OUR TEAM
Kate PATERSON | Raina RITCHIE | Yasmeen HAKOOZ | Susie REDECOP | Rachel WOHLGEMUT | Wenmin LIANG | Hafsah UMAR | Emerald SCHREIER | shelley tayloR | BAPUJEE BISWABANDAN
Email: kpaters8@uwo.ca
Kate Paterson is a PhD Candidate in Applied Linguistics in the Faculty of Education at Western University in London, Ontario. She holds a BA in International Development Studies from Dalhousie University and an MA in Education Studies from Western University. She has taught English as an additional language for over 10 years and is passionate about asset-based language pedagogies that harness the rich cultural and linguistic resources students bring into the classroom. In her role as a research assistant for this project, she has been involved in preparing ethical review protocol, participant recruitment, surveys, & initial qualitative data analysis.
Kate’s focal research interests include plurilingual language education, language and literacy learning among refugee children and youth, and teacher education with a focus on preparing future educators to provide effective and equitable instruction for linguistically diverse students. Her doctoral research is a mixed methods investigation into the integration of equity and social justice issues in a focal case study initial teacher education program in Ontario.
Email: yhakooz@uwo.ca
Yasmeen Hakooz is a third-year PhD Candidate of Applied Linguistics in the Faculty of Education at Western University. She holds a Masters of Arts in Linguistics from Western University, and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and Linguistics from the University of Toronto. Her research interests are varied, but her current doctoral research is about the language and identity negotiations of postsecondary Canadian-born Muslim students. Through her research, her goal is to normalize the perceptions of multiple identities and showcase diversity amongst Canadians.
Yasmeen has been a Research Assistant for the SSHRC youth refugee project since 2018. For Phases I and II, she assisted with obtaining ethical approval from the research sites; participant recruitment; preparing research materials, instruments, and documents; constructing data collection tools, such as online surveys and interview questions; analyzing data; synthesizing findings; and collaborating on paper presentations and conferences. In Phase II - creative product facilitation, she was involved in creating sample digital projects along with instructional How-To videos and materials. She also assisted with preparing documents for the website in Phase III.
Email: wliang43@uwo.ca
Wenmin Liang is a second-year Ph.D. student in Applied Linguistics at Western University. Her academic interest focuses on content and language integrated learning, multilingualism and multimodality. For the goal of the second phase of the youth refugee project, the participants are expected to create digital products based on a subject relevant to their life experience. Wenmin worked as a research assistant to develop digital sample products of a Glogster, a multimedia digital poster, and a digital CV. Additionally, with the help of Dr. Bapujee Biswabandan, she also created a tutorial video about how to make a Glogster on the website for our potential participants. During the data collection, she worked with one participant to help build a personal website to showcase her life and work experience. Wenmin benefited a lot from participating in this project.
Email: eschreie@uwo.ca
Emerald is a fourth year undergraduate majoring in linguistics and psychology. She worked with Dr. Taylor and Wenmin to prepare a material memory for the sample library and is currently working on dual language storybooks. She presented with Dr. Taylor, Wenmin, and Raina at the New Perspectives in Language Education Virtual Symposium this past June. She is interested in all things language related, and specifically first and second language acquisition, discourse analysis, and sociolinguistics generally. Outside of school, she loves to be outside as much as possible, either going for runs, hikes, camping, and gardening.
Shelley K. Taylor, Professor of Applied Linguistics/TESOL (The University of Western Ontario, Canada), teaches graduate courses (in English and en français) on TESOL, multilingualism, minoritized languages, linguistically/culturally responsive pedagogy, and FSL. Her current research involves a federally funded project on language and literacy learning among youth refugees, and an internally funded project on preservice students' experiences teaching bilingual learners during the pandemic. Earlier research involved English medium instruction in a Nordic country, longitudinal research on plurilingual youths’ language development, and the challenges superdiversity poses to traditional models of ‘bilingual’ education and programmatic responses. Her language policy research has included L1-based multilingual education (MLE) in Nepal, implementing the CEFR in FSL programs across Ontario, and trilingual language policy decision-making in Greenland. She has published extensively and has convened AILA’s International Research Network on “Adapting mainstream learning environments to and for learners from migrant backgrounds: Making digital and linguistic knowledge links” since 2011.
Email: rritchi6@uwo.ca
Raina Ritchie is a second-year Bachelor of Education student at Western University in the intermediate/senior stream. Her teaching specialties are French as a Second Language and English education.
Her contributions to the SSHRC project include researching youth refugee identity affirmation and language acquisition. Using the MLA Digital Pedagogy in the Humanities database, she developed an inventory of peer-reviewed online resources and digital pedagogies for teaching refugee students in Canadian language classrooms. Raina researched the effectiveness of dual-language books as culturally responsive teaching tools when working with youth refugees. She also examined the usefulness of these books for language learning in French as a Second Language and English as a Second Language classrooms. Finally, she created infographics for teachers about celebrating refugee identities and bilingualism.
Her academic interests are second language acquisition and pedagogy with a focus on high-quality French language education for all students, including youth refugees.
Email: sredecop@uwo.ca
Susie Redecop is a teacher candidate at the Faculty of Education at Western University and has a fellowship under the direction of Dr. Shelley Taylor. Her role in the fellowship includes reviewing relevant literature, creating demo projects, transcribing interviews, and other research activities related to the Youth Refugee Study. Susie’s personal academic interests include French studies, History, and Education.
Email: rwohlge@uwo.ca
Rachel Wohlgemut is very excited to be starting as a member of this research team. She did her undergraduate degree in Music Education with piano at Western University, and she also tacked on a minor in French. She just completed her first year of teachers college at Western with her teachables being Instrumental Music and French in the Intermediate/Senior stream. She is delighted to have found a summer position that links her music and French background with her future teaching endeavours. She is so impressed with the work that has already been completed for this project, and looks forward to the new and exciting products that the research team will produce this summer.
Email: hafsah.umar@mail.utoronto.ca
Hafsah Umar is a fifth-year student at the University of Toronto double majoring in French and Linguistics. The area of research she is most interested in is the intersection of semantics and first language acquisition in children. For the SSHRC project, she is volunteering to develop sample materials.
Dr. Bapujee Biswabandan has a PhD in Education from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. His doctoral research focussed on the use of multiple non-dominant languages as medium of instructions in primary schools and its intersectionality with identity, particularly among historically marginalized communities in India. He has 12 years of experience in both qualitative and quantitative research methods in low-middle income countries and has developed different genre of instructional learning tools including training modules, infographics videos, podcast videos, and online teaching modules. In the past, Dr. Biswabandan worked in multiple projects funded by UNICEF and UNESCO at Jawaharlal Nehru University, India where he was involved with leading a team of community researchers for large scale longitudinal study, developing teacher training module for Indigenous teachers, and conducting workshops on language education.
