Keynote, talks, program

The keynote: Teaching English in a Modern World: Looking Into the Past to Understand Our Future

In this presentation, Michelle Devereaux will begin with a historical romp through the iterations of English language forms, functions, and pedagogies, from unlikely beginnings in Ancient Greece to England’s Enlightenment to Colonial America to modern Global Englishes. Shifting the focus from history to modern pedagogy, Dr. Devereaux will explore two paths of English language instruction: rhetorical and traditional. Exploring how each path manifests in classrooms and curriculums, she will share pedagogical strategies and theories to guide participants through questions and considerations of modern language instruction. 

The speaker: Prof. Michelle D. Devereaux (Kennesaw State University, Georgia, United States)

Michelle D. Devereaux has taught English Education for almost twenty years as both a secondary English teacher and a university professor. Her teaching and scholarship focus on language studies in the secondary English classroom, highlighting how linguistic and sociolinguistic concepts can be integrated into existing curricula. 

She has written books on rhetorical grammar in the classroom and edited collections about teaching linguistic diversity in the secondary English Language Arts classroom. She is a Fulbright Scholar who taught in the Czech Republic in the 2018 – 2019 academic year. During her time abroad, she became interested in Global Englishes and has recently published on global English variation in the classroom.

She is currently the Director of English Education at Kennesaw State University.