Associate Professor Sue Ollerhead (Cousins)

Discipline: Language and Literacy Education

Office: H408, SPACE building, Laucala Campus

Extension number: 32694

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9905-0718 , Scopus Author ID 36603161600

Sue Ollerhead is Associate Professor of Literacy and Language Education at the University of the South Pacific. Her career spans several countries and continents and reflects a sustained commitment to linguistic and social justice in education. Prior to joining the University of the South Pacific, she held senior academic positions at the University of New South Wales and Macquarie University in Australia, where she served as Director of Secondary Education and specialised in language teacher education.

Born and raised in South Africa, with its twelve official languages, Sue developed an enduring interest in multilingualism and the role of language in shaping educational opportunity. Her professional trajectory has included roles in language teaching and educational publishing across North and sub-Saharan Africa, the United Kingdom, and Australia.

Motivated by the South Pacific’s rich linguistic and cultural landscape, Sue’s relocation to the region reflects her commitment to advancing pedagogical approaches that recognise and build upon local languages, knowledges, and epistemologies. Her work is underpinned by the conviction that theoretically and empirically informed practice is essential to ensuring learners’ linguistic, cultural, and epistemic access across all phases of education.

Her research and teaching focus on language and literacy pedagogy, culturally responsive and sustaining teaching strategies, and the explicit teaching of oracy across the curriculum. She has published widely on these themes, examining how educators can better support diverse learners through pedagogical approaches that affirm students’ linguistic and cultural identities.

Across her research, teaching, and leadership roles, Sue maintains a strong commitment to educational equity and to the transformative potential of inclusive, contextually grounded education. She is currently available to supervise PhD students with research interests in disciplinary literacies, linguistically and culturally sustaining pedagogy, and oracy development within education.

Educational Background:

PhD Education (University of New South Wales, Australia); Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (University of New South Wales, Australia); Master of Education: TESOL (University of Sydney, Australia); MA Linguistics (University of Stellenbosch, South Africa); BA: English and Journalism (Rhodes University, South Africa), CELTA (International House, Hastings, UK)

Publications and Research Outputs

Books

Ollerhead, S. (2025). Translanguaging in Australian Classrooms: Towards Plurilingual Pedagogical Knowledge in Teacher Education. Springer Nature. https://link.springer.com/book/9783032083760
Choi, J., & Ollerhead, S. (Eds.) (2018). Plurilingualism in Teaching and Learning: Complexities Across Contexts. Routledge. https://www.routledge.com/Plurilingualism-in-Teaching-and-Learning-Complexities-Across-Contexts/Choi-Ollerhead/p/book/9781138228498
Heugh, K., et al., & Ollerhead, S. (2019). Using Multilingual Approaches: Moving from Theory to Practice. British Council.

Selected Journal Articles (Please see Orcid ID for full publication list)

Ollerhead, S.; Moore-Lister, C., & Pennington, G. (2025). Translanguaging as troublesome knowledge in teacher education. TESOL in Context.

Ollerhead, S. & Pennington, G. (2024). Starting small: Engaging young learners with literacy through multilingual storytelling. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. https://doi.org/10.1177/14687984241303390
Ollerhead, S., Melo-Pfeifer, S., & Chik, A. (2023). Building a virtual transnational space for initial teacher education. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.
Choi, J., Cross, R., McLean Davies, L., Ollerhead, S., & Barnes, M. (2022). Looking towards plurilingual futures for literacy assessment. Australian Journal of Language and Literacy.
Ollerhead, S. (2019). Teaching across semiotic modes with multilingual learners: Translanguaging in an Australian classroom. Language and Education, 33(2), 106-122.
Ollerhead, S. (2019). The pre-service teacher tango: Pairing literacy and science in multilingual Australian classrooms. International Journal of Science Education.
Zaini, A., & Ollerhead, S. (2019). Reverse contrastive rhetoric in expository writing: Transfer and power relations at work. Southern African Linguistics and Applied Language Studies, 37(1), 41-61.
Ollerhead, S., Crealy, I., & Kirk, R. (2020). Writing like a health scientist: A translingual approach to teaching text structure in a diverse Australian classroom. Australian Journal of Applied Linguistics, 3(1), 77-90.
Tran, A., Burns, A., & Ollerhead, S. (2017). ELT lecturers’ experiences of a new research policy: Exploring emotion and academic identity. System, 67, 65-76.
Ollerhead, S. (2012). “Passivity or potential”: Teacher responses to learner identity in the low-level adult ESL literacy classroom. Literacy and Numeracy Studies, 20(1), 63-83.
Ollerhead, S. (2010). Teacher agency and policy response in the adult ESL literacy classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 44(3), 606-618.

Grants and Consultancies

2024: Investigating novice teachers’ multilingual beliefs and practices (Trilateral Strategic Partnership: University of Hamburg, Macquarie University, Fudan University).
2022: Building Teachers’ Pedagogical Language Knowledge (Overseas Study Scheme, Macquarie University).
2021: Building Australian Evidence on Bilingual Education (NSW Department of Education Strategic Research Fund).
2019: Multilingual Research Grant (British Council).

Awards and Fellowships

Visiting Fellowship – University of Cape Town, Institute for the Study of English in Africa (2017)
UNSW Overseas Study Program (South Africa and Brazil) (2017)
Australian Postgraduate Award (2011–2013)
Macquarie Research Excellence Scholarship (2007–2009)