M'Balia Thomas
- Associate Professor, English
- Member of the Graduate Faculty
- Associate Professor, Second Language Acquisition / Teaching - GIDP
Contact
- (520) 626-8071
- Modern Languages, Rm. 445
- Tucson, AZ 85721
- mbthomas@arizona.edu
Biography
M'Balia Thomas is a tenured Associate Professor at The University of Arizona. She is a faculty member of the English Applied Linguistics Program (MATESOL) in the Department of English and a Regular Faculty Member of the Interdisciplinary doctoral Program in Second Language Acquisition & Teaching (SLAT).M'Balia is a Critical Applied Linguist whose research investigates the linguistic injustices committed against “non-native” and “non-standard” speakers of American English and the everyday creative practices these speakers adopt to resist and address linguistic injustices. Her research draws upon a variety of qualitative research methods, including thematic, discourse, conversation, narrative, rhetorical-stylistics, text world theory, and corpus-based analyses. Through the study of written/spoken language—including the language of fictional learners and teachers—her work demonstrates that it is possible to gain insight into learning, teaching, and assessment and the ideologies that shape and impede each.
Degrees
- Ph.D. Second Language Acquisition & Teaching
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, United States
- Girl Talk: A Dialogic Approach to Oral Narrative Storytelling Analysis in English as a Foreign Language Research
- M.A. Advertising
- Universidad Pontificia Comillas de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Advertising Strategy for the Launch of Snapple Beverage Drinks in Spain (Written in Spanish)
- B.A. Sociology
- Stanford University, Palo Alto, California, United States
- Decision Making in International Advertising
Work Experience
- University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona (2023 - Ongoing)
- University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas (2022 - 2023)
- University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas (2014 - 2022)
Interests
No activities entered.
Courses
2024-25 Courses
-
Applied Esl
ENGL 693A (Spring 2025) -
Second Lang Acqsn Thry
ENGL 615 (Spring 2025) -
English Lit with an Accent
ENGL 347 (Fall 2024) -
Top in Sec Lang Teaching
ENGL 596O (Fall 2024)
2023-24 Courses
-
Applied Esl
ENGL 693A (Spring 2024) -
Second Lang Acqsn Thry
ENGL 615 (Spring 2024)
Scholarly Contributions
Chapters
- Thomas, M. B. (2023).
Dumbledorisms: The Idiosyncratic Style of a Hogwarts Headmaster.
. In Potterversity: Essays Exploring the World of Harry Potter(pp 215-229). McFarland. - Thomas, M. B. (2023). The ethical effects of voice-over narration on a victim testimonial: A text-world analysis of ‘The Bed Intruder’ meme. . In The Linguistics of Crime(pp 174-193). Cambridge University Press.
- Thomas, M. B., & Carvajal Regidor, M. (2020).
Culturally responsive pedagogy in TESOL.
. In Contemporary Foundations for Teaching English as an Additional Language: Pedagogical Approaches and Classroom Applications(pp 91-99). Routledge. - Thomas, M. B. (2018).
The girl who lived: Exploring the liminal spaces of self-study research with textual critical partners.
. In Pushing boundaries and crossing borders: Self-study as a means for knowing pedagogy(pp 327-333). - Waugh, L. R., Valencia, J. A., Do, T. H., Michelson, K., & Thomas, M. (2013).
Meaning in Texts and Contexts
. In The Oxford Handbook of the History of Linguistics(pp 612-634). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585847.013.0028
Journals/Publications
- Thomas, M. (2024). Con Artist: Non-Cosplay Participation at Popular Culture Conventions as an Arts-Based Method of Inquiring Into Resistance and the Undoing of Rules. Qualitative Inquiry, 30(2). doi:10.1177/10778004231176095More infoI conduct an inquiry into my participation as an African American woman at two popular culture conventions, the 2017 Dragon Con (Atlanta) and the 2018 annual general meeting of the Jane Austen Society of North America (Kansas City). Through a methodological approach to Con-ing—attending a popular culture convention—as arts-based inquiry and utilizing techniques of autoethnography, I inquire into my participation in spaces that, while intended to be havens of adult play, reproduce and reinforce discourses and material practices that can limit the play and participation of marginalized Others.
- Thomas, M., & Rosenberg, A. (2024). Teachable moments in support of K-12 social and emotional learning in the TESOL Practicum. TESOL Journal. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.911
- Thomas, M. (2023). The stories teachers tell and the knowledge dilemmas they reveal. Teaching and Teacher Education, 132, np.
- Thomas, M. B. (2022). Dialogue as Black contemplative practice.. Journal of Contemplative Inquiry. Special Issue: “Transcendent wisdom and transformative action: Reflections from Black contemplatives”.
- Thomas, M. B. (2021). A testimonial injustice ‘out here in the projects’ – Misrecognising victimhood in the bed intruder meme. Journal of Language and Discrimination, 5(2), 142-165.
- Thomas, M. B. (2021). The everyday creativity of authentic classroom assessments. LEARNing Landscapes Journal, 14(1), 393-407. doi:https://doi.org/10.36510/learnland.v14i1.1039
- Thomas, M., & Carvajal Regidor, M. (2021). From "Slow" to "Being 'Lazy' and Slowing Down" and the Impact on Student Learning. Teaching and Learning Inquiry, 9(2).
- Thomas, M. (2020). Rendering the untellable, tellable: The cooperative work of face in conversational storytelling. Narrative Inquiry, 30(2), 364-380.
- Thomas, M. (2020). Virtual Teaching in the Time of COVID-19: Rethinking Our WEIRD Pedagogical Commitments to Teacher Education. Frontiers in Education, 5.
- Thomas, M. (2019). "I Solemnly Swear that I Am up to No Good": Mapping My Way through TESOL Teacher Education. Studying Teacher Education, 15(1), 82-92.
- Thomas, M. (2018). Harry Potter and the Border Crossing Analogy: An Exploration of the Instructional Use of Analogy in a TESOL Methods Course. The Teacher Educator, 53(3), 277-292.
- Thomas, M. B. (2018). Trauma, Harry Potter, and the demented world of academia. . Journal of Educational Thought, 51(2), 184-203. doi:https://doi.org/10.11575/jet.v51i2.58452
- Thomas, M., Warren, H. V., & Russell, A. D. (2018). The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly of Pedagogy in Harry Potter: An Inquiry Into the Personal Practical Knowledge of Remus Lupin, Rubeus Hagrid, and Severus Snape. The Clearing House: A Journal of Educational Strategies, Issues and Ideas, 91(4-5), 186-192.
- Thomas, M. B. (2016). A dialogic approach to supervision in the practicum.. The Advocate—Journal of the Association of Teacher Educators, Kansas (ATE-K), 23(2). doi:https://doi.org/10.4148/2637-4552.1036
- Thomas, M. (2013). The problematization of racial/ethnic minority student participation in U.S. study abroad. Applied Linguistics Review, 4(2), 365--390.
Proceedings Publications
- Thomas, M. B. (2009).
WORDS AS WEAPONS: The metaphorical attack of Michelle Obama in US print headlines (A critical discourse analysis).
. In Symposium on Language and Society in Austin (SALSA), 38-49.
