Biography
My name is Lovely Paul Kweka, and I am from Tanzania. I grew up in a multilingual environment where Swahili and Chagga were part of everyday life, while English became an increasingly important part of my formal education. I earned a Bachelor of Education (Arts) from Tumaini University Makumira, with a major in Swahili and a minor in English. I later earned a Master of Science in Special Education: Research and Theory from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. My graduate studies strengthened my interest in inclusive teaching and helped me think more deeply about how students’ linguistic, cultural, and learning differences shape their classroom experiences.
I taught English and Swahili in Tanzania for several years before coming to UW–Madison in 2023 as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant. Since then, I have taught Swahili at UW–Madison, and I currently teach English 100, an introductory college composition course. Teaching across language, special education, and writing courses has broadened my understanding of how students’ backgrounds and learning experiences influence their classroom participation. It has also strengthened my commitment to supporting students with different abilities, languages, and cultural backgrounds.
My research interests lie at the intersection of second language acquisition, inclusive language teaching, and classroom discourse. I am interested in how language practices shape multilingual learners’ participation and sense of belonging, and in the relationships among language, culture, identity, and power.