Yelena Zakharova
Yelena Zakharova is a co-tutelle PhD candidate in the Language Acquisition in Multilingual Settings (LAMS) program at UPV/EHU and the Doctoral School of Humanities at the University of Warsaw, Poland. Her research is supervised jointly by Professor David Lasagabaster (UPV/EHU) and Professor Michał B. Paradowski (UW).
Yelena’s doctoral dissertation, “Continuing Professional Development of EFL Teachers: From Pedagogical Translanguaging to Translanguaging Pedagogy in Praxis,” examines how targeted teacher training programs can support the implementation of multilingual pedagogies in EFL classrooms. Her work connects theoretical frameworks of translanguaging with practical classroom applications, aiming to contribute to inclusive multilingual education in countries that had been traditionally considered monolingual but recently undergone sociolinguistic changes and are in need of more advanced EFL teacher education.
Yelena is a multilingual speaker; she brings an interdisciplinary background that combines linguistics (Baku State University, Azerbaijan), cognitive science (University of Warsaw, Poland), and international education (University of Southern California, US).
Currently, she works as a research assistant on the international project ‘New Multilingual Realities in Polish Higher Education,’ funded by the National Science Centre (NCN) under the POLONEZ BIS-2 grant and led by Dr. Anna Becker at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Several papers have been developed in co-authorship with Dr. Becker and are being prepared for publication, among which “Migration, Language, and Space as an Assemblage: Warsaw between Local Traditions and Global Change,” “Negotiating Identity and Belonging within New Linguistic Landscapes of Polish Higher Education Institutions,” and “English Medium of Instruction, Language Policies, and Internationalization at Polish Higher Education Institutions.”
In addition to her academic work, Yelena has more than 15 years of experience teaching English as a first, second, and foreign language. She has held leadership roles in several British and American international schools, including EFL Department Head and Deputy Head of Secondary School, and she has worked as a certified teacher trainer for EFL educators.
Research Interests
Her research interests include:
- Multilingual and multicultural education
- Hybrid linguistic identities
- Teacher professional development
- Internationalization of universities
Yelena is committed to advancing multilingual educational systems through collaborative research and evidence-based professional development initiatives. Her work focuses on bridging theoretical insights and practical applications in applied linguistics with the goal of empowering teachers to adopt multilingual strategies and foster inclusive practices in diverse educational contexts. Looking ahead, Yelena plans to expand her research on hybrid linguistic identities, particularly in liminal sociocultural spaces shaped by migration, globalization, and shifting language ideologies.