AAAL 2024 Plenary Speakers

Muzna Awayed-Bishara

Linguistic citizenship as decolonial pedagogy: How minoritized language speakers contest epistemic injustices in EFL education

Muzna Awayed-Bishara is a senior faculty member in the Program for Multilingual Education, School of Education at Tel Aviv University. Her main research interests are: multilingualism and minority education, Southern applied/socio linguistics, EFL education within local-global contexts, Freirean language pedagogies, language and intercultural communication, and language policy and planning in conflict-ridden contexts.
Muzna had three distinguished postdoctoral positions in: the Center for the Study of Multiculturalism and Diversity at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the Paulo Freire Institute at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA); and the Martin Buber Society of Fellows in the Humanities and Social Sciences at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Muzna has authored articles in leading peer-reviewed journals such as
TESOL Quarterly and Applied Linguistics and book chapters in edited volumes. She is the author of EFL Pedagogy as Cultural Discourse: Textbooks, Practice, and Policy for Arabs and Jews in Israel (Routledge, 2020).

Dr. María Cioè-Peña

B is for Bilingual, Black, or Broken: The need for an intersectional, human(e) applied linguistics

Dr. María Cioè-Peña earned her PhD in Urban Education from The Graduate Center - City University of New York, where she was also an Advance Research Collaborative fellow and a Presidential MAGNET Fellow. She is a bilingual/biliterate education researcher and educator who examines the intersections of disability, race and language within school-parent partnerships and education policy. Taking a sociolinguistic approach and stance, she pushes and reimagines the boundaries of inclusive spaces for minoritized children. Stemming from her experiences as a former bilingual special education teacher, María’s research focuses on bilingual children with dis/abilities, their families and their ability to access multilingual and inclusive learning spaces within public schools. Her interests are deeply rooted in political economy, raciolinguistic perspectives and critical dis/ability awareness within schools, families and communities. María is currently an Assistant Professor of Educational Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education.

Dr. Candace Galla

Transforming our thinking about, of, and through indigenous and embodied language practices

Dr. Candace Kaleimamoowahinekapu Galla (Kanaka Hawaiʻi) is an Associate Professor in the department of Language and Literacy Education (Faculty of Education) and the Institute for Critical Indigenous Studies (Faculty of Arts) at the University of British Columbia. Her scholarly work has sought to emphasize and contribute to Hawaiian language and Indigenous languages at the intersection of education, revitalization, digital technology, and cultural practices and decolonizing and Indigenizing the academy to create pathways for Indigenous thinkers and scholars. She is currently co-developing the Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on Indigenous Policy, Planning, Implementation and Assessment, and will be a co-instructor of the MOOC for the inaugural offering in Fall/Winter 2023. Prior to joining UBC, she served as the Program Coordinator of the American Indian Language Development Institute at the University of Arizona and taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor in Ka Haka ʻUla O Keʻelikōlani College of Hawaiian Language at the University of Hawaiʻi in Hilo.

Okim Kang

Acting to change [our] perspectives: Social judgements, bias, and mitigation

Okim Kang is Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of the Applied Linguistics Speech Lab at Northern Arizona University. Her research interests are speech perception/ production, language social psychology/ attitudes, L2 pronunciation/intelligibility, L2 oral assessment/testing, and automated scoring/ speech recognition. She has published and co-authored 6 books on the topics of spoken discourse, prosody, and communication success, including a handbook about contemporary English pronunciation. She has published over 100 academic articles and given 230 keynote and conference presentations. She is an associate editor for Applied Linguistics, and serving on the editorial board for various journals (e.g., Language Testing, SSLA, Language Teaching, Journal of Second Language Pronunciation). She has organized conferences (e.g., PSLLT 2019), and served as technical program chairs (e.g., INTERSPEECH 2022 or IEEE ICASSP2024), and on the AAAL award committees. She obtained over 40 grants, including NSF and testing agencies (e.g., ETS, Duolingo, IELTS, Cambridge Assessment, or British Council).

Dr. Kris Aric Knisely

Trans linguacultures, trans logics: Re-imagining the potentiality of applied linguistics through gender justice

Dr. Kris Aric Knisely is an Assistant Professor of French and Intercultural Competence as well as affiliated faculty in both Second Language Acquisition and Teaching and the Trans Studies Research Cluster at the University of Arizona. Knisely’s research focuses on the interplay between the social, relational practices of doing language and doing gender, particularly as they relate to language education and to trans linguacultures. Dr. Knisely’s work has appeared in a variety of venues including Contemporary French Civilization, CFC Intersections, Critical Multilingualism Studies, Foreign Language Annals, The French Review, Gender and Language, and The Modern Language Journal, among others. Knisely is also co-editor (with Eric Russel, UC-Davis) of Redoing linguistic worlds: Unmaking gender binaries, remaking gender pluralities (Multilingual Matters).

Judit Kormos

Exploring equitable access to language learning for neurodiverse students in classroom settings: Past achievements and future directions

Judit Kormos is a Professor in Second Language Acquisition at Lancaster University. Her research focuses on the cognitive processes involved in learning and using additional languages. She has published widely on the effect of dyslexia on learning additional languages including the book “The Second Language Acquisition Process of Students with Specific Learning Difficulties” (Routledge, 2017). She is also the author of several research papers that have investigated the accessibility of language tests for young learners. She was a key partner in the EU-sponsored Dyslexia for Teachers of English as a Foreign Language and the Comics for Inclusive Language Teaching projects both of which won the British Council’s ELTon award. She is the lead educator of the Dyslexia and Foreign Language Teaching massive open online learning course offered by FutureLearn and has run teacher education workshops and webinars on inclusive language teaching in a large variety of international contexts.

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