Ryuko Kubota

Ryuko Kubota - Featured Speaker @ KOTESOL 2022

Featured Session

Enacting Antiracism in Teaching English

Antiracism in English language teaching is part of the engagement with social justice, a set of principles for establishing individual, societal, and environmental wellbeing. Yet, an explicit discussion of race, racism, and antiracism is often avoided, leaving these concepts inadequately understood. This presentation will bring these concepts to light and invite the audience to critically engage in race-aware discourse and pedagogy. To do so, I will outline key concepts, including the concept of race, different types of racism, intersectionality, and the relationship between race and language. Especially, native-speakerism needs to be problematized in relation to the supremacy of Whiteness as perpetuating raciolinguistic ideologies at interpersonal, systemic, and epistemological dimensions. Becoming aware of these issues will encourage teachers to recognize how race is reflected in teaching materials, pedagogical practices, and institutional structures, and to enact antiracism within a broader engagement with social justice. 

Time: Saturday (April 30) 1:00 p.m. KST (50 min., Synchronous)

  Biosketch

Ryuko Kubota is a professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at University of British Columbia, Canada, where she teaches applied linguistics and teacher education. Her research draws on critical approaches to language education, focusing on race, gender, culture, and language ideologies. Her work has been published in journals, such as Applied Linguistics, Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Journal of Second Language Writing, TESOL Quarterly, and World Englishes, and in many edited books. Other publications include: Race, Culture, and Identities in Second Language Education: Exploring Critically Engaged Practice (Routledge, 2009).

Select Sites
University of British Columbia: Dr. Ryuko Kubota
Ryuko Kubota, Killam Research Prize Recipient: Anti-racism in Linguistic Pedagogy (video)
Ryuko Kubota contribution to The English Connection (Spring, 2022)
We Teach Languages Episode 43: Common Misconceptions in English Language Teaching with Ryuko Kubota (podcast)
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Second Session

The 10 Myths of English Language Teaching and Learning
(Presented by Youngeun Jee and Ryuko Kubota)

This workshop introduces our new book (영어교육에 대한 10가지 환상, 10 Myths of English Language Teaching and Learning; 2021, 글로벌콘텐츠/Global Contents), which is a Korean translation from the Japanese version with annotations that address similar issues in South Korean contexts. The primary purpose of this book is to question common beliefs about English language teaching and learning in Japan and South Korea. These briefs have been pointed out as problematic by scholars in applied linguistics in the West during the last 30 years or more, but they have continued to be supported to date by teachers, parents, policymakers, and other ordinary people outside of academia. Many of the ideas presented in the book invite readers to rethink taken-for-granted ideas about what the best approach to teaching and learning English is. The audience will be invited to gain renewed knowledge and ways of thinking that would contribute to linguistic and human diversity and equity. (It is expected that portions of this English presentation will include Korean for better audience accommodation.)

Time: Saturday (April 30) 11:00 a.m. KST (50 min., Synchronous)

  Biosketch

Youngeun Jee is a PhD candidate in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia in Canada. Her research interests include critical pedagogies and second language teacher education. Her work has been published in journals such as System, Language and Literacy, and Multicultural Education Review. 

  Recent Book
영어 교육에 대한 10가지 환상 [10 Myths about English Education]

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