We are pleased to announce the recipient of the 2025 TIRF James E. Alatis Prize for Research on Language Planning and Policy in Educational Contexts. Dr. Crissa Stephens (pictured), Independent Scholar, has been selected as this year’s recipient of TIRF’s Alatis Prize. Her article is entitled “Invisible Policy Brokers: The
Yingzhao Chen received her PhD in Second Language Studies from Michigan State University. She is currently a Lecturer at the Centre for English Language Communication at National University of Singapore. Her research interests include technology-enhanced language learning, vocabulary learning, and lexical processing. Her research has appeared in journals such as
Name & Bio: Nguyen Thi Hoang Bau is a Ph.D. candidate at Danang University of Foreign Language Studies. Through her doctorate, she examines the implementation of active learning in teaching English to non-English major students at Vietnamese universities. She also explores teachers’ and students’ perceptions, practices, and challenges, offering context-sensitive
Name & Bio: Melaku Hailemichael is a doctoral candidate at Arab-Minch University (A-MU) where he also received his MA in TEFL. He is an experienced university lecturer and researcher at the Department of English Language and Literature of A-MU. His doctoral work helps to address the urgent need for scalable,
Name & Bio: Mamadou Sawadogo is a Ph.D. student in Language Sciences at University Joseph KI-ZERBO, Burkina Faso, and is a certified English teacher of junior and senior high schools. His research aims to analyze teaching practices related to the introduction of English at the primary level and to assess
Name & Bio: Macarena Durán-Castro is an English teacher and Ph.D. candidate in Education at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. Her dissertation examines teacher educators’ understandings of social justice in Chilean IELTE programs, drawing on decolonial perspectives, Testimonios, and arts-based inquiry. She teaches undergraduate English courses and collaborates as an
Name & Bio: Khawla Lamghari is a doctoral candidate at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco, as well as an English teacher at the secondary level. Her doctoral research examines pragmatic competence through speech acts of apologizing among Moroccan high school baccalaureate students. Her TIRF-funded project explores AI’s role in
Name & Bio: Achraf Guaad is a doctoral candidate at Mohammed V University in Rabat, Morocco. His research focuses on CLIL in Moroccan high schools. As a Resident Coordinator at Middlebury College, he supports international students and teaches Moroccan Arabic, enriching his research on bilingual education, learner engagement, and intercultural
Yoon Namkung earned a PhD in Applied Linguistics and ESL at Georgia State University. Her research interests include second-language acquisition, educational technology, task-based language teaching, and research synthesis. Yoon’s dissertation examines beginner-level English learners’ task engagement in virtual 3D platforms, such as the metaverse, exploring the mediating effects of emotions
Tran Thi Yen is a doctoral candidate at the University of Languages and International Studies, Vietnam National University, Hanoi, and a lecturer at the Faculty of Foreign Languages Education, Thai Nguyen University of Education. Her dissertation investigates social-emotional learning in EFL teacher education in Vietnam, focusing on pre-service teachers’ perceptions,
Tingting Wang is a doctoral candidate in Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics at Nanjing University, China. Her primary research interests include learner corpus research, language assessment, second-language speaking, and phraseology. Her dissertation research focuses on providing convergent validity evidence for a proposed set of phraseological competence indices tailored to L2
Singay is a Ph.D. candidate in Applied Linguistics and Languages at the Open University (UK). His research interests include translanguaging, English-medium instruction, and multimodality. For his dissertation, Singay employs a case study approach to explore translanguaging practices in the EMI classrooms.
