Biography

Dr Kathleen Heugh is a socio-applied linguist who specialises in language policy and planning, bilingual and multilingual education, and English Medium Instruction (EMI). She teaches sociolinguistics and co-ordinates UniSA’s English Additional Language major, in which she has embedded contemporary translanguaging pedagogy and research. Kathleen works with several large transnational organisations (including various agencies of the UN, the EU and the African Union; transnational bodies such as the British Council, and international policy think tanks) located in Africa; Central, South and East Asia; Europe; and North America. Currently she focuses on policy and its implementation in bilingual and multilingual education for displaced, migrant and refugee students within mainstream systems. 

She has specialist expertise in system-wide and multi-country evaluation studies on languages and literacy in education in sub-Saharan Africa for international governments and development agencies (including UNESCO and UNDP). She was a Ministerial  advisor on language policy for the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (1996) and was subsequently appointed to two statutory bodies established through the Constitution. As a founding member of the Pan South African Language Board, Kathleen initiated and led the first Sociolinguistic Survey of South Africa (2000). She also led the design, development and administration of the first system-wide multilingual assessment of students in the world (2006). Her theoretical and field research in multilingual education in more than 30 countries informs UNESCO and UNICEF language education policy recommendations for countries in Africa and the Asia-Pacific, and for minority communities worldwide for the UN Human Rights Council. She focuses on the relationship between the languages of learning and school retention, particularly for marginalised, migrant and displaced communities; and also on the relationship between faith and literacies in education in urban, rural and remote settings. She is one of a few linguists with extensive fieldwork experience in several conflict and post-conflict settings of sub-Saharan Africa, particularly in fragile border regions between countries.

She holds several honorary positions, including with the University of the Western Cape and the Human Sciences Research Council in South Africa, and the National Multilingual Education Resource Centre, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. She has been a distinguished Visiting Professor at Rhodes University in 2015 and the University of South Africa in 2018; Visiting Professor at the Universities of Ghent and Geneva in 2019; and Visiting Scholar at the University of Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2012 and 2014, and the Universities of Antwerp and Louvain in Belguim between 1997-2001. With Christopher Stroud (Western Cape and Stockholm) and Piet van Avermaet (Ghent), she is the Bloomsbury Series Editor of Multilingualisms and Diversities in Education. Together with Christopher Stroud, she is the co-founder of the Southern Multilingualisms and Diversities Consortium which has contributed to opening a new area of theoretical debate and research in sociolinguistics. She also serves on the editorial boards of ten international journals and book series, has over 120 peer reviewed publications and has authored 20 reports for government, international and transnational agencies.

She has designed and taught at Masters’ Degree and Post-graduate Diploma levels in language policy and planning, and bilingual and multilingual education at the Universities of Cape Town and Antwerp. She received a BA (Hons) from Rhodes University; MPhil (Language Education, cum laude) University of Cape Town; and PhD (Bilingualism) Stockholm University. She is particularly interested in supervising PhD students interested in decolonial and southern linguistics and how scholarship in multilingualism and knowledge systems of post-colonial societies are needed for transforming education systems and academia in times of global anxiety, human displacement and turmoil caused by socio-political upheaval and natural disaster.

Biography

Dr Joseph Lo Bianco, is Professor Emeritus of Language and Literacy Education in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, at the University of Melbourne, and a past president of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.

He specialises in language policy studies, bilingualism and intercultural education and research and action on peace and conflict in multi-ethnic settings. He was author of the 1987 National Policy on Languages, widely recognised as the first multilingual policy in an English speaking society. He has been an invited consultant on solving language problems in education and in wider society in 25 countries since 1990 and led major language education writing teams and research for major international organisations in Europe and Asia. From 2012 he directed a multi-country project on language policy and social cohesion in conflict affected settings in SE Asia for UNICEF and conducted large scale policy workshops for high level policy officials across Asia, under the auspices of UNESCO.

His work combines academic analysis of language policies, practical advising on language policy design and implementation to various authorities and direct engagement in bottom-up language planning. In his work in Southeast and South Asia on language grievances and language problems in the context of interethnic conflict he has devised and implemented over 50 facilitated dialogues as a methodology for building consensus on tackling language problems. He has an extensive list of publications with a strong recent focus on social cohesion, peace and conflict mitigation in multi-ethnic settings.

Biography

Dr Maya Khemlani David is a former member of the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya She served as the Head of the Section Co-Curricular, University of Malaya (SKET) from 2006 to 20013 and  has been and is a consultant and adviser to several institutions of higher education in Malaysia, Pakistan and UK. Maya David is an Honorary fellow of Foundation of Endangered Languages (FEL), Chartered Institute of Linguists (UK) and Linguapax winner 2007 for her work on language maintenance and shift.

Her intellectual interests centre on Discourse Analysis, Critical Discourse Analysis, Legal Discourse and Language and Human Rights. She is the author of 28 books and her publications include works in the fields of Sociolinguistics and Sociocultural issues. Publishers of her books include Peter Lang, University of Amsterdam Press, University of Malaya Press, University Putra Press, University Pendidikan Sultan Idris, Strategic Institute of Research and Development Malaysia, The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), University Publication Centre (UPENA), and Federal Publications Sdn. Bhd.

She is the author of 185 journal articles and book chapters and is on the editorial boards of many journals including International Journal of Social Sciences, The European Journal of Applied Linguistics and TEFL, International Journal of Cross-Cultural Studies, International Journal of Research Studies in Language Learning, and the Philippine Journal of Linguistics.  Her publications have been cited over 413 times (Research Gate). She is currently engaged in several research projects including a study on identity and ethnicity of a minority diaspora community and Politeness as manifest in the questioning discourse of western and Asian academics.