Saiful Akmal is a Professor at the Faculty of Education and Teaching, Ar-Raniry State Islamic University, Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Recently, Saiful has been promoted to Professor, effective on August 1, 2023. He completed his Master's Degree from the Department of Applied Linguistics, University of Liverpool, England in 2007, and earned his Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2014 from Johan Wolfgang von Goethe University of Frankfurt, Germany in the field of Language and Culture.

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In addition to teaching, Saiful is also involved in the development sector during tsunami recovery and rehabilitation efforts in the Aceh community development program at AIPRD-AUSAID and the Aceh Society Task Force (ACSTF). He was the Executive Director of The Aceh Institute in 2018-2020, appointed as the Head of the Aceh German Alumni Association (PAJ) in 2018-2021, Senior Program Officer at the International Center for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS) and Returning Expert - GIZ Germany, in 2016-2018. Saiful is also active in initiating community social foundations such as establishing https://padebooks.com/ (2016), Indonesian Intellectual Lantern (2019), SEKATA Agency Translation (2021), E-Trust (2022). He serves also at other international boards such as serving as a country expert is V-Dem University of Oslo, Norway, a research assistant for Southeast Asian Studies at the Johan Wolfgang von Goethe University of Frankfurt. Currently Saiful was also selected as one of the young scientists at ALMI (Indonesian Academy of Young Scientists), a participant in the International Deans Course (IDC) and University Leadership Training (UniLEAD) organized by the DAAD-Germany and a participant in the Australian Indonesian Muslim Exchange Program (AIMEP) Intercultural Course and English Medium of Instruction (EMI) Pathfinder Project from the British Council.

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As a researcher, he has published a number of articles, among others "The challenges and strategies of Islamic school mentor teachers in implementing ELT lesson plans," "Here comes the Acehnese Gen-Z! Language and identity in social media communication," "Engaging to Nurturing: English Language Teaching Strategies and Constraints for Very Young Muslim Learners at Kindergarten in Aceh," "Illocutionary Acts in Religious Discourse: The Pragmatics of Nouman Ali Khan's Speeches," Investigating students' interest on reading journal articles: Materials, reasons and strategies,” and “The Discourse of Propaganda in Traveloka's YouTube Advertising Videos.”

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