Dr. Nathanael Rudolph – Plenary Speaker @ KOTESOL 2026
Plenary Session
Transdisciplinary, Community-Based Approaches to Being, Becoming, and Belonging in Language Education: (Re-)envisioning Theory, Research, and Teaching
In the (so-called) globalized domain of English language teaching (ELT), the dominant “critical” scope of efforts to account for the complexity of negotiated identity and interaction, and address manifestations of injustice stakeholders (e.g., students and teachers) experience, has historically been limited to a focus on problematizing essentialized and idealized “nativeness in English” and to reconceptualizing what is taught, how, why, and by who. Scholarly dialogue within this scope has grown ever-more complex. Kubota and Motha (2025), for example, assert that “English language education” is inscribed with colonialism predicated upon ongoing racism and white supremacy, and contend for the need for decolonial and antiracist approaches to undo the privileging of white, western ontologies and epistemologies, and to center alternate, local ways of knowing, being and doing both epistemically as well as in the real-world.
Recent scholarship has challenged this “critical gaze” for being conceptually myopic (neglecting the complexity of sociohistorical context, and rendering the real-world experiences of many people “invisible”), as well as ontologically and epistemologically exclusive, impositional, and therefore potentially harmful (Hammine & Rudolph, 2025). Such work contends, in contrast, for community-based attention to the diverse ways people negotiate being, becoming, and belonging within and transcending communities, and in educational spaces situated therein. Through listening, dialoguing, reflecting, relationship- and trust-building, and (un-)learning – in humility – both in the classroom and in the communities in which we (and, for example, our students and colleagues) live, work, and study, we are simultaneously prompted to read transdisciplinarily: to draw upon history, cultural anthropology, legal studies, sociopolitical commentary and analysis, and socioeconomic and demographic data, for example, in the process of framing our approach to theorization, research, and teaching.
To underscore the value of a reimagined way of “seeing” (Lather, 1993), I will begin my talk with a concrete focus on identity and community membership in Japan, and tensions between the dominant historical narrative that Japan is “homogenous” and the sociohistorical reality that “Japan” has always been a site of diversity and complexity. I will succinctly discuss the extent to which the negotiation of identity and interaction in Japanese society, and classrooms therein, have been (un)accounted for in ELT-focused “criticality.” I will then ask attendees based in the Republic of Korea (and elsewhere) to consider how this conversation applies to their communities. Where has (English) language-related theory, research, and teaching been, and where might it potentially go, in order to better address the challenges stakeholders face, and the realities they and others encounter, when negotiating being, becoming, and belonging?
Invited Second Session
Contextualizing (English) Language Education: Exploring “Whys,” “Whos,” “Hows,” and “Whats”
In my plenary talk, I discuss the value of approaches to being, becoming, and belonging in (English) language education-related theory, inquiry and classroom practice that are community-based and transdisciplinary. The following interactive session focuses on teaching. Community-based language teaching is rooted in sociohistorical context. Teachers would seek to listen, share, reflect, and (un-)learn in dialogue with their students, colleagues, and other stakeholders. They would aim to learn and grow as members of the communities in which they, their students, and other stakeholders live. They would draw upon stakeholders’ lived experiences negotiating being, becoming, and belonging, as well as upon their own. Community-based approaches to teaching (as with research and theorization) include the need to pursue learning in a transdisciplinary fashion. Pennycook (2018) notes that teacher-scholars engage with questions/issues/realities that require transcending areas of study (or “fields” and corresponding bodies of “literature”). The questions we are seeking to address when attending to, for example, identity, community membership, and (in)justice, require utilizing resources, and participating in professional activities and spaces, that transcend professions and, of course, academia itself.
Who are our students? Where do they (and we) live, work, and study? Who lives, works, and studies in their (and our) communities? Who might they meet in their experiences transcending (for example) “South Korea”? What unique knowledge, skills, and experiences do they possess? What challenges have they had, and do they continue to face, negotiating being, becoming, and belonging in and beyond the classroom? How can we contribute to equipping and empowering them for interaction in the communities they engage with and belong to? How can this contribute to the community building, and to the betterment of people’s lives therein, in general? How might our professional activities enhance this? What affordances and constraints might we face in the educational settings in which we work, and the communities in which they are situated? Our session together will begin to address these questions, with my context in Japan as an initial example, followed by attention to participants’ personal-professional settings, as we dialogue, reflect and potentially re-imagine our approaches to language education.
Biosketch
Nathanael Rudolph (PhD, University of Maryland, College Park) is a professor of sociolinguistics and language education at Kindai University (近畿大学) in Higashiosaka, Japan. Nathanael’s research explores themes including teacher and student negotiations of being, becoming, and belonging within and transcending (language) education, and transdisciplinary, community-based approaches to identity, experience, and (in)justice. His recent work includes Transcending Language Education in Japan: Borderland Accounts of Being, Becoming, and Belonging (Bloomsbury), a forthcoming volume co-edited with Madoka Hammine. Nathanael is a managing editor for Asian Englishes (Routledge) and an associate editor for the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education (Taylor & Francis). He serves as an editorial board member for several journals including TESOL Quarterly.
Web Links
Dr. Rudolph’s Faculty Profile: https://www.kindai.ac.jp/science-engineering/english/education/teachers/...
Google Scholar Page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=kllaoHcAAAAJ&view_op=lis...
ResearchGate Page: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nathanael-Rudolph
Recent Publications
Rudolph, N. (2025). Identity and ELF: (Re-)envisioning being, becoming, and belonging in theory, research, and teaching. In T. Ishikawa, P. McBride, & A. Suzuki (Eds.), Developing ELF programmes for language teaching: Innovation, resistance, and applications (pp. 65–82). De Gruyter Mouton. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111295411-005
Rudolph, N. (2025). Identity and World Englishes. In K. Bolton (Ed.), The Wiley Blackwell encyclopedia of World Englishes. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119518297.eowe00053
Rudolph, N. (2024). Borderland negotiations of personal–professional identity: South Korean university-level language educators in Japan. In Zia Tajeddin & Bedrettin Yazan (Eds.), Language teacher identity tensions (pp. 77–91). Routledge.
Rudolph, N. (2023). Narratives and negotiations of identity in Japan and criticality in (English) language education: (Dis)connections and implications. TESOL Quarterly, 57(2), 375–401.
Rudolph, N., & Matsuda, A. (2023). Borderland negotiations of personal–professional being and belonging: A duoethnography. Language Teaching Research, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/13621688231177464
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