Professor Kevin W. H. Tai is Assistant Professor of English Language Education at the Faculty of Education, The University of Hong Kong and Honorary Research Fellow at IOE, UCL's Faculty of Education and Society in University College London (UCL). Additionally, he is Academic and Career Tutor at St John's College, The University of Hong Kong. In relation to his editorial positions, Professor Kevin Tai is Associate Editor of The Language Learning Journal (ESCI-listed Journal; Routledge), Assistant Editor of the International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (SSCI-listed Journal; Routledge) and Managing Guest Editor of Learning and Instruction (SSCI-listed Journal; Elsevier). Professor Kevin Tai has a PhD in Applied Linguistics from UCL and his doctoral research was fully funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). He completed his doctoral coursework in Educational Research at the University of Cambridge, where he was Hughes Hall Hong Kong Alumni Scholar. He holds an MSc degree in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition with Distinction in Dissertation from the University of Oxford and a BA (Hons) degree in English Language and Literature with First Class Honours (top of the cohort) from Newcastle University, UK. Professor Tai is CELTA-qualified and his research interests include: language education policy, classroom discourse, translanguaging in multilingual contexts and qualitative research methods (particularly Multimodal Conversation Analysis, Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis and Linguistic Ethnography). His research has appeared in international peer-reviewed journals, including Classroom Discourse, Language and Education, Linguistics and Education, System, Applied Linguistics, International Journal of Science Education, Language Teaching Research, Applied Linguistics Review, Research in Science Education, and International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. Professor Tai is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA) and an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA). 

Academic Background 

BA (Hons) in English Language and Literature (First Class Honours and ranked 1st in the cohort), Newcastle University, UK 

MSc in Applied Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition (Distinction in Dissertation), University of Oxford, UK

PhD (Coursework) in Second Language Education, University of Cambridge, UK

PhD in Applied Linguistics (Pass without Corrections), University College London, UK [Principal Supervisor: Professor Li Wei; Internal and External Examiners: Professor Steve Walsh and Professor John Gray].

Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults (CELTA), Cambridge Assessment English

Diploma in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (DELTA) Module One, Cambridge Assessment English

Editorial Positions 

Associate Editor, The Language Learning Journal (Routledge, ESCI-listed Journal)

Assistant Editor, International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism (Routledge, SSCI-listed Journal) 

Managing Guest Editor, Learning and Instruction (Elsevier, SSCI-listed Journal) [Special Issue: “The Role of Multilingualism in Content and Language Integrated Learning Classroom Context”]

Peer Reviewer for Conference Proposals

Strand Coordinator of the Analysis of Discourse and Interaction Strand, 2023 and 2024 Conference of the American Association of Applied Linguistics (AAAL)