Instructor Spotlight: Transformative Multilingual Experiences with Angela Hakim

Angela Hakim describes her studies abroad in Saint Petersburg when she was a senior in college as a life-changing experience. “I have always been interested in politics, history, and international affairs, which led me to study Russian in high school and later in college. I began to really love the language and studying language in general in college. I later went on to study Arabic and Spanish, too, and of course, applied linguistics.” Her love for languages and travel soon merged with her pedagogical interests and she has been teaching English language and writing in higher education for fifteen years.

Constantly moving between the roles of student and teacher throughout her career has given Angela unique insight that helps her truly understand learning experiences and work towards creating a classroom environment in which students can thrive. After graduating from Oklahoma State University with a double major in Political Science and Russian, Angela taught English at a bilingual school in Mexico. She then pursued her first master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) at the University of Missouri in Saint Louis and got a teaching position there. In 2018, she went back to graduate school to pursue another master’s degree and PhD in Applied Linguistics and Writing Studies at King’s College in London. Afterwards, Angela taught at the University of Arizona, and finally joined Iowa State University in January of 2023, where she found curricula where she could bring her background, experience, and fondness for travel and languages together: the 1010 courses.

Angela’s travels have made her aware of how distinctive the experiences of immigrants, multilingual learners, and international students are. 1010 courses are similar to ENGL 1500 but are tailored to multilingual and international students at ISU. These courses also have a larger focus on academic literacy practices and language; for example, identifying patterns in verb use or learning reporting verbs that could be applied on the profile assignment, or the type of language that can be used for showing and telling in the personal narrative assignment. Angela seeks to empower students with tools and understanding of their own thinking and linguistic resources. In her role as course coordinator for 1010 courses, she has worked on redesigning this curriculum to include themes and topics relevant to international students and multilingual writers.

The redesigned 1010 C piloted last year. Conceptually, it was “moving from an approach just focused on bringing up their academic literacy practices and language level, to drawing on themes that might be considered asset-based approaches,” such as identifying their multilingual backgrounds, linguistic assets, and prior experiences as resources and bringing those in throughout the themes and topics of the course as well as in their assignments. After piloting the course, data was collected and evaluated, and the findings will be presented by Angela, along with Lesley Bartlett and Amy Walton, at the upcoming Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). Overall, the outcomes have been very positive for students: getting good grades in the 1010 course, but also performing better afterwards in ENGL 1500 and 2500. Rather than having students write different rhetorical modes of the five paragraph essay, the updated version of the course revolves around a theme of linguistic diversity and World Englishes, and has an increased variety of genres that the students are involved in writing, including digital genres, a narrative blog, an argumentative paper, and a portfolio. Angela also takes a mentoring role in 1010 courses, helping to onboard, observe, and provide a resource for graduate teaching assistants who are instructors of these classes.

Having had great professional and personal experiences while she studied and worked abroad, Angela knows how transformative they can be, and likes to help students through the process. Over the past year, Angela has taught study abroad courses within Advanced Comm, including ENGL 3140 in Japan and Australia. In addition to teaching the courses herself, she is also the liaison between faculty members and students considering study abroad courses. Her job involves recruiting instructors to teach ENGL 3140 and providing information, resources, and support to faculty who are interested in teaching the existing courses or considering designing new courses for study abroad programs within the English Department.

Always seeking to update curriculum to best fit the times and student needs, Angela’s latest research interest has been teaching critical AI literacy. She decided to start small by integrating several lessons throughout the semester in her 1010 classrooms. The activities were designed with the aim of improving students’ critical AI literacy by thinking about how AI may or may not enhance their writing process at different stages. She conducted small-scale research, gathering data from student course evaluations, a post survey, and anecdotal information throughout the course. Angela found that students reported feeling more confident about their use and understanding of AI afterwards, but she acknowledges the need for continuous updates because of the evolving nature of the technology and of her own understanding of it.

Angela is currently thinking about what this might mean in terms of genre-based pedagogy, “because if writing is human activity, it’s a social activity. How do we integrate AI into that process?” One of the main lessons she implemented in her 1010 course was prompting AI for feedback. It got students to think about how they could use AI to support their process–of proofreading and editing, for instance–rather than taking it over. Students can then learn to use the tool to provide lists of information and suggestions so that they can maintain authorship and rhetorical flexibility to make linguistic choices, which are critical values to Angela as a writing instructor.

Angela’s quest for course improvement doesn’t stop with the 1010 courses. One of her main research interests focuses on genre-based pedagogical approaches and understanding students’ experiences with them as well as their development of genre knowledge over time. But her dual student-teacher role sparked her curiosity in instructors’ experiences with genre-based pedagogical approaches as well. She recently co-authored a publication in the Journal of Second Language Writing which looks at instructors’ understanding, practices and knowledge around the use of texts in their classroom. She said this “is really important for me as an instructor and program administrator: understanding the resources that are helpful for instructors, how they use those resources (like student examples), and where I can provide better support.”

Angela’s openness and flexibility to adapt and redesign lessons and courses to best suit evolving contexts helps her build better learning environments for her students. Her experiences show how diverse backgrounds enrich the classroom and broaden perspectives–both for students and instructors. She reminds us of how valuable it is for instructors to acknowledge these personal histories and engage with them to support better student outcomes. By making students’ unique experiences an asset, instructors can help students find their voice and leave the course with better writing and critical thinking skills–crucial to navigate the world on a personal and professional level.