Dr. Ibrahim is Associate Professor at Nord University in Bodø, Norway. She teaches on the new 5-year Masters in Primary and Secondary Education at the 1-7 and 5-10 levels and works on the Kompetanse for Kvalitet (KfK) courses. Dr. Ibrahim is a member of the Nord Research Group For Children’s Literature in ELT (CLELT) and the Social Justice and Diversity in Education group. 

Dr. Ibrahim is involved in the following projects:

• Erasmus+ project: ICEPELL (Intercultural Citizenship Education through Picturebooks in Early English Language Learning). Dr. Ibrahim is local co-ordinator for this project, which involves six partners in five countries: Nord University, Norway; Nova University, CETAPS, Lisbon; APPI (Associação Portuguesa de Professores de Inglês), Portugal; Avans University of Applied Science, The Netherlands; Technische Universitet Braunschweig, Germany; USR Piemonte, Italy.
• ELLiL (English Language and Literature – In-Depth Learning), a DIKU project with Bishop’s university in Canada.
• CANOPY (Canada-Norway Pedagogy Partnership for Innovation and Inclusion in Education) with Queen’s university in Canada.

She has over 25 years of experience in English and bilingual education as teacher, teacher educator, materials writer, manager and researcher in different parts of the world. Originally from South Africa, where she grew up multilingual, Dr. Ibrahim has worked in Portugal, Cairo, Hong Kong and 20 years in Paris, where she headed the Young Learner and Bilingual Education programmes for the Teaching Centre at the British Council, before moving to Norway. 

Dr. Ibrahim holds an MA in TEFL and a PhD in trilingualism, triliteracy and identity from the University of Reading. She has contributed articles and chapters on bi/multilingualism and identity to journals and publications, such as, Multilingual Matters, Encyclopaedia of Language and Education and Education Enquiry. She has also contributed to various projects on multilingualism in the EU: she was on a panel of experts reviewing the EU’s Key Competencies for Lifelong Learning (2018); she managed the British Council participation in the EUNIC Paris project Ateliers du Multilingualisme between 2016 and 2018, and contributed to the ECML project on Early Language Learning: Inspiring language learning in the early years between 2016 and 2018.

Her publication, Teaching children how to learn, Delta Publishing, with Gail Ellis, won an award at the 2016 ESU English Language Awards in the category, Resources for Teachers. The publication Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words (Kalaja and Melo-Pfeifer, 2019), in which Dr. Ibrahim has a chapter was nominated for the BAAL Book Prize 2020.

Teaching

At Nord University Dr. Ibrahim teaches on the new 5-year Masters in Primary and Secondary Education at the 1-7 and 5-10 levels and works on the Kompetanse for Kvalitet (KfK) courses:

ENG1003 English 1A (Grades 1-7)

ENG1004 English 1B (Grades 1-7)

ENG2010 English Language and global children’s and young adult literature for teachers (Grades 1-7)

ENG5002 Literacy, diversity and intercultural citizenship in the English language classroom (Grades 1-10)

SP160L (KfK2) English Subject Pedagogy

SP161L (KfK2) Teaching Literary Texts in the English Class

VIT5001/5002 Research Ethics

Dr. Ibrahim has also taught English to young learners aged 3-17 in EFL, ESL and bilingual programmes in Portugal, Paris, Hong Kong and Cairo at the British Council and other language schools. This has included, not only teaching but also course design and assessment procedures for the different age-groups. Some of these courses include teaching skills-based classes, using authentic children’s literature, preparing teenagers for Cambridge exams, developing literacy in bilingual programmes, using play-based approaches in pre-primary and teaching through literature.

Dr. Ibrahim has taught, set up and managed teacher education programmes, which included designing and implementing training modules for specific needs, such as, bilingual and CLIL education; liaising with the French Ministry of Education to coordinate training in ELT for French teachers in pre-school, primary and secondary levels. She was a regular contributor to the Primary Teacher Training Course, run by Gail Ellis and Carol Read at the British Council until 2014.

Supervision

PhD supervision:

• Second supervisor for David Valente’s PhD project: Picturebooks for in-depth intercultural citizenship within English subject pedagogy

MA supervision:

• Supporting multilingual identities in the English classroom and its impact on preventing socioemotional difficulties of minority language pupils.
• “Languages is a huge part of me”: pupils’ subjective experiences of multilingualism in Norway

FoU supervision (Research and Development project): 

• “Refugee Literature for Intercultural Learning”
• “Graphic novels as a classroom resource and motivational tool for 9^th grade English students: a case study”

Ibrahim, N. C. 2022. Examining a Northern Sámi-Norwegian Dual Language Picturebook in English Language Education Through a Critical Translingual-Transcultural Lens. Intercultural Communication Education, 5(3), 105–124. https://doi.org/10.29140/ice.v5n3.847 

Mercer, S., Ibrahim, N., Bilsborough, K. &  Jones, C. 2022. Teacher perspectives on addressing environmental issues in ELT. ELT Journal. ccac039, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccac039

Ibrahim, N.C. 2022. Visual and Artefactual Approaches in Engaging Teachers with Multilingualism: Creating DLCs in Pre-Service Teacher Education. Languages, 7, 152. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7020152 

Ibrahim, N. 2022. Mainstreaming multilingualism in education: An Eight-D’s framework. In A. Krulatz, G. Neokleous, A. Dahl (Eds.). Theoretical and applied perspectives on teaching foreign languages in multilingual settings. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. https://www.multilingual-matters.com/page/detail/?K=9781788926409

Ellis, G. and Ibrahim, N. 2021. Using metaphor to elicit young children’s views on learning English. In ELTjournal. 75(2), pp. 1-11. 

