I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Languages and Culture at Ochanomizu University, where I teach courses on English, academic writing, English education, and critical applied linguistics.
Qualifications:
- PhD Applied Linguistics.
- Canterbury Christ Church University, Awarded November 2017
- MA Applied Linguistics
- University of Nottingham, 2012
- Licentiate Diploma in TESOL (LTCL DipTESOL)
- Trinity College London, 2012
- Cambridge Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA)
- International House Newcastle, 2008
- BA honours Sociology
- Newcastle University, 2008
Research summary
My research has explored several different areas, but focuses primarily on critical issues around the teaching of English as an international language.
From 2013 to 2017 I completed my PhD under the supervision of Professor Adrian Holliday at Canterbury Christ Church University on the topic of native-speakerism, and much of my current work is a continuation and expansion of this research program. My research primarily focuses on critical issues in English language teaching, and particularly on issues of native-speakerism and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF). I have published widely in these areas, including a research monograph on native-speakerism published with Springer titled Uncovering Ideology in English Language Teaching, and a co-authored teacher resource book titled Teaching English as a Lingua Franca which is part of the well-known DELTA Teacher Development Series. My work on native-speakerism and ELF has appeared in a number of journals including ELT Journal, Applied Linguistics Review, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Journal of Language and Discrimination, and Cogent Education. In addition to these, I have been invited to contribute to several book projects, including a chapter in the book Teacher Narratives from the Eikaiwa Classroom, and a co-authored chapter in the book Bloomsbury World Englishes: Pedagogies. I have been an invited speaker on native-speakerism and ELF at several events, including Issues of race and native-speakerism in ELT organized by Kyoto JALT, and at the national Korea TESOL conference, both in 2021.
A second area of interest is in developing innovative approaches to critical qualitative research. During my PhD I borrowed and adapted concepts from social movement research in order to develop a form of frame analysis as a way of analysing data in critical ethnographies, and this went on to comprise the basis of the data analysis in my 2020 monograph. I presented on frame analysis at the British Association of Applied Linguistics conference in 2019, and was subsequently invited to write a summary of the idea for the journal Language Teaching. This was later expanded into a lengthy theoretical piece in the journal Language, Culture, and Curriculum. In addition to the frame analysis approach, I have also worked extensively using the research method of duoethnography. During my PhD studies, I collaborated on a duoethnography with Dr Marek Kiczkowiak on the topic of native-speakerism, which was published in Cogent Education in 2016. This was the first use of duoethnography in the field of English language teaching, and it has been cited numerous times since in other work employing the method. Building on this, I coauthored a second paper in the Journal of Language and Discrimination in 2018, and coedited a book titled Duoethnography in English Language Teaching published by Multilingual Matters.
In addition to these major areas, I have also published on the topics of special educational needs (SEN) in ELT, shadow education in Japan, and the use of podcasting for professional development. On the topic of SEN, I wrote a small series of journal and magazine articles in 2016, which resulted in an invitation to contribute a co-authored chapter to the book International Perspectives on Diversity in ELT. Based on some previous papers, including a forum piece in JALT’s The Language Teacher magazine, I was invited to contribute a co-authored chapter to the book Theorizing Shadow Education and Academic Success in East Asia.
My final area of research is based on an ongoing podcasting project that I have been engaged in with two colleagues since 2014. Together, we produce The TEFLology Podcast, in which we discuss issues in ELT and applied linguistics, as well as interviewing notable figures in the field. We see the podcast as an ongoing form of professional development, and published a small book on this titled Podcasting and Professional Development with the independent publishing collective The Round in 2017. More recently, we have conducted live interviews with plenary speakers at conferences, and analysed these in a series of proceedings papers. Most recently, we published an empirical paper about our experiences producing the podcast in the journal Educational Action Research.
For a complete list of my publications, please see the publications page of this website.
Robert J. Lowe 