Bio data

Dr. Sivakumar Sivasubramaniam holds an MA in English from the University of  Madras, India, an MA in (Linguistics) TESOL from the University of Surrey, U.K. and a PhD in Applied Linguistics from the University of Nottingham, U.K.

Dr. Sivakumar has been actively involved with second language teaching/advocacy for over thirty years now and has taught in India, Ethiopia, Thailand, Bahrain and Armenia. His extensive track record of overseas service features both under-graduate and graduate level teaching, teacher development through NGO assignments/consultancies for Thailand TESOL, Armenian English Language Teachers’ Association (AELTA) and Peace Corp, Armenia. He has travelled widely as a result of active international networking.  He has presented at conferences both in the region and farther afield in addition to publishing in international journals.  He serves on the Asian EFL Journal Editorial Board as an associate editor.

Dr. Sivakumar believes that if language education is to bring about constructive social change, empowerment and democratic citizenry, it should provide substantial opportunity for students to engage with it emotionally and aesthetically. Only then will our students realize the beneficial impact of their interpretive and imaginative abilities and the immediacy and primacy of their meaning creations through their use of language.

  He would like to explore the following research agendas:

• Reader Response in EFL/ESL
• Critical Reading and Critical Literacies
• Imaginative Writing as a Basis for Rhetorical Maturity
• The Use of Interpretive Reading and Writing in EAP
• The Use of Response Journals in Language Education
• The Use of Mastery-Models in EFL/ESL Testing Frameworks
• Genre-Based Approaches to Academic Reading and Writing
• Reading-Teacher Development
• Figurative Language and its Educational Implications
• Narratives in Language Teaching Research

Dr Sivakumar fondly hopes that his active networking through AEJ will give him the stimulus and synergy to promote his spectrum of research interests.