foreign Language Learning, and written or co-written articles and book chapters on education-related topics, such as trust, student motivation, autonomy, and content-based language teaching. He is a past editor of On CUE Journal, past president of the Asian Psychological Association, regular reviewer for conferences, proceedings, journal articles and book chapters, and regularly co-chairs and participates in the Organising Committee of conferences on Motivation, Language Learning and Teaching, and Psychology and the Behavioral Sciences.

Professor Dexter Da Silva is a member of IAFOR’s Academic Governing Board. He is Chair of the Psychology & the Behavioral Sciences section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Critical Discussion Session (2022) | Is the Pen Really Mightier than the Sword?

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