Leticia Yulita

BA in English Language Teaching; Instituto Superior del Profesorado “Juan XXIII”, Argentina (1993)

MA in Education and Professional Development, University of East Anglia (1999)

PhD in Education, University of East Anglia (2013)

Dr Leticia Yulita, Professor Emerita and formerly Associate Dean International for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities (HUM) at the University of East Anglia (UEA), specialises in language and intercultural education. Leticia was awarded an Advance HE National Teaching Fellowship, the most prestigious accolade in the teaching profession in higher education in the UK. She is also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Leticia researches critical pedagogical approaches to language education, exploring the intercultural citizenship dimension of language teaching and learning. She won the UEA Achievement Award for her outstanding contribution to public engagement fostering the study of languages in local and international communities. Leticia also led on advancing the gender equality agenda at the UEA in her capacity as Chair of Athena SWAN for the School of Politics, Philosophy, Language and Communication Studies and HUM Faculty at UEA. Prior to joining UEA, she was Director of Studies in language schools; firstly in Argentina and then in the UK. Leticia has managed and delivered three British Council funded projects internationalising the language curriculum in Uzbekistan and Argentina.

Before becoming a lecturer at UEA, Leticia was the Director of Studies of two language schools for more than 20 years both in Argentina and the UK.  During her time at UEA, she has also worked as a language specialist and teacher trainer at Norwich City College, The English Experience and NILE (Norwich Institute for Language Education). Leticia has delivered sessions on intercultural learning in foreign language education and CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning), as well as being involved in a project from the University of Southampton trialling a new e-learning language tool. She completed a British Council funded international project (2010-2013) for the integration of intercultural education into the language curriculum in the university sector in Uzbekistan. The new curriculum has been officially approved and implemented nationwide across Uzbekistan. Since 2012 she has also completed several projects with universities and colleges in Argentina and Spain involving Spanish and English language students in online intercultural dialogue and citizenship activities. These projects have led to several publications. Her more recent work involved training language teachers and students in intercultural learning and teaching funded by British Council HELinks grants with Argentina.

Teaching interests

Her teaching interests lie in the following areas:

• International Education
• EFL/ESOL/Second/Foreign/Modern Language Teaching
• Intercultural communication/education/citizenship
• Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
• Critical Pedagogy
• Academic writing in English and Spanish
• Teacher education and training
• Educational research

Teaching

• Spanish language at degree level
• Intercultural Communication in Practice 
• Global Intercultural Leadership
• Intercultural Education and Training 
• Academic and Research Skills

Leadership Roles

HUM Faculty Associate Dean International (2021-2023)

HUM Faculty Athena SWAN Lead (2019-2021)

PPL Chair of Athena SWAN (2016-2021)

PPL Digital Champion (2020-2021)

PPL Teaching Director (2019-2020)

PPL Study Abroad Director (2017-2020)

Year Abroad Coordinator for Spain and Latin America (2014-2018 & 2022-2023)

Public Lecture series organiser (2009-2018)

My teaching interests lie in the following areas:

• International Education
• EFL/ESOL/Second/Foreign/Modern Language Teaching
• Intercultural Communication/Education/Citizenship
• Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL)
• Critical Pedagogy
• Academic Literacies in English and Spanish
• Teacher Training
• Educational Research
   

Teaching Activities

Leticia specialises in the interface between language, intercultural and citizenship education. Her research interests include:

• Foreign/second language pedagogy
• Intercultural communication
• Citizenship education in language learning
• Curriculum development and internationalisation
• Identity construction
• Critical Pedagogy

PhD Research

Yulita, L. 2012. Intercultural Communication and Critical Pedagogy: Deconstructing Stereotypes for the Development of Critical Cultural Awareness in Language Education, PhD thesis, Norwich, UK: University of East Anglia. https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/42971/1/2013YulitaLPhD.pdf 

Research Projects and Grants 

February 2020. British Council HELinks Workshop Grant. Diversifying the English Language Curriculum in Argentina. University of East Anglia-Universidad Nacional de La Plata.

