Dr Nayalin Pinho Feller

Biography

Nayalin is a Lecturer in Early Childhood at the Gold Coast campus. She received a post-doctoral certificate in Applied Language Studies and Teacher Education in Primary Bilingual Education from the University of Porto (Portugal) in 2020. In 2015 she completed a doctoral degree in Language, Reading and Culture (University of Arizona) and, in 2010, a master’s degree in Curriculum & Instruction with a focus on TESOL from New Mexico State University. Drawing on academic experiences across Brazil, the United States, Portugal, Mexico, Maldives, and Australia, her areas of expertise centre around the development of curricula for teaching English as a second/foreign language for all ages and the teaching of various University level undergraduate and postgraduate courses in both Early Childhood and Primary Teacher Education.

Research

Nayalin’s interdisciplinary research spams across teacher education, multilingual pedagogy and curriculum design. She is particularly focused on understanding the use of funds of knowledge and translanguaging by future teachers in the development of children; the role of lecturers and the scaffolding strategies used by them in teacher education; and the bilingual development of children, which a particular focus on Indigenous groups.

Community engagement

Nayalin is a collaborator of the Working CLIL research strand at the Centre for English, Translation, and Anglo-Portuguese Studies. CETAPS is a research centre that brings together people from 11 Portuguese institutions of higher education, promoting research and activities with high national and international reach.

Teaching

Nayalin has taught both at the early childhood level and at undergraduate/postgraduate courses in both Early Childhood and Primary Teacher Preparation Programs. Her teaching philosophy is rooted in sociocultural theories where students’ funds of knowledge and multiple languages are honoured in the classroom and used as basis for developing instruction.