Shakina Rajendram

Dr. Shakina Rajendram is an Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Language and Literacies Education program in the Department of Curriculum, Teaching and Learning (CTL) at OISE, University of Toronto, Canada. Previously, she served as the Coordinator of the Language Teaching Field and as the Course & Curriculum Development Lead for CTL7019 Supporting English Language Learners. Dr. Rajendram received her PhD in Language and Literacies Education with a collaborative specialization in Comparative, International & Development Education from OISE in 2019.

Dr. Rajendram brings a diverse teaching and curriculum development background, having worked as a K-12 teacher, ESL and EAP instructor, and English language and literature curriculum developer. Her research examines the intersection of critical multilingual pedagogies and teacher education, with a focus on supporting linguistically and racially minoritized multilingual learners. Her current research projects centre around preparing pre-service and in-service teachers to implement translanguaging and multiliteracies pedagogies in multilingual K-12 classrooms in Canada, and innovating multilingual education in under-resourced language teaching contexts in Southeast Asia. Drawing from her experiences as a teacher and researcher in Malaysia, her work includes a focus on decolonial critical perspectives stemming from the Global South.

At OISE, Dr. Rajendram teaches courses on second language teaching methodologies, planning and organizing the second language curriculum, academic language and literacies, research methods, and supporting multilingual learners.