Alan Hirvela, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Contact Info:
- E-mail: hirvela.1@osu.edu
- Office: 219 Arps
- Phone: (614) 292-0137
- Fax: (614) 292-76953
Mailing Address:
- 1945 N. High St.
- Columbus, OH 43210-1172
Biographical Information:
My journey as a faculty member has taken some interesting turns. I left graduate school, MA degree in hand, with the intention of becoming a community college English teacher in the mid-1970s. While teaching at CS Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan (where, outside school, I began working closely with film director/author Michael Moore), I was asked by my department chair to set up an English as a Second Language (ESL) program to serve the wave of immigrants then coming to Flint. I had no prior training or experience in ESL, and to this day do not know why I was asked to take on that responsibility, but I've always been grateful for the doors this opportunity opened for me. I found the ESL work extremely rewarding, and my professional life took a dramatic turn as a result. I had long been interested in Chinese culture, and combining that interest with my attraction to ESL instruction led me to a teaching job in Hong Kong at a private secondary/post-secondary school, Shue Yan College, in 1978. A few years later I moved to a position at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where I taught until 1992. While I was there, I discovered a new interest: teacher education. This led me into schools in Hong Kong, mostly secondary schools. I was especially interested in English teachers' attitudes toward and experiences with the use of English literature as a pedagogical tool. I also began to develop an interest in connections between reading and writing. Meanwhile, it was during my Chinese University years that I pursued my PhD. This was at the University of Stirling in Scotland. Because of the flexibility of the British doctoral system, I was able to commute between Hong Kong and Scotland for about four years while completing my degree. My dissertation, entitled A Study of the Integration of Literature and Communicative Language Teaching, was a mixed methods study that looked at the use of literature from a variety of perspectives and drew heavily on scholarship in literary theory as well as English for Specific Purposes (ESP).
In 1994 I came to Ohio State University via the ESL Composition Program, where I taught for the next several years. During those years I began working closely with Dr. Diane Belcher. We pursued a number of projects connected in one way or another to the field of second language (L2) writing, including organizing an international conference on reading-writing connections held at Ohio State in the summer of 1998, co-editing a special issue (devoted to voice in L2 writing) of the Journal of Second Language Writing (2001), and the publication of our co-edited book, Linking Literacies: Perspectives on L2 Reading-Writing Connections (2001, University of Michigan Press). It was also during this time that I served as an assistant editor for the journal English for Specific Purposes.
In 2000 I became a visiting assistant professor in the Foreign/Second Language Education Program at Ohio State, and I moved into a tenure track assistant professorship in that program in 2002. I continue to work in that program today and am also a core member of the Adolescent Literacies Area of Study. The field of L2 writing (broadly defined) remains my primary domain of research activity. My 2004 book, Connecting Reading and Writing in Second Language Writing Instruction (University of Michigan Press), allowed me to extend my interest in L2 reading-writing connections, and my forthcoming book (co-edited with Diane Belcher and to be published by the University of Michigan Press), The Oral-Literate Connection: Perspectives on L2 Speaking, Writing, and Other Media Interactions, will extend that interest to the domain of speaking-writing relationships. Diane and I have also co-edited another issue of the Journal of Second Language Writing (on the theme of L2 writing teacher education) that will appear in late 2007 or early 2008. Another forthcoming co-editing project, with Dr. Youngjoo Yi, is a special issue of the Journal of Asian Pacific Communication on the theme of immigrant students' experiences with literacy development and identity construction. The latter represents a shift in my research activity to the literacy experiences (particularly out of school) of 1.5 generation students. Another shift in my L2 writing scholarship is reflected in my 2004 co-authored article with Dr. Hyunsook Yoon, "ESL Student Attitudes Toward Corpus Use in L2 Writing" (Journal of Second Language Writing).That paper was selected as JSLW's best article for 2004. My recent interest in the link between technology and L2 writing is also seen in my 2005 article, "Computer-based Reading and Writing Across the Curriculum: Two Case Studies of L2 Writers" (Computers and Composition).
My teaching at Ohio State ranges across a variety of MA and PhD courses. These focus mainly on testing, L2 reading, and methods of teaching English as a second language. My interest in L2 reading-writing connections is expressed in a course Diane Belcher and I developed called "Issues in L2 Literacy: Reading-Writing Connections" and a more recent course I created called "Issues in L2 Literacy: Reading and Writing Across Languages." The latter course has allowed me to cultivate my interest in the field of Intercultural Rhetoric, which was expressed most recently when I served as the chair of the organizing committee for the "3rd Biennial Conference on Intercultural Rhetoric and Discourse: Multiple Literacies Across Cultures," which took place at Ohio State in the summer of 2007. Overlapping with my teaching is my deep interest in the mentoring of graduate students. I have had the good fortune to receive a College of Education Distinguished Teaching Award (2002) and a Council of Graduate Students Distinguished Service Award (2007).
