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About HICELLS 2026
The 5th Hawaiʻi International Conference on English Language and Literature Studies (HICELLS 2026), which will be held at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo on March 13 - 14, 2026. This year's conference theme is "Teaching and Learning English Language and Literature in a Changing World: Global Trends and Transformative Practices," aims to explore the emerging global trends in English language teaching and literary studies, including curriculum innovation, assessment practices, digital integration, and multilingual education.
HICELLS 2026 offers a platform for educators, researchers, students, and scholars in the fields of English language and literature studies to share their insights, experiences, and research findings. This international conference also provides an opportunity to engage all participants in discussions on global trends and practices in the teaching and learning of English language and literature.
Keynote, Plenary and Featured Speakers
Keynote Speaker 1: Paul Kei Matsuda, Ph.D.
Reimagining Language Teaching in the Age of Generative AI
Paul Kei Matsuda, Ph.D.
Paul Kei Matsuda, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Director of Second Language Writing
Arizona State University
Arizona, USA
The language teaching profession that began to take shape in the early twentieth century has remained surprisingly stable in its core assumptions about what teachers do. Even as methods have shifted—from grammar translation to communicative approaches to genre-based and technology-enhanced instruction—the central image of the teacher as provider of linguistic knowledge has endured.
Today, however, the accelerating development of digital technologies—computers, the Internet, social media, and most recently generative AI—poses a deeper challenge. These tools do not simply supplement instruction; they reshape how language is accessed, produced, evaluated, and circulated. When learners can generate texts, receive feedback, and consult vast linguistic resources instantly, longstanding definitions of teaching and learning become unsettled.
This keynote address examines how emerging technologies are transforming language use and writing practices, and what these shifts mean for the future of language education. Rather than framing AI as either a threat or a solution, the presentation invites participants to reconsider the professional identity of language teachers in a rapidly changing communicative landscape. By situating current developments within a longer historical trajectory, the talk explores how the profession might respond thoughtfully, ethically, and strategically to this new moment.
Professor Paul Kei Matsuda is Professor of English and Director of Second Language Writing. He is an internationally recognized scholar whose work has shaped the field of second language writing, a transdisciplinary area that bridges applied linguistics, rhetoric and composition, and TESOL. He has published widely in leading journals such as TESOL Quarterly, Written Communication, College Composition and Communication, and the Journal of Second Language Writing, and has edited numerous books and special issues. His research has earned several prestigious awards, including the CCCC Outstanding Book Award, the TOEFL Outstanding Young Scholar Award, and the Richard Ohmann Award for Outstanding Refereed Article in College English.
Professor Matsuda has served in key leadership roles, including as president of the American Association for Applied Linguistics and founding chair of the Symposium on Second Language Writing. He is also the series editor of the Parlor Press Series on Second Language Writing. A frequent keynote and plenary speaker, he has presented lectures and workshops across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. In addition to his research and service, he has taught and held visiting professorships at universities worldwide, contributing to the development of writing programs and graduate education on a global scale.
Keynote Speaker 2: Graham Crookes, Ph.D.
Teaching and Learning English Language and Literature in a Changing World: Global Trends and Transformative Practices
Graham Crookes, Ph.D.
Graham Crookes, Ph.D.
Professor & Undergraduate Chair
Department of Second Language Studies
University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa
Hawaii, USA
Transformative Learning theory is the name for a notable strand of thought and practice in adult education, associated with the name of the late Jack Mezirow. It drew to some extent on the ideas of Paulo Freire, and then was extended beyond an initial cognitive orientation, bringing in emotion, then ecological and planetary visions. With the exception of one book-length collection of reports, it has hardly been utilized in L2 teaching, but it could usefully flesh out the Freirean line in L2 problem-posing dialogic activities. Can it also be used to bring this tradition into line with indigenous and posthumanist viewpoints (considered as “global trends”)? This presentation will attempt to sketch these two lines of work, refer respectfully to the two additional viewpoints, and air possible activity types that might be consistent with emancipatory values audience members may have.
Professor Graham Crookes is Professor and undergraduate Chair of the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His main research and teaching interests at present are critical language pedagogy and language teachers developing philosophies of teaching. Very recently he has begun exploring the role of dialogue in professional development. More generally, he remains broadly interested in the methodology of second language teaching and teacher development. In recent semesters his teaching has included material on emotion and motivation in second language teaching and learning, as well as a survey of alternatives in L2 pedagogy. Besides teaching regular graduate and undergraduate courses for the Department of SLS, he has conducted courses and workshops for teachers especially on teaching methodology, action research, and critical pedagogy, in a variety of settings around the world, including Colombia, Denmark, Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Singapore, and Vietnam.
Plenary Speaker 1: Nathanael Rudolph, Ph.D.
Transdisciplinary, Community-Based Approaches to Being, Becoming and Belonging in (English) Language Education: Reimagining Theory, Inquiry and Classroom Practice
Nathanael Rudolph, Ph.D.
