IAFOR > The Asian Conference on Language (ACL) > ACL2022 > Speakers

Speakers

Speakers will provide a variety of perspectives from different academic and professional backgrounds. This page provides information about presenters. For details of presentations and other programming, please visit the Programme page.

  • Luke Carson
    Luke Carson
    Hiroshima City University, Japan
  • Joseph Haldane
    Joseph Haldane
    The International Academic Forum (IAFOR), Japan
  • Åsta Haukås
    Åsta Haukås
    University of Bergen, Norway
  • Li-Shih Huang
    Li-Shih Huang
    University of Victoria, Canada
  • Nandan
    Nandan
    Independent Film Director & Producer, India
  • Yoshiyuki Nakata
    Yoshiyuki Nakata
    Doshisha University, Japan
  • Haruko Satoh
    Haruko Satoh
    Osaka University, Japan
  • Dexter Da Silva
    Dexter Da Silva
    Keisen University, Japan
  • Ben Fenton-Smith
    Ben Fenton-Smith
    Griffith University, Australia
  • Neil Thin
    Neil Thin
    University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Become a Speaker

Excellent plenary speakers are central to our conferences, ensuring that timely, innovative and engaging content is presented to our audiences around the world. If you would like to be considered for a speaking slot at one of our conferences, please apply below.

Apply to Speak

Previous Speakers

View details of speakers at past ACL conferences via the links below.

ACL2021 ACL2020
Luke Carson
Hiroshima City University, Japan

Biography

Dr Luke Carson is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of International Studies at Hiroshima City University. His research interests centre around learning but extend across the disciplines of education, psychology, language and culture. Within learning, he has researched learner autonomy, metacognition, emotion and more, presenting on this work globally. He teaches across all these areas, and has begun to turn his teaching and research focus to the learning needs of the future (he currently teaches Futures Studies). He recently authored the book Metacognition and its Interactions with Cognition, Affect, Physicality and Off-task Thought, which was published by Routledge in March 2021 as part of their Research in Educational Psychology series.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Reflection and Metacognition in Language Learning: Are We Doing Enough to Support Our Students?
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?
Åsta Haukås
University of Bergen, Norway

Biography

Åsta Haukås is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Language Teacher Education in the Department of Foreign Languages at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her research interests include multilingualism, metacognition in language learning and teaching, language teacher psychology, and language teachers' professional development.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Reflection and Metacognition in Language Learning: Are We Doing Enough to Support Our Students?
Li-Shih Huang
University of Victoria, Canada

Biography

Dr Li-Shih Huang is an Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Victoria, Canada. Her scholarly interests include areas such as needs and outcomes assessment, reflective learning, corpus-based instruction, and strategic behaviours in language learning and language testing. She has received numerous research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the Educational Testing Service (ETS®), and the International English Language Testing System (IELTS™) for her work in those areas. Li-Shih has also been the recipient of the University of Victoria’s Humanities Teaching Excellence Award, TESOL’s Mary Finocchiaro Award for Excellence in Unpublished Pedagogical Materials, and TESOL’s Award for an Outstanding Paper on NNEST Issues.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Reflection and Metacognition in Language Learning: Are We Doing Enough to Support Our Students?
Nandan
Independent Film Director & Producer, India

Biography

Nandan is a writer and filmmaker from India. He was born in Kerala into a family prominent in the field of arts and literature. It was during his college days that he watched Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon and decided to be a filmmaker. He completed his BTech in Civil Engineering and worked in Bengaluru though his interest was always in the fine arts. Then he moved to Mumbai to follow his passion in filmmaking. There he started his career by working in advertising films. Since then he has worked as an assistant director in several major feature films and many advertising films for various reputed brands. He is known for directing Breath and Dreaming of Words.

