Profile
Paul McPherron is a professor of Applied Linguistics in the English Department at Hunter College of the City University of New York (CUNY), where he has served as the co-PI on Hunter College’s AANAPISI Project (HCAP) since 2016. HCAP is aimed at strengthening student support programs for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students who are first-generation college goers, English Language Learners (ELLs), and/or students from low-income, immigrant families. Previously, he served as the Director of Hunter College’s center for teaching and learning, named Academic Center for Excellence in Research and Teaching (ACERT), from 2017-2021.
Paul teaches undergraduate and graduate classes on linguistics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, English language teaching, and the structure of English. He is a socio/applied linguist whose research interests have involved questions about language learning and teaching in relation to identity, politics, and educational policies, particularly in China and the United States.
He is currently working on co-editing a 2023 special issue of TESOL Quarterly that that will focus on teaching English in a time of resurgent nationalism. In 2023, he will also publish a co-written article in the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education about the use of linguistics landscapes research projects as critical language awareness pedagogy in Asian American Studies courses.
His most recent book project was a co-written textbook entitled Thinking Sociolinguistically: How to Plan, Conduct, and Present your Research Project. This book was published in 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan and offers a practical guide for students on how to plan, complete, write about, and present their own sociolinguistic research projects. Chapters in the book cover data collection and data analysis methods from qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method perspectives and include student-led exercises and examples from well-known published work as well as papers written by Hunter students.
In earlier work, he published books, articles, and reviews on English teaching reforms in China, theory and methods for teaching idioms to English language learners, and the discourses of health and bodies. His work has appeared in TESOL Quarterly, TESOL Journal, the International Multilingual Research Journal, the Asia Pacific Journal of Education, CATESOL Journal, and the Journal of Language, Identity, and Education.
Paul is also currently working on a project investigating teaching innovations in higher education and the use of culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies.
Paul has held academic and teaching positions around the world including at Southern Illinois University, Stanford University, Shantou University (Guangdong, China), and UC Davis. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Romania where he taught English at two high schools in Sibiu, Transylvania.