March 2019: British Council HE Links Travel Grant. Argentina/UK. Internationalisation of Higher Education in Argentina: Social Innovation/Inclusion and Student Employability. University of East Anglia-Universidad Nacional de La Plata.

2017 to date: Alumni Fund award on Being the 'right' human: Gender equality in the 21st century.

July 2016 - July 2019: Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación Productiva, Argentina research project entitled 'Malvinas/Falklands War - An opportunity for the development of intercultural citizenship in the foreign language classroom in the Argentine and British higher education sectors'. Principal investigator: Dr Melina Porto (Conicet and Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina) with Emeritus Prof. Mike Byram (Durham University), Miguel Montezanti (Universidad Nacional de La Plata) & Dr Leticia Yulita (University of East Anglia) in her research team.

March 2010-March 2013: British Council INSPIRE £45,000 Project entitled "The interface between language pedagogy, cross-cultural communication and intercultural competence in L2 university settings" for curriculum development of ELT in Uzbekistan as well as Spanish and Russian language teaching in the British university sector.

June 2010: £250 grant awarded by the School of Education at UEA to attend the BAICE 2010 Conference - Education and Social Justice in Challenging Times: British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE), 10-12 September 2010, University of East Anglia.

March 2010 – March 2013: £45,000 funding for a British Council project through INSPIRE (International Strategic Partnerships in Research & Education) for the integration of intercultural education into the language curriculum in the Uzbek university sector

May–June 2009: grant awarded by the Centre for Education and International Development  to participate in the BAICE East of England Partnership between the School of Education at UEA and the Faculty of Education at Cambridge University on ‘Internationalising Educational Research Cultures and Graduate Training’

Jan 2007-June 2009: £1,000 funding to carry out a pedagogic research project on the development of intercultural awareness through Argentinian literature in L2 in the British university sector,  Higher Education Academy Subject Centre Language, Linguistics and Area Studies

June 2007 to June 2008: £500 funding awarded by Higher Education Academy Subject Centre Language, Linguistics and Area Studies to trial a new e-learning tool developed by the University of Southampton.

Oct 2007 – Feb 2008: granted awarded by BAICE (The British Association for International and Comparative Education) to participate as a member of a writing for publication project

Talks and Presentations:

'Is there a place for troubled knowledge in the language curriculum?'. Keynote speaker at the Modern Languages and Cultures department, the University of Nottingham, 17 January 2024.

‘The practice of intercultural citizenship in language education’. LCS talk, UEA. 27 October 2022.

‘Theory and practice of intercultural citizenship across the internet’. Keynote speaker with Michael Byram and Melina Porto at the Intercultural Communication and Language Use in Virtual Spaces in the 21^st Century Conference, Algeria under the auspices of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research. 22 October 2022.

‘Decolonising Language and Intercultural Education Through Creative Writing’, APIBB and Instituto Superior ‘Juan XXIII’. 2 July 2022.

‘Reimagining language learning through the UN Sustainable Development Goals’, 3rd Annual Conference: Learning Languages in the Digitalized Environment, Deutsch Kasachische Universität. 27 May 2022.

‘Can intercultural citizenship help us in our decolonisation efforts?. Cultnet 2022, Durham University. 21 April 2022.

‘Decolonising the curriculum - what does it mean for MFL?’, invited speaker at the Modern Language Centre, King´s College London, UK. 8 February 2022.

'Decolonising Language Teaching: UK Manifesto'. LCNAU 2021 National Colloquium, Languages and Cultures Network for Australian Universities. The University of Queenland, Australia.  Invited speaker. 25 November 2021.

‘Decolonising language education: Re-imagining the discipline from an intercultural citizenship perspective’. Conference presentation at the International Association of Applied Linguistics (AILA) World Congress 2021, University of Groningen, Netherlands. 20 August 2021.

