Editor’s Note: Via a new column in TIRF Today, our monthly newsletter, we will update our supporters on the activities of our various grantees. News about their publications and presentations, the completion of their final reports/deliverables to TIRF, awards they may receive, and so on will be highlighted in our “Grantee Corner.” We encourage our awardees to get in touch with us to share their accomplishments, so that we may let our supporters and donors know about their accomplishments.

In this first-ever Grantee Corner post, we want to begin by sharing that Dr. Christian Fallas Escobar (right), a 2021 TIRF DDG Awardee, was awarded the 2024 AAAL (American Association for Applied Linguistics) Dissertation Award. According to AAAL’s website, the award is made to recognize an outstanding “dissertation that demonstrates research excellence, transcends narrow disciplinary fields, and has impact on and implications for the field of applied linguistics as a whole.” Dr. Fallas Escobar is now Professor of Applied Linguistics at Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica. You may read his faculty profile here. Many congratulations to Dr. Fallas Escobar on this wonderful achievement!

Since late last year, a number of DDG awardees have completed their final reports for TIRF – the final deliverable required by TIRF that is submitted upon defense of their dissertations. The list of awardees is shared below and includes which year they were awarded a TIRF DDG. Click here and use the “Recipients” tab to learn more information about any of the following grantees:

  • Yi Cao (2021)
  • Yingzhao Chen (2021)
  • Min-Seok Choi (2021)
  • Yuliya Desyatova (2021)
  • Yuchan Gao (2022)
  • Kendi Ho (2020)
  • Hyunah Kim (2020)
  • Mariana Lima Becker (2021)
  • Emre Pshigusa (2021)
  • Haoshan Ren (2021)
  • Parisa Safaei (2018)
  • Martha Sandstead (2022)
  • Friederike Sell (2017)
  • Soohye Yeom (2021)

Finally, a number of grantees have shared information about recent publications they have completed over the last one to two years. The list follows here, with grantees’ names shown in boldface text:

  • Aridi, R., Kozma, E., Kassab, S., McBride, K., Merhi, M., & Shrestha, R. (2023). English reading in primary school students in Lebanon. In K. M. Bailey & D, Nunan (Eds.), Research on English Language Teaching and Learning in the Middle East and North Africa (pp. 23-35). Routledge.
  • Bernstein, K. A., Anderson, K. T., Close, K., & Rodriguez Martinez, S. (2023). Teacher beliefs about multilingual learners: How language ideologies shape teachers’ hypothetical policymaking. International Multilingual Research Journal, 1-29. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/19313152.2023.2182094
  • Galante, A. (2022). Affordances of plurilingual instruction in higher education: A mixed methods study with a quasi-experiment in an English language program. Applied Linguistics, 43(2), 316-339.
  • Selvi, A. F., Yazan, B., & Mahboob, A. (2024). Research on “native” and “non-native” English-speaking teachers: Past developments, current status, and future directions. Language Teaching, 57, 1-41.
  • Yahia, E., & Elsheikh, A. (2023). Culture, motivation, and self-efficacy in the Sudanese EFL context. In K. M. Bailey & D, Nunan (Eds.), Research on English language teaching and learning in the Middle East and North Africa (pp. 103-113). Routledge.
  • Yazan, B., Penton Herrera, L. J., & Rashed, D. (2023). Transnational TESOL practitioners’ identity tensions: A collaborative autoethnography. TESOL Quarterly, 57(1), 140-167.
  • Zhao, C. G., & Qi, Q. (2023). Implementing learning‐oriented assessment (LOA) among limited‐proficiency EFL students: Challenges, strategies, and students’ reactions. TESOL Quarterly, 57(2), 566-594.

The ripple effect of the Foundation’s work can is best exemplified through the ongoing work of our grantees. We look forward to sharing further news about their good work soon. Many congratulations to all TIRF grantees on their outstanding accomplishments!