Student profiles
Ahmad Al Shahma
Twitter: @ShahmaAhmad
Email: ahmad.al-shahma@stu.mmu.ac.uk
Website: https://pahconline.co.uk/ahmad-al-shahma/
Thesis Title
Institution
Supervisors
Dr Khawla Badwan
Dr Piotr Jagodzinski
Dr Caitlin Nunn
Research Summary
Ahmad’s project aims to explore new approaches to teaching English to forced migrants in the UK in order to promote equitable civic participation and integration. The project draws on applied linguistics research that brings together how language teaching/learning is tightly linked to the ideological construction of identities and becoming. The originality of this study resides in its interdisciplinarity. While it primarily sits within applied linguistics research (e.g., ELT theories and identity research), it also engages educational sociology (e.g., theories of integration, equity, social justice and diversity) and intercultural communication studies (e.g., models of intercultural communication) to offer a) pedagogical solutions for the challenges that refugees may encounter in their intercultural communication and citizenship journey and b) CPD recommendations that can be deployed in teacher training programmes to promote intercultural communication and social inclusion.
Conceptually, this study is expected to provide timely educational discussions about how migrant language education can nurture concepts such as resilience, social justice, equality and citizenship. The study is also expected to offer significant pedagogical implications for ESOL stakeholders in the UK.
Research Interests
Culture and identity,
language and social justice,
linguistic citizenship,
translanguaging,
critical pedagogy
and intercultural communication.
Publications
Coming soon