‘Decolonising Language Teaching: AULC Manifesto’, invited speaker at the ‘Intercultural Competence and Foreign Language Learning in HE: Present and Future Directions’ Conference, University of Exeter, UK. 1 July 2021.

‘Decolonising Language Teaching’, invited to deliver a workshop for language lecturers at Queen Mary University of London, UK. 28 April 2021.

‘Diversifying the Language Curriculum towards Decolonisation’, Cultnet, Durham University. 23 April 2021

‘Language pedagogy: Transitioning into intercultural citizenship education in the university sector’, invited to deliver a talk for staff and students at Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina. 27 Feb 2020.

Keynote speaker at the 2020 language teaching symposium held at Instituto Superior ‘Juan XXIII’, Argentina. ‘Diversifying the Language Curriculum’. Funded by the British Council HELinks. 21 February 2020.

Guest speaker at Norwich Institute for Language Education (NILE), UK. ‘Take Another Look at Internationalism’. 7 August 2019.

Lecture presentation at Instituto Superior del Profesorado “Juan XXIII”, Bahía Blanca, Argentina. ‘From Juan XXIII to UEA’. 5 April 2019. 

Lecture presentation at Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina. ‘Global Citizenship’. 25 March 2019.

Seminar presentation at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, UEA. ‘Intercultural Learning in Language Teaching’. 07 March 2019. 

Plenary speaker at the PALM Symposium,Pädagogische Hochschule, University College of Teacher Education, Baden,Austria. ‘Intercultural learning and the 21^st century language learner’. 30 May 2018. 

Presenter and organiser of the academic committee for the 1st International Conference on Intercultural Dialogue through the Arts: Community Development, Education and Policy. Saga University and NPO Tiempo Iberoamericano, Japan. 'From Creating a Leaflet to Engaging with the Community'.  21-24 September 2017. 

Faculty of Education, Cadiz University. 'The intercultural citizenship dimension of CLIL'. Workshop for primary and secondary language teachers. 18 September 2017.

Asociación de Profesores de Inglés de Bahía Blanca, Argentina. 'How can language teachers become materials writers?'. Webinar Series 24 June & 1 July 2017.

Intercultural Horizons 2017 Conference, Rijeka, Croatia. 'Competences for democratic culture in language teaching'. 18 May 2017.

UK Lingua Conference, Durham University. 'Language pedagogy: Transitioning into intercultural citizenship education in the university sector'. 23 April 2017.

Cultnet Conference, Durham University. 'Forgiveness and Discomforting Pedagogies'. 20 April 2017.

Cultnet Conference, Durham University. 'The Bodily Experience of Being Othered'. 21 April 2013.

Uzbek State World Languages University. Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Three talks on 'Critical Pedagogy in Intercultural and Language Education'; 'The Development of Intercultural Competence in Language Teaching' & 'Stereotyping, Prejudice and Othering' 25^th/29^th March 2013

International Doctoral Summer School, Roskilde University, Denmark, Identity and Interculturality: Research Methods. Paper title: ‘Methodological Challenges in Researching Intercultural Communicative Competence’ 4^th/8^th July 2011 

Second International Conference on the Development and Assessment of Intercultural Competence, January 29-31, 2010, Tucson, Arizona. Paper presentation entitled "Deconstructing Gender Stereotyping through Literature in L2".

3rd Biennal International Conference on Task-Based Language Teaching, TBLT 2009, 13-16 September 2009, at Lancaster University. Paper presentation entitled "Tasks using literature for intercultural development".

Symposium on Pragmatics and Intercultural Communication in Spanish, 25-26 June 2009, at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies (IGRS), and Birkbeck, University of London, United Kingdom. Title of the presentation: Pedagogía, interculturalidad y literatura.

International Education; Foreign/Second Language Teaching (English and Spanish); Language Pedagogy; intercultural Education; Intercultural Citizenship; Identity Construction; Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), Critical Pedagogy.