Overview
Razima Selim Chowdhury is a Teaching Professor of Bangla in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University and the recipient of the 2026 Sophie Washburn French Teaching Award for excellence in language instruction. She holds an M.A. in TESOL from the Institute of Education, University College London, where she was awarded the prestigious Centenary Scholarship. She also holds an M.A. in Applied Linguistics and ELT and B.A. in English from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Razima has devoted her career to advancing the teaching and learning of Bangla as a world language. Her teaching, scholarship, and curriculum development focus on Bangla language pedagogy, heritage language education, Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP), healthcare communication, and proficiency-oriented instruction. Her pedagogical approach is informed by commitments to social justice, historical awareness, cultural inclusivity, and community engagement, encouraging students to explore language as a lens for understanding the broader social, cultural, and historical worlds of South Asia. Her innovative curricula integrate Bengal’s art, textile traditions, popular culture, and media discourse as authentic resources for language learning and intercultural inquiry. At Cornell, she teaches Bangla language and culture courses at all proficiency levels and has developed specialized courses, including BENGL 1200: Bangla for Communication in Healthcare, which prepares students to communicate effectively with Bangla-speaking communities in healthcare and public health settings.
Prior to joining Cornell in 2019 as a Senior Lecturer, she served as Deputy Director and Senior Lecturer at the Bangla Language Institute at Independent University, Bangladesh, where she developed curricula, trained instructors, and directed intensive language programs for Fulbright, Boren, FLAS, and Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) participants. She also directed the U.S. Department of State’s Critical Language Scholarship Bangla Program in Dhaka, overseeing curriculum design, faculty development, and immersive language-learning experiences. Earlier in her career, she served as a Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant (FLTA) at Syracuse University, where she helped teach Bangla to students at Syracuse and Cornell via videoconferencing.
Razima’s leadership in less commonly taught language education extends beyond Cornell. Since 2016, she has taught and held leadership positions at the South Asian Summer Language Institute (SASLI) and the Wisconsin International Summer Language Institutes (WISLI) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Her roles included Less Commonly Taught Languages (LCTL) Pedagogy Coordinator, Language, Pedagogy, and Culture Coordinator for SASLI and the South Asian Flagship Language Initiative (SAFLI), Interim Academic Director of WISLI in 2025, and WISLI Academic Coordinator in 2026. In these leadership positions, she has provided pedagogical oversight for intensive language programs spanning South Asian, Southeast Asian, Central Asian, Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and Portuguese languages; mentored instructors; conducted program evaluation and classroom observations; led teacher training workshops; supported curriculum development and assessment; and coordinated professional development initiatives focused on proficiency-oriented instruction. She has worked closely with dozens of language instructors across a wide range of languages and proficiency levels, helping to strengthen instructional quality, promote best practices in language teaching, and support innovative curriculum development across the LCTL community.
Razima Selim Chowdhury is an ACTFL-certified Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) Tester and Writing Proficiency Test (WPT) Rater for Bangla and has extensive experience in language assessment, curriculum development, and teacher training. Her current scholarly interests include heritage language learner development, Languages for Specific Purposes (LSP), healthcare communication, domain analysis, AI-assisted language learning, and community-engaged language education.
In addition to her teaching and research, she has worked extensively as a translator and interpreter in both Bangladesh and the United States. Her language services have supported organizations in public health, mental health, immigration law, education, development, and governance. She has provided healthcare and legal interpretation for limited-English-proficient clients and contributed translation and localization work for projects involving government agencies, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations.
Razima currently serves as Cornell University's representative to the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies (AIBS), a member of the Language Committee of the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), a member of the Steering Committee of Cornell’s South Asia Program, and a Language Representative on the Board of Trustees of SASLI at UW-Madison.