Ibrahim, N. 2021. Artefactual narratives of multilingual children: Methodological and ethical considerations in researching children. In A. Pinter and H. Kuchah. (Eds.). Ethical and Methodological Issues in Researching Young Language Learners in School Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 126-146. 

Ellis, G. and Ibrahim, N. 2021. Teachers’ image of the child in an ELT context. In A. Pinter and H. Kuchah, (Eds.). Ethical and Methodological Issues in Researching Young Language Learners in School Contexts. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 185-205. 

Ibrahim, N. 2020. The Multilingual Picturebook in English Language Teaching: Linguistic and Cultural Identity. In Children’s Literature in English Language Education, 8(2), pp. 12-38. 

Ibrahim, N. 2019. Children’s multimodal visual narratives as possible sites of identity performance. In P. Kalaja and Melo-Pfeiffer, S. (eds). Visualising Multilingual Lives: More Than Words. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 33-52) (2 citations)

Ibrahim, N. 2016. Enacting identities: children’s narratives on person, place and experience in fixed and hybrid spaces. In Education Enquiry, 7(10), pp. 69-91. (6 citations)

Ibrahim. N. 2016. Developing Literacy, and Identity, in Multiple Languages. In B. Street (ed.) Encyclopaedia of Language and Education. Volume 3: Literacies and Language Education. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing, pp. 1-14. (4 citations)

Ellis, G. & Ibrahim, N. 2015. Teaching Children How to Learn. Delta Publishing. (27 Citations)

Ibrahim, N. 2014, Perceptions of identity in trilingual 5-year-old twins in diverse pre-primary educational contexts, In Mourão, S. and Lourenço, M. (eds.) Early Years Second Language Education: International Perspectives on Theories and Practice, Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 46-61. (1 citation)

Ibrahim, N. 2014. Identity in diverse primary language learning contexts: Children’s narratives on person, place and experience. In J. Enever, E. Lindgren and S. Ivanov, (eds.), Conference proceedings from Early Language Learning: Theory and Practice 2014, Umeå Studies in Language and Literature 25, Umeå: Umeå University, Department of Language Studies. pp. 68-74.

Research Groups:

Member, Nord Research Group for Children’s Literature in English Language Teaching (CLELT)

Member, Social Justice and Diversity in Education

Professional Connections:

Member (since 2014), REYLL (Research into Early Years Language Learning) part of the EECERA Multilingual Childhoods research network 

Member (since 2014), ELL-ReN, the AILA Research Network in Early Language Learning (3-12 years) 

Member (since 2012), IATEFL Young Learners and Teenagers Sig 

Projects:

Local Coordinator, ICEPELL (Intercultural Citizenship Education through Picturebooks in Early English Language Learning), Erasmus+

Member, ELLiL (English Language and Literature – In-Depth Learning), DIKU

Member, CANOPY (Canada-Norway Pedagogy Partnership for Innovation and Inclusion in Education), DIKU

Videos, Interviews, and Presentations:

Plenary at 55^th IATEFL International Conference, Belfast, 17 May 2022: (Re)imaging and (re)inventing early English language learning and teaching 

Invited guest speaker: Demonolingualising education: from monolingual ideologies to mainstreaming multilingualism, Multilingualism Language Policy and Strategies in the EU, Agência Nacional Erasmus+ Educação e Formação promove a Atividade de Formação e Cooperação (TCA), Lisbon, 5 & 6 December 2022.

Plenary: Reflect and review: the Head-Heart-Hands model for ICE, ICEPELL Symposium, June 2021

Plenary: Educating teachers multilingually: teachers, children and languages in between (several age ranges), IATEFL YLTSIG 2019 Web Conference, December 2019

Plenary session: Multilingualism, identity and integration, Estonia, November 2019

Interview: The Power of Language: How does multilingualism affect learning and the brain?, Interview for France 24, English Service, December 2018

Children’s Diverse Language Repertoires in the Classroom (Primary), web conference ’30 Pearls of YLT Wisdom’ in celebration of IATEFL YLTSIG’s Pearl Anniversary, February 2017

Plenary session: The Multilingual Turn in Language Education: An Essential Skill for the 21st Century, Madrid, 2017

Interview with Plenary Speaker Nayr Ibrahim, TESOL Spain, 2016

How children become bilingual, Milan, March 2011

Interview: Hablamos con Nayr Ibrahim sobre los desafíos y las oportunidades del multilingüismo en las sociedades contemporáneas

Interview (in French) : Discussion sur les défis et opportunités du multilinguisme dans les sociétés contemporaines avec Dr Nayr Ibrahim

Blogs:

A few myths about speakers of multiple languages, Voices blog, British Council, 2015.

A few more myths about speakers of multiple languages, Voices blog, British Council, 2015:

Being Bilingual, British Council Blog ‘Keep in Touch’, a series of eight short blogs on bilingualism/multilingualism, 2014: