Roby Marlina
SEAMEO-RELC (Regional Language Centre), Singapore
The Illusion of Inclusivity: Disrupting the Monolingual and Monocultural Mindset in ELT Materials
Despite the multilingual realities of today’s classrooms and communities, English Language Teaching (ELT) materials remain shaped by entrenched ideologies that privilege a monolithic view of language and culture. This talk critically examines the extent to which ELT textbooks legitimately acknowledge or overlook lingua-cultural plurality. Framed within the Global Englishes paradigm, I explore how these materials reflect or resist monolingual and monocultural orientations to language learning. Drawing on a range of empirical studies, I highlight the gap between publishers’ claims of inclusivity and the actual representation of linguistic and cultural diversity in textbook content. This analysis reveals how ELT materials often reinforce ideologies that obscure the multilingual and intercultural nature of today’s communicative exchanges. In contrast, I also spotlight promising efforts by educational and bureaucratic institutions working toward materials that are multilingual, multidialectal, and multicultural in orientation. I conclude by offering key questions and considerations for researchers, educators, and policymakers committed to developing more inclusive ELT materials that prepare learners to communicate effectively and respectfully in today’s societies where lingua-cultural plurality is a lived reality.
Dr Roby Marlina’s Profile
Dr Roby Marlina is a Senior Language Specialist (Teacher-Educator) with the Training, Research, Assessment and Consultancy Department at SEAMEO-RELC, Singapore. He is also the main editor of the Scopus-indexed RELC journal. Prior to joining RELC, he was a lecturer in the Department of Languages, Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics, at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.
He has published widely in the fields of World Englishes curriculum and pedagogy, language teacher education, and intercultural education. His scholarly works have appeared in international peer-reviewed journals; and various edited books and the encyclopaedias on language teaching and teacher-education. His edited book, The Pedagogy of English as an International Language: Perspective from Scholars, Teachers, and Students, was published by Springer International Publishing. He is also the sole author of a monograph entitled Teaching English as an International Language: Implementing, Reviewing, and Re-Envisioning World Englishes in Language Education, published by Routledge (Taylor and Francis Group).
Robyn Ober
Batchelor Institute of Indigenous Tertiary Education, Australia
Recognising cultural and linguistic diversity in Indigenous Australian educational contexts
Indigenous Australians are culturally, and linguistically diverse peoples and they draw upon their linguistic repertoires to communicate and make meaning. Throughout the nation they may speak a combination of traditional heritage languages, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Creoles/Kriols and varieties of English including Aboriginal English and Standard Australian English. The language(s) they use are determined by the social and cultural contexts of their communication. For example, in educational learning environments this will differ according to the age of students (e.g., ranging from Early Childhood settings to Tertiary educational contexts) and depending on the nature and cultural association of the constructs being discussed. In this presentation I will address the importance of providing culturally safe and inviting educational spaces to ensure and encourage Indigenous students to draw confidently on their social, cultural and linguistic repertoires. By doing so we can support their educational pursuits with clarity, particularly their development and sharing of cultural and academic concepts and ideas.
Dr Robyn Ober’s Profile
Dr Robyn Ober is a Mamu/Djirribal woman from Far North Queensland. She is a Lead Researcher and educator at Batchelor Institute and has extensive experience in the Northern Territory that spans 3-decades. She is well renowned for her expertise of both-ways pedagogy, working to combine Indigenous and non-Indigenous ways of knowing, being and learning in teaching practice and research. Dr. Ober’s PhD thesis is titled: Aboriginal English as a Social and Cultural Identity Marker in an Indigenous Tertiary Educational Context. Her educational and research leadership is internationally and nationally recognised and reflected in her numerous consultancies and research on education delivery, both-ways education, social linguistics and Indigenous research methodologies in the Northern Territory, national and international Indigenous educational contexts.
Robyn is pleased to announce the publication of a new book; Celebrating First Nations Languages and Language Learning in Australian Schools: Stories Across Generations of Language Activism, Advocacy and Allyship (1st ed.). Routledge. This book introduces key underlying principles for teaching First Nations languages and language learners in schools across a range of contexts. It takes a comprehensive approach covering traditional languages, new languages, and English.
Toni Dobinson
Curtin University, Australia
Making the path by walking: Challenging linguistic (in)visibility in translingual settings
Australia is diverse in its multicultural and multilingual composition, including the languages and cultures of the First People, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. And yet it remains wedded to the notion that the dominant language (English) must prevail in key institutional contexts, reflecting the broader linguistic imperialism associated with monolingual ways of thinking, doing, being and a resistance to any decolonizing of the social and educational landscape. In this keynote address I draw attention to the way that the language policies and practices of our nation do not reflect the linguistic realities of our population and, more alarmingly, support deficit raciolinguistic notions that plurilingual individuals operate with incomplete linguistic systems, ignoring language rights, diversity, identity and social justice. I focus on how we can decolonize multilingual spaces through the endorsement of translingualism, and, in particular, the promotion of expressions of linguistic identity, maintaining and revitalizing traditional languages and retaining visibility of heritage languages/varieties. I argue that translanguaging can act as an empowering mechanism for individuals in spaces where dominant discourses are privileged, such as precarious migrant and international education spaces as well as First Peoples’ educational spaces. Moreover, the decolonizing of English as a medium of instruction settings, through the co-opting of translanguaging approaches, can facilitate learning in settings which are content focused. Whilst arguing the benefits of translanguaging, however, I also problematize the notion of it; recognizing the complexity, precarity and critique surrounding it, and acknowledging prevailing discourses which prioritize social cohesion, linguistic and educational capital.
Professor Toni Dobinson’s Profile
Toni Dobinson is professor and Discipline Lead in Applied Linguistics, TESOL/Languages in the School of Education at Curtin University in Western Australia. Her research extends across language teacher education and sociolinguistics. She is committed to qualitative research, especially linguistic ethnography, in the areas of language and identity, language and social justice, linguistic racism and translingual practices. Her current research also focuses on the experiences of migrants, refugees and international students on university campuses and in the wider local community. She received an Australian Award for University Teaching (AAUT) Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning for her culturally and linguistically responsive teaching in 2021 and was responsible for the changing of the EAL/D ATAR entry requirements in Western Australia in 2023 with her report commissioned by the School Curriculum and Standards Authority (SCSA) entitled English as an Additional Language/Dialect (EAL/D): Eligibility Research. She has published widely in high-ranking journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Language Teaching Research, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, Language and Education and more. She has co-edited two volumes 1) Dobinson, T., & Dunworth, D. (Eds.) (2019). Literacy unbound: Multiliterate, multilingual, multimodal. Switzerland: Springer Nature and 2) Dovchin, S., Gong, Q., Dobinson, T., & McAlinden, M. (Eds.) (2023). Linguistic diversity and discrimination: Autoethnographies from women in academia. Routledge.
Shoshana Dreyfus
University of Wollongong, Australia
Linguistics at the intersection of language and action – understanding how activists try to rally support for their cause
In a world abound with challenges in many arenas, citizens somehow need to find a space to take action if they are not to be left feeling helpless and hopeless. This is the space of activism, and the way activists try to make change is through both language and action. So how do activists use language to attempt to achieve these changes? As an instance of positive discourse analysis (Martin 2004), where we analyse discourses of empowerment, discourses of those we admire, as opposed to critical discourse analysis (Fairclough 1995), where we analyse discourses of oppression, this presentation aims to unpack what makes effective activist discourse in letters to the Minister that resulted in positive changes. It uses aspects of systemic functional linguistics, such as appraisal (Martin & White 2005; Martin in press), affiliation, bonding and couplings (Knight 2010; Etaywe & Zappavigna 2024), genre stage and phase analysis (Dreyfus & Han 2024), as well as legitimation analysis (van Leeuwen 2007; Han & Dreyfus in press) and Aristotelian rhetoric (Kennedy 2007; Humphrey 2008) to give an account of how different linguistic strategies might be used to effect change in the world.
Associate Professor Shoshana Dreyfus’ Profile
Shoshana Dreyfus is an Associate Professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She specialises in discourse analysis, systemic functional linguistics and academic literacy, and has over 20 years research and teaching experience in functional and applied linguistics. She has an additional background in education, in particular literacy education. Her research focuses on a diverse range of objects of study including non-verbal communication and language disorder in intellectual disability; families who have a family member with disability; activist discourse; discipline-specific academic literacy; as well as developments in systemic functional linguistic theory and discourse semantics. She also regularly speaks on ABC radio about language and linguistics and advocates for the rights of people living with severe intellectual disabilities.
She has published widely in high-ranking journals such as Discourse & Society; Social Semiotics; Discourse, Context & Media; Journal of English for Academic Purposes; International Journal of Social Research Methodology: Theory & Practice; Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability; The Australian Journal of Social Issues; and Language, Context & Text.
She has co-written the highly cited book Dreyfus, S., Humphrey, S., Mahboob, A. & Martin, J.R. Genre Pedagogy in Higher Education: The SLATE Project, published by Palgrave Macmillan in 2016, and has co-edited two volumes: Dreyfus, S., Hood, S., & Stenglin, M. (eds) Semiotic Margins: Meaning in Multimodalities, published in 2011 by Continuum and Zappavigna, M. & Dreyfus, S. (eds) Discourses of Hope and Reconciliation: J.R. Martin’s contribution to Systemic Functional Linguistics, published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Academic. She is currently writing and co-editing another book to be published by Palgrave: Teaching Writing in Universities around the World, which is due to be released in 2026.
In 2025 A/Prof Dreyfus won the Universities Australia People’s Choice award in the category of The Community Champion for her groundbreaking ‘All ages, all abilities’ playground project (https://www.shapingaustraliaawards.com.au/finalists/the-all-ages-all-abilities-playground-university-of-wollongong).