Nathanael Rudolph, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociolinguistics and Language Education
Kindai University
Japan
Within the 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 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 the presentation by highlighting 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 prompt attendees to reflect on their own contexts. Where has (English) language-related theory, research and teaching been, and where might potentially go, in order to better address the challenges stakeholders face, and the realities they and others encounter, when negotiating being, becoming and belonging?
Professor Nathanael Rudolph 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, interaction and (in)justice. His recent work includes Transcending language education in Japan: Borderland accounts of being, becoming and belonging (Bloomsbury), a volume co-edited with Madoka Hammine. Nathanael is an associate editor for the Journal of Language, Identity and Education (Taylor & Francis), and a managing editor for Asian Englishes (Routledge). He serves as an editorial board member for journals including TESOL Quarterly.
Plenary Speaker 2: Leanne Day, Ph.D.
Representations of Hawaiʻi: the “Local” Subject, Indigeneity, Language, and the Classroom
Leanne Day, Ph.D.
Leanne Day, Ph.D.
Chair, English Department
University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
Hawaii, USA
This talk explores how the nomenclature around subjectivity and belonging in Hawaiʻi indexes the history and present of settler colonialism, Asian racialization, and Kānaka Maoli dispossession. Through examining popular representations of Hawaiʻi as a multiracial paradise from the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 to the present, I argue that cultural production produces, defines, and resists settler colonial occupation in Hawaiʻi. As such, I demonstrate how “local” Hawaiʻi literature functions in the classroom to unpack the dynamics and logics of native-settler binaries; I suggest how aesthetic form and the use of Hawaiʻi Creole Language (HCE) illuminate the contradictions embedded in the neoliberal promise of nation-state belonging through settler colonial capitalist subjectivity. Specifically, I will briefly analyze Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging and R. Zamora Linmark’s Rolling the R’s as exemplifying the generative pedagogical possibilities to engage students and interrogate the politics of “local,” Indigeneity, and belonging in Hawaiʻi.
Dr. Leanne Day is Chair and Associate Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, specializing in settler colonialism and cultural representation in the Pacific. A graduate of the University of Washington, she has contributed to Asian American and Pacific Islander studies both during her postdoctoral fellowship at UH Mānoa and her work at Brandeis. Since starting at UH Hilo in 2019, she has earned tenure, won the UH System Frances Davis Award for teaching excellence in 2023, and continues to produce impactful scholarship—including a forthcoming book and contributions to educational literature—that bridges Indigenous and contemporary narratives. Day is deeply committed to place-based teaching and actively involves her students in community-engaged literary conversations
Featured Speakers
Teaching English Amid Many Languages: Perspectives from Multilingual Classrooms in the Philippines: Rosalina Villaneza, Ph.D.
Rosalina Villaneza, Ph.D.
Rosalina Villaneza, Ph.D.
Chief of the Teaching and Learning Division
Department of Education
Philippines
This presentation examines how linguistic diversity shapes English learning, teaching, and educational equity in a multilingual national context. Drawing on the recent findings of the Second Congressional Commission on Education (EDCOM II) and international research on multilingual education, this presentation offers eight interrelated perspectives that illuminate the realities and possibilities of English instruction in Philippine classrooms. First, it foregrounds multilingualism as the everyday learning context for Filipino students, where home languages, Filipino, and English coexist and interact in meaning-making processes. Building on this, it explores how foundational language and literacy skills established in early grades critically influence later English proficiency, and how systemic declines in observed proficiency reflect deeper structural challenges across the K 12 continuum.
The presentation further discusses the implications of language mismatch between learners’ language repertoires and the language of instruction, a dynamic that can undermine comprehension and cognitive engagement if not addressed pedagogically. It situates recent policy debates and the evolution of Mother Tongue Based Multilingual Education (MTB MLE) within the broader quest for instructional coherence and learner support. Other perspectives underscore the ways English instruction can integrate learners’ multiple languages rather than displace them, and the central role that teachers play as agents of instructional translation, adaptation, and innovation. Finally, the presentation emphasizes an equity-driven vision of multilingual English education, where linguistic diversity is harnessed as a resource for deeper learning and broader opportunities for all learners. Together, these insights contribute to a nuanced understanding of how English teaching can be responsive, inclusive, and forward-looking within multilingual classrooms.
Dr. Rosalina J. Villaneza is the Chief of the Teaching and Learning Division at the Department of Education – Philippines. A scholar-practitioner in foundational literacy and multilingual education, she has spent more than 30 years advancing equitable, evidence-based instruction across Philippine schools. She leads nationwide teacher-training initiatives such as ELLN Digital and has authored several works for the British Council, including English as a Subject in Basic Education: Philippines (2022) and ESBE in ASEAN (2022). Dr. Villaneza also co-developed DepEd’s Grade 4 English Teachers’ Guide and The Fuller Approach for beginning reading. Her research and leadership continue to promote high-quality learning through multilingual, culturally responsive teaching, ensuring that every Filipino learner can read, think, and thrive.