Film Screening (2022) | Dreaming of Words (2021)
Yoshiyuki Nakata
Doshisha University, Japan

Biography

Yoshiyuki Nakata is a Professor of English Language Education in the Faculty of Global Communications at Doshisha University, Kyoto, Japan. He has been involved mainly in language teacher education in Japan for more than 20 years. His research interests include self-regulated language learning, language learning motivation, learner/teacher autonomy in the school context and language teacher education. Relevant publications have appeared in journals such as Teaching and Teacher Education, International Journal of Educational Research, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, and the Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education. He is the co-editor of Mapping the Terrain of Learner Autonomy.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Reflection and Metacognition in Language Learning: Are We Doing Enough to Support Our Students?
Haruko Satoh
Osaka University, Japan

Biography

Haruko Satoh is Specially Appointed Professor at the Osaka School of International Public Policy (OSIPP), where she teaches Japan’s relations with Asia and identity in international relations. She is also co-director of the OSIPP-IAFOR Research Centre and she was previously part of the MEXT Reinventing Japan project on “Peace and Human Security in Asia (PAHSA)” with six Southeast Asian and four Japanese universities.
In the past she has worked at the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA), Chatham House, and Gaiko Forum. Her interests are primarily in state theory, Japanese nationalism and identity politics. Recent publications include: “China in Japan’s Nation-state Identity” in James DJ Brown & Jeff Kingston (eds) Japan’s Foreign Relations in Asia (Routledge, 2018); “Japan’s ‘Postmodern’ Possibility with China: A View from Kansai” in Lam Peng Er (ed), China-Japan Relations in the 21st Century (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017); “Rethinking Security in Japan: In Search of a Post-‘Postwar’ Narrative” in Jain & Lam (Eds.), Japan’s Strategic Challenges in a Changing Regional Environment (World Scientific, 2012); “Through the Looking-glass: China’s Rise as Seen from Japan”, (co-authored with Toshiya Hoshino), Journal of Asian Public Policy, 5(2), 181–198, (July 2012); “Post- 3.11 Japan: A Matter of Restoring Trust?”, ISPI Analysis No. 83 (December 2011); “Legitimacy Deficit in Japan: The Road to True Popular Sovereignty” in Kane, Loy & Patapan (Eds.), Political Legitimacy in Asia: New Leadership Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), “Japan: Re-engaging with China Meaningfully” in Tang, Li & Acharya (eds), Living with China: Regional States and China through Crises and Turning Points (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Professor Satoh is a member of IAFOR’s Academic Governing Board. She is Chair of the Politics, Law & International Relations section of the International Academic Advisory Board.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Hate Speech, Love Speech, Free Speech?
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?

Previous Presentations

Panel Presentation (2021) | A Language for Humanity
Ben Fenton-Smith
Griffith University, Australia

Biography

Ben Fenton-Smith is a lecturer in the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia. He is also the International Director of the university’s Arts, Education and Law faculty. He completed a doctorate on political discourse at Macquarie University and published on the topic in journals such as Discourse and Society and the Journal of Language and Politics. Hate speech, love speech and free speech are themes that run through two courses he convenes at Griffith: ‘Discourse, Text and Power’ and ‘Public Policy for Change’.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Hate Speech, Love Speech, Free Speech?
Neil Thin
University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom

Biography

Neil Thin is a senior lecturer in Social and Political Science at the University of Edinburgh. He researches and lectures on happiness, social quality, sustainable development, and appreciative and aspirational social planning. He has authored four books and several institutional policy guides on these themes. He promoted the wellbeing lens in social planning through a Parliamentary Fellowship in the Scottish Parliament, and through service on the UN/Government of Bhutan panel of experts on happiness and development. He also has over 20 years of practical and policy experience working towards the reduction of poverty and promotion of justice and wellbeing in poorer countries, working at all levels from grassroots to governmental and international official agencies. He has frequently served as a social development adviser and trainer for international development agencies such as the UK Department for International Development, UN Agencies, the World Bank, and international NGOs.

Panel Presentation (2022) | Hate Speech, Love Speech, Free Speech?
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