About Me

Hilal Peker (Ph.D., University of Central Florida, 2016) is a Federal Projects Coordinator and an Educational Policy Consultant at the Bureau of Federal Educational Programs of Florida Department of Education. She is also a professor of TESOL and teaches a wide variety of courses at University of Central Florida (UCF), Florida State University (FSU), Framingham State University, Saint Leo University (SLU), and Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU). She completed her M.A. degree in EFL Education as a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Texas at Austin after obtaining her B.A. degree from Middle East Technical University (METU). She worked as an Assistant Professor at Florida State University (FL, U.S.A.) and Bilkent University (Turkiye). Her research interests include inclusive dual-language immersion programs, reconceptualized L2 motivational self-system (R-L2MSS), bullying-victimization of L2 learners, L2 identity, simulation technology, and pre-service teacher training. She has taught in ESOL and EFL contexts, conducted workshops and research, given keynote speeches in Europe, Colombia, Ecuador, and the U.S., and published extensively on topics related to ESOL/EFL teacher education and DEIA issues regarding Pre-K students. Her work has appeared in Wiley and in prestigious academic journals such as Foreign Language Annals, TESOL Journal, TESL-EJ, Topics in Language Disorders, Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, and Journal of Ethnographic and Qualitative Research. She has recently been recognized by Marquis Who’s Who Top Educators for her dedication, achievements, and leadership in academia. She has multiple awards in TESOL field such as 2019 & 2021 TESOL International Association Professional Development Scholarship Award, 2019 ACTFL Early Career Award by the Teaching and Learning of Culture & Research SIG, 2015 The National Network for Early Language Learning Santillana Scholar Award, 2015 Sunshine State TESOL Dissertation Award, and 2015 UCF College of Education and Human Performance Graduate Teaching Assistantship Excellence Award.

Research Interests and expereince

• Training pre-service mainstream and language teachers through simulation technology in working with multilingual ESOL students
• Inclusive dual language immersion programs (bilingual students with disabilities)
• Translanguaging & its impact on ESOL students’ L2 selves in multicultural contexts
• Refugee issues (e.g., literacy, identity, motivation, academic resilience & buoyancy)
• English learner (EL) bullying victimization (traditional bullying & cyberbullying)
• Feared L2 Self and Reconceptualized L2 Motivational Self System (R-L2MSS)
• EL identity development (oriented and national identity)

Teaching interest and expereince

• Sociolinguistics
• Second Language Acquisition (SLA)
• Applied Linguistics in Foreign and Second Language Education
• ESOL Instruction in the Content Areas (language and mainstream teachers)
• Teaching Language Minority Students in K-12 Classrooms: Theory and Practice
• The Nature of Language Learner: Individual Differences
• Written Academic Discourse
• Methods of Teaching Foreign and Second Languages
• Second Language Testing and Assessment
• Curriculum and Material Development in Foreign and Second Language Education
• Intercultural/Crosscultural Communication
• Simulation Technology for Language Teaching and Learning
• Educational Research Methods (Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed-Methods)
• Introduction to Statistics and Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling
• Teaching Practicum/Internship
• ESOL/ESL/EFL courses (online, hybrid, and face-to-face)