Writing Across Borders: A Global Diasporic Approach to Literary Practice: Lawrence Lacamba Ypil
Lawrence Lacamba Ypil
Lawrence Lacamba Ypil
Assistant Professor of English
University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa
Hawaii, USA
A Haiku on my Mind, in a Photograph
Building on his experience from Cebu, Manila, the US Midwest, most recently in Singapore, and currently at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, Lawrence Ypil shares what it means to literature and creative writing across a global context. How might a poem land differently depending on where and when we read it? How do we nurture creative writing in multicultural and multi-linguistic spaces?
Using his own multidisciplinary and archival practice, Ypil argues for the ways creative writing can offer new approaches to history, bearing witness to emerging global identities, and refreshing the ways we pay attention to the world.
Professor Lawrence Lacambra Ypil is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. A Filipino poet and essayist, his work explores the intersections of text and image, with particular attention to material culture and its role in shaping cultural identity. His book The Experiment of the Tropics, winner of the inaugural Gaudy Boy Book Prize, was a finalist for the 2020 Lambda Literary Awards and was shortlisted for The Believer Book Awards. His writing is widely recognized for its formal innovation and its nuanced engagement with memory, history, and diaspora. Professor Ypil holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA from the Nonfiction Writing Program at the University of Iowa..
Paper Presentations
Conference Organizing Committee
- Francisco P Dumanig, Ph.D. University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
- Norman Arancon, Ph.D. University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
- Rayna Morel, Ph.D. University of Hawai'i at Hilo
- Mr. Aries D. Gan A'Sharqiya University, Ibra, Oman
- Waleed Al Harthy, Ph.D. A'Sharqiya University, Ibra, Oman
- Mr. Ashraf Tantish A'Sharqiya University, Ibra, Oman
- Benigno Agapito Jr., Ph.D. University of the Philippines Open University
- Mr. Brennan Veith Low University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
- Dr. Kirsten Mollegaard University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
- Dr. Patsy Iwasaki University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
- Ms. Pamela Bond University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo
UH Hilo English Department
In addition to offering a foundation in the traditional literary canon, the English department at UH Hilo is committed to fostering student excellence through a variety of venues such as critical self-assessment, interdisciplinary collaboration, effective student-centered pedagogy, award recognition of outstanding student writing, and career-relevant training in the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certificate program.
Our program goals are to facilitate student success and ensure program quality by responding effectively to institutional developments and social change. Courses offered within the English program range from Composition( ENG 100 Composition I (3) ) to Single Author Studies (ENG 488A-488B Single Author Pre-1700 (3), Single Author Post-1700 (3) ).
Outside of the classroom students have the opportunity to participate in field-related internships and work positions through the Office of Applied Learning Experiences (ALEX) and the SECE system , as well as the opportunity to publish writing and art in UH Hilo's student-run publications.
B.A. in English Requirements
English Courses
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Certificate
The Departments of English and Linguistics are pleased to offer a program in Teaching English to speakers of other languages (ESL and EFL). This 18-credit program is designed for students with an interest in teaching English as a Second or Foreign Language either abroad or in a wide range of educational settings in the United States. English or Linguistics majors will find the Certificate Program a useful adjunct to the baccalaureate training, as well as students pursuing other majors who are interested in working in other countries. Current or prospective elementary or secondary teachers will also find this program a useful addition to their professional credentials.
Creative Writing Certificate Program
The mission of the Creative Writing Certificate program is to give students a solid foundation in creative writing forms, techniques, and professional opportunities. Students will have the opportunity to interact with published writers and to experience the power of Hawaiʻi as a place, gaining inspiration from its rich culture and environment. Students who successfully complete the certificate program will be able to showcase the creativity and fluent writing skills increasingly valued and sought by employers in fields as diverse as teaching and technology.
Student Learning Outcomes
Students who successfully complete the certificate program will be able to:
- Select, revise and polish a collection of creative work in one or several genres: short stories, poetry, plays, or narrative non-fiction (biography, memoir, personal essays).
- Review other student-writers’ work and give detailed, meaningful feedback.
- Plan and carry out a short creative writing teaching practicum.
- Prepare and deliver a public reading of creative work.
- Collaborate to edit, design, and publish a class literary journal.
- Research appropriate publications and submit creative work.
Acknowledgments
On behalf of the Organizing Committee, we offer our deepest and most heartfelt gratitude to everyone who contributed to the success of HICELLS 2026. Your generosity, dedication, and unwavering support made this conference not only possible, but truly meaningful and memorable for all who attended.
We extend our sincere appreciation to the following individuals and groups whose invaluable contributions were essential to the success of this event:
- University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo English Department
- UH Hilo Budget Office
- UH Hilo College of Arts and Sciences
- UH Hilo Humanities Division
- UH Hilo TESOL Students
- ESL 100T Composition/Non-nativeTutorial (3) Students
Your time, effort, professionalism, and commitment reflect the spirit of collaboration and excellence that defines HICELLS. We are profoundly grateful for your partnership and support, and we look forward to continuing our work together in future conferences and initiatives.
With sincere appreciation,
The HICELLS 2026 Organizing Committee
Mahalo
Thank You