See some research projects listed under Projects | See my academic portfolio (01-06)

My academic interests and research pursuits have shifted quite a lot.  I always wanted to become an English when I was young, riding on buffalo backs and listening to some English songs from the radio in cold mornings and imagining I was in a a cold country.

Trained in TEFL(Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and secondary education, I taught ESL for about five years with the U.S. State Dapartment-sponsored organization while being further enriched with experiences as a teacher trained by the U.S. experts and later as a  teacher trainer myself.  My M.Ed (TESOL) from Sydney University, Australia further strengthened my background in EFL/ESL pedagogy.  At Chiang Mai University, where I started teaching in 1994, I researched into the causes of low achievements in EFL teaching in Thailand, trying to identify students' needs, learning habits, and English using behavior.

Frustrated by the rigid, monotonous work at my university, I started to look into CALL (Computer-Assisted Language Learning) hoping to find innovative ideas for language teaching.  The field at least has boosted my desire to learn about things outside the TEFL/TESOL box.  CALL has led me to go to England, where I learned quite a bit from the kind supervisor and staff at the CELTE, Warwick University. Presently at Indiana University, I have learned to love exploring different fields of studies and combine them. 

I have recently looked into critical literacy, critical pedagogy, and IST (Instructional Systems Technology)--which is my minor area for my PhD study.  I have also explored into critical thinking in online contexts for ideas that will help with both EFL and ESL teaching/ learning. Most recently, I have been interested in peace education, and the discourses that involve spiritual aspects of education. I am also interested in identity issues and conflicts that are involved in the making of online communities. Having taught online courses at IU, I have developed interests in issues related to e-learning and how to promote dimensions that have long been overlooked such as affective/spiritual development among learners, peace discourse complexity, and so on. Any, or a combination of any, of these fields and sub fields can be my dissertation project. Eventually, I want to return to Thailand and work in rooms where educational policies are made to make Thai education serve Thailand and the region better.  At least, I hope my teaching and my research will be more meaningful to lives outside the academia, too.

Given my ambitions, I think I will be a busy enquirer and agent for changes over the next decades. For now, I am telling myself,  "Not all wandering souls are aimless."