Professor Allan Luke
Centre for Learning Innovation
Queensland University of Technology

Allan Luke is currently developing new research projects in early literacy, accountability and assessment, and comparative pedagogies. He is co-editor of: Teaching Education (Routledge), Review of Research in Education (American Educational Research Association), Asia Pacific Journal of Education (Routledge) and Pedagogies: An International Journal (Erlbaum) and is a senior editor of The International Encyclopedia of Education (Kluwer), The Handbook of Urban Education (Kluwer), and the Handbook of Curriculum (Sage).

Professor Chris Davison
School of Education, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of NSW

Professor Chris Davison, a specialist in language education and school-based assessment, was appointed Professor of Education and Head of the School of Education in September 2008. She was previously Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Education at Hong Kong University, where she remains an Honorary Professor. Before going to Hong Kong in 1999, she worked in teacher education at the University of Melbourne and La Trobe University for fifteen years.

Chris has researched and published extensively on the interface between English as a mother tongue and ESL development, integrating language and content curriculum, and English language assessment. Her latest books include a two volume handbook of teaching English internationally (Springer, with Jim Cummins) and a co-authored book on English language teaching innovation in China (HKU Press, with Xinmin Zheng).

With colleagues at the University of Hong Kong, she has just completed the research and development of a range of oral school-based assessment initiatives for the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority, and has also been working with the Ministries of Education in Singapore and in Brunei on integrating assessment for learning into their new curricula. She has been actively involved in TESOL professional associations for over 30 years and served as President of ACTA from 1988-1991 and a founding member and Chair (2008-09) of the Research Committee, TESOL International.

Associate Professor Angel Mei Yi Lin
Division of English Language Education, Faculty of Education
The University of Hong Kong

Dr. Angel Lin is currently an Associate Professor in the Division of English Language Education, Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong.

She received her Ph.D. from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada in 1996.

Since then her research and teaching have focused on such cutting-edge areas as critical discourse analysis, cultural and feminist media studies, new literacies, language policies in postcolonial contexts, and sociocultural theories of language learning.

With a background in cultural studies, discourse analysis, sociolinguistics, urban and school ethnography, as well as literacy and second language acquisition, she has been a pioneer of innovative inter-disciplinary approaches to second and foreign language education and language teaching methodologies, aimed particularly at students and other young people.

Dr. Lin’s international impact is reflected in her membership of the editorial boards of several leading research journals, including Applied Linguistics, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, International Multilingual Research Journal, Language and Education, Linguistics and Education (as Associate Editor), and Pedagogies, and Dr Lin has been a frequent keynote and plenary speaker at international conferences in Asia and worldwide.

Professor Martin Nakata
Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, University of Technology, Sydney

Prof N M Nakata (B.Ed. Hons. PhD) is Chair of Australian Indigenous Education & Director of Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning at the University of Technology, Sydney. His first language is Torres Strait Creole. His mother’s first language is Kala Lagau Ya, a traditional language of the Torres Strait Islands. His dad’s language is Japanese.

He was educated in a state school where the language of instruction was English. In high school, he was required to take French. At uni, they told him he was culturally different and that his language had to be preserved at all costs. He has spent much of his research work focused on these language and knowledge intersections in order to more fully understand what is being asked of Indigenous learners today.

His book Disciplining the savages: Savaging the disciplines is a first attempt at this. This informs much of his current work on Indigenous higher education curriculum issues, the academic preparation of Indigenous students, and in Indigenous knowledge areas where they intersect with library and information services.

He has presented several plenary and keynote addresses at national as well as international conferences in ten countries, and published widely on Australian Indigenous issues in various academic journals, anthologies and books.

Professor B Kumaravadivelu
Departments of Linguistics and Language Development
San Jose State University

B. Kumaravadivelu was educated at the Universities of Madras in India, Lancaster in Britain, and Michigan in the USA. He is currently Professor of Applied Linguistics and TESOL at San Jose State University, California. His areas of research include language teaching methods, teacher education, classroom discourse analysis, postmethod pedagogy, and cultural globalization. He is the author of Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Teaching, (Yale University Press, 2003), Understanding Language Teaching: From Method to Postmethod (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006), and Cultural Globalization and Language Education (Yale University Press, 2008).

He has published several research articles in journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Modern Language Journal, English Language Teaching Journal, International Review of Applied Linguistics, Applied Language Learning, RELC Journal, ITL Review. He has also served as a member of the Editorial Board of several internationally reputed journals such as TESOL Quarterly. He has delivered invited keynote/plenary addresses in international conferences held in Australia, Brazil, Colombia, England, Finland, Hong Kong, Mexico, Singapore and the USA. His book Cultural Globalization and Language Education was awarded the Kenneth W. Mildenberger Prize by The Modern Language Association of America.

A common thread that runs through Professor Kumaravadivelu’s work is a postmodern and postcolonial perspective that motivates a desire to understand the language classroom not just in its linguistic complexities but also in all its historical, political, social and cultural ones. It is this critical orientation that is reflected in his pioneering work on postmethod pedagogy, which seeks to direct practicing and prospective language teachers away from knowledge transmission and towards knowledge generation; away from pedagogic dependence and towards pedagogic independence. It is also reflected in his most recent work on the teaching of culture in a global society, which is sensitive to the complexities of the political, religious and cultural tensions that cultural globalization has brought about.

Robert Randall
General Manager, Curriculum, Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority

Robert Randall is currently the General Manager, Curriculum, with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA).
He was previously the General Manager of the Interim National Curriculum Board (NCB).

Prior to working at both ACARA and NCB, Robert was the Directors of Curriculum K-12 with the NSW Department of Education and Training. In this position, Robert was responsible for leading and coordinating the development of curriculum policy and the provision of teacher professional learning and curriculum support materials for NSW public schools for K-12.

From 1996 to 2001, Robert was the Director, Curriculum, with the NSW Board of Studies, where was responsible for the management of the Higher School Certificate syllabus review program and a range of K-10 syllabus development projects.

Robert began his career as a teacher of mathematics in Perth before holding a range of positions within and beyond schools in Western Australia. These included Head Teacher, (Mathematics), Project Leader (Monitoring Standards in Education), Senior Curriculum Advisor (Curriculum Policy) and Manager (Assessment and Reporting at Department of Education WA), and Principal Consultant with the Interim Curriculum Council of Western Australia.