Dr Taguhi Sahakyan

Profile

I have been actively engaged in the field of second/foreign language education since 2005, working as an English language teacher and lecturer in higher education contexts in both Armenia and the United Kingdom.

I completed my PhD in Education at the University of Leeds, funded by a School of Education Scholarship. Before joining the School of Education as a Lecturer in TESOL, I taught English for Academic Purposes (EAP) on various pre-sessional programmes at the School of Languages and Cultures. In addition to my teaching and research roles, I have also served as the Academic Employability Lead for the School, supporting students in enhancing their career prospects.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

Responsibilities

• MA TESOL Studies Programme Lead
• Module manager

Research interests

My research focuses on language learning and teaching motivation, particularly teacher motivation. I explore how English teachers' motivation evolves throughout their careers and how it is shaped by social and professional contexts. In my study, I developed the Teacher Motivational Self Framework by integrating possible selves theory (Markus & Nurius, 1986) with a person-in-context relational view (Ushioda, 2009). This framework connects psychological and social dimensions of teacher motivation, offering a more holistic approach to teacher motivation.

Beyond teacher motivation, I have worked on several projects, including “The Impact of Transition Programmes on International Students' Sense of Belonging” and “Language Teachers’ Lives in Global Lockdown” https://cler.leeds.ac.uk/cler-research-library/language-teachers-lives-in-global-lockdown/ . I have also led the “BA Education: Surfacing Employability Skills” and “Teaching and Learning in Armenia: Internship Programme for Pre-Service ELT Teachers” projects.

Invited talks and workshops

“Unpacking Language Teacher Motivation: Insights from a Systematic Review”, University of Sheffield Hallam, November 2024.
“Language Teacher Motivation: Insights from Recent Research”, University of Essex Online, October 2023.
“Introduction to Planning Teaching and Learning at University” (workshop), French University of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia, September 2023.
“Assessment for Learning: Peer- and Self-assessment”, Academy of Sciences of Armenia, Yerevan, Armenia, April 2023.
 “Researching L2 motivation: MA students’ perceptions and reality”, Forum on Language Learning Motivation, University of Warwick, February, 2019.
“Sustaining EFL teacher motivation: “I already feel exhausted”. TESOL Toulouse, France, March, 2017.

Selected conference presentations

Sahakyan, T. "Member-Checking through Diagrammatic Elicitation: Constructing Meaning with Participants", Decolonising Research Methods Showcase, University of Leeds, February 22, 2024. 
Sahakyan, T. “Teachers as active participants of member-checking: “Is this me?” AILA congress, Lyon, July 17-18th, 2023. 
Sahakyan, T. and Shackleton, S.  “What are the skills within our degree? A collaborative approach to agreeing programme level skills.” Skills in the curriculum conference, University of Leeds, April 27, 2023. 
Sahakyan, T. “Isolated, excluded and black: A teacher’s experience of the lockdown.” IATEFL international conference, Belfast, May 17-20, 2022.
Sahakyan, T. “Native speaker teacher self evolution: 'What the hell is infinitive?” 30th Conference of the European Second Language Association, University of Barcelona. June 30 - July 3, 2021.
Sahakyan, T. “Teacher selves in context: ‘I don’t know whether or not I’ll ever achieve that image.” 50th BAAL conference, University of Leeds. August 31 – September 1, 2017.
Sahakyan, T. “Rethinking EFL teacher motivation” TESOL France 35th Annual colloquium, Paris, France. November 18-20, 2016.
Sahakyan, T. “EFL teacher motivation: Others and I within the feasible self” 49th BAAL conference, Anglia Ruskin University. September 1-3, 2016.

Recent blogs

https://cler.leeds.ac.uk/being-isolated-excluded-and-black-teachers-experience-of-lockdown-depends-on-who-they-are

Qualifications

• PhD in Education (TESOL), University of Leeds
• MA Applied Linguistics, University of Nottingham
• MA Teaching English as a Foreign Language, American University of Armenia
• BA English, Russian and Literature, Yerevan State University of Linguistics

Professional memberships

• International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
• British Association of Applied Linguistics
• TESOL International Association

Student education

I teach modules on the BA Education and MA TESOL & MA TESOL Studies programmes covering the following areas:

• language teaching methodology
• teaching languages to young learners
• vocabulary teaching and learning

I also supervise postgraduate taught and research students.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Language Education

Current postgraduate researchers

• Deepa Ellepola
• Jingyi Li
• Zhuowei Qian