Dr. Hyun-Sook Kang – Featured Speaker @ KOTESOL 2026
Featured Session
Language Teacher Agency in the Ecosystems of Internationalized Higher Education
Through the lens of internationalization of education (Rizvi, 2021), this study explores how student teachers in a TESOL program negotiate their language teacher agency and identity in the ecosystems of an internationalized institution of higher education. While pursuing an MA degree in TESOL with a teaching opportunity at an Intensive English program for non-matriculating students or an ESL service program for pathway program students at a US university, seven student teachers participated in semi-structured interviews, which were triangulated with the student teachers’ portfolios of lesson plans and reflection papers. The analysis demonstrated the student teachers’ agentic beliefs, choices, and practices in relation to contextual factors in the nested ecosystems of internationalized higher education, such as international students’ needs in the microsystem, training opportunities in the mesosystem, institutional policy, and practice in the exosystem, and broad cultural norms in relation to language education in the macrosystem.
Biosketch
Hyun-Sook Kang is an associate professor in the Department of Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership in the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA. Her research examines language practice and ideology in relation to global mobility, such as immigration and study abroad. Her recent research has examined student agency, belief, and identity in context with implications for teacher development and internationalization of education. She is co-editor of the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education and serves on the editorial boards of several academic journals, including the European Journal of Education and the International Journal of Qualitative Methods.
Web Links
Dr. Kang's University Expert Profile: https://experts.illinois.edu/en/persons/hyun-sook-kang
Dr. Kang's Faculty Profile: https://education.illinois.edu/profile/hyunsook-kang
Recent Publications
Kang, H. S. (2025). Language teacher agency and identity in internationalized higher education: An ecological perspective. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 35(2), 555–565. https://doi.org/ 10.1111/ijal.12639
Kang, H. S., & Pacheco, M. B. (2025). Engagement with language in study abroad: Accounts from Korean English-major students in the United States. Asia Pacific Journal of Education, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1080/02188791.2024.2356621
Kang, H. S., & LaFave, J. M. (2025). Internationalizing an engineering group project course: An intercultural contact study. European Journal of Engineering Education, 50(3), 637–653. https://doi.org/10.1080/03043797.2025.2467103
Kang, H. S., & Shin, D. S. (2024). Mobile-assisted language learning during short-term study abroad. Frontiers: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Study Abroad, 36(1), 288–313. https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v36i1.787
Kang, H. S. (2024). Learners’ beliefs about English language learning: The case of Korean college students sojourning in the US. Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education, 9(1), 76–99. https://doi.org/10.1075/sar.22008.ka
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