Past Seminars

Talk 1: Measuring Thai Medical Teachers’ Readiness for English-Medium Instruction (by Dr. Navaporn Snodin)

Abstract

English-medium instruction (EMI) is becoming increasingly common in medical education across Thailand, yet how ready medical teachers feel to teach through English and how they navigate the realities of EMI classrooms remains underexplored. This talk draws on a mixed-methods study investigating Thai medical educators’ readiness and lived experiences with EMI. I will highlight emerging patterns from both survey and interview data that reveal the complexity of teaching medicine in multilingual, internationalised contexts. Rather than focusing solely on the English language, the discussion invites reflection on how institutional policies, disciplinary norms, and classroom practices intersect to shape inclusion and instructional quality. The talk will consider what meaningful support for EMI teachers might look like in practice and how such initiatives could strengthen international medical education in Thailand and beyond.

Talk 2: The vocabulary teacher’s competencies (VTC) framework (by Dr. Clarence Green)

Abstract
How do we best train k-12 teachers to deliver high quality vocabulary instruction? This question motivated me and Professor Averil Coxhead (developer of the Academic Wordlist) to conceptualise a competency framework for effective vocabulary teaching. In this talk, I’ll discuss our proposed Vocabulary Teachers’ Competencies (VTC) framework, based on an integrative review of consensus areas around the knowledge, skills, and dispositions that support effective vocabulary teaching. The VTC organizes teacher training into three domains: 1) Knowledge of Vocabulary Research and Resources, 2) Vocabulary Analysis and Instructional Skills, and 3) Professional and Socio-cultural Capabilities. Each domain involves six competencies. The VTC provides a flexible, non-prescriptive reference point for teachers and teacher-educators that can adapt to evolving research. This framework can support program planning in pre-service teacher preparation, serve as a self-assessment tool for individual teachers, and guide in-service professional development. By thinking through the competencies that teachers need to deliver effective vocabulary, the VTC aims most of all to enhance classroom outcomes for students.

As artificial intelligence becomes increasingly integrated into educational assessment, its impact on teachers’ own professional development remains underexplored. This seminar presents findings from a multi-case study of six senior high school EFL teachers in China who used the AI tool Wen Xin Yi Yan to support L2 writing assessment. While AI tools are often assumed to enhance instructional practices, the study found that only those teachers who engaged in both proactive interaction with the AI and reflective meaning-making experienced growth in their assessment literacy. This dual process, termed interactional reflexivity, emerges as a key mechanism for utilising AI not just for student assessment, but for teacher learning. The seminar will unpack this concept and discuss its implications for AI-integrated teacher development, responsible tool use, and the evolving role of assessment literacy in the digital age.

In this talk, I examine the mediating role of language and semiotics in shaping the interaction between individuals and social worlds, particularly in the ongoing process of exploring and defining selves across physical/digital spheres. I address three interconnected domains. First, I consider how acculturation, gender, and identity intersect in everyday linguistic practices, and how immigrant communities across generations mobilize diverse resources to construct pathways of belonging. Second, I turn to youth cultures, exploring how youth digital trans-literacies (Gu et al., 2025) on social media shape self-concept clarity and well-being. Third, I present how social media content demonstrate the ways sentiment, emotion, and linguistic features influence audiences’ responses and experiences. Taken together, these perspectives underscore the need for an interdisciplinary lens to capture the complex interplay among self, content, and environment.

Moving beyond native-speakerism in L2 pronunciation teaching: The development of an intelligibility-oriented approach

Abstract: The nativeness and intelligibility principles are two contradictory perspectives that have influenced L2 pronunciation research and pedagogy. While a ‘native-speaker’ ideology is often found in English language education, researchers have argued that pronunciation learning/teaching should prioritise features essential for intelligibility in international communication, where L2 speakers are the main interlocutors. From an intelligibility perspective, it is important to adopt an approach to pronunciation teaching based on the local variety while addressing both local and global communicative needs. Using Hong Kong as a case of exemplification, this presentation illustrates the development of such an approach, beginning with an existing local variety (Hong Kong English) and refining it towards one that enhances intelligibility in international communication. The approach is informed by findings from research projects that investigated language use, attitudes, and identities in Hong Kong; the linguistic features and variation of Hong Kong English; educational policies and practices; and teachers’ perspectives.

Specifically, the developmental sequence includes (1) understanding the global-local sociolinguistic context, (2) exploring current learning/teaching practices in L2 pronunciation (e.g., curricula, assessment, school practices, teachers’ perceptions and practices), (3) determining priorities in pronunciation teaching based on features of the local English variety, and (4) integrating teaching priorities in pronunciation learning/teaching in the areas at curriculum, institutional and classroom levels. Moving beyond the longstanding native-speaker ideology, this framework enables any English variety to effectively engage in international communication by considering a wide range of contextual factors such as language use, attitudes and identity, targets of English teaching, variations in the speech community, and the existing educational policy and practice. It encourages practitioners to critically reflect on their own sociolinguistic environments and roles in shaping pronunciation instruction.

Awareness of neo-coloniality in English(-medium) education policy
Abstract: Policy orientations are usually rooted in ideological positions that may be visible or remain invisible to most people. English language education, in particular, is predominantly shaped by certain contemporary ideologies as well as colonial legacies. Therefore, it has been argued that there is a need for awareness of possible (neo)colonial elements in teaching and learning English beyond the image of a neutral global lingua franca. In this presentation, first I discuss the pressing need for critical and decolonial perspectives in policies of English-medium education, considering that in many places it is a still emerging rather than a fully shaped area. Then, I present the findings from the qualitative content analysis of a set of official policy documents related to English language teaching and English-medium teaching in Hong Kong schools, showing that despite the emphasis on ‘biliterate-trilingual policy’, English appears to enjoy a dominant status. Finally, I elaborate on the higher education–school education nexus in terms of the influence of English-medium education on fostering the dominant status of English and explain the ‘ebb tide effect’ of widespread university English-medium programs on heightening the English language learning fever at school and even pre-school level. Such an effect may bear significant messages about the need for critical, decolonial awareness in the policy (and practice) of English education and English-medium education.

Talk 1: Internationalising Higher Education through Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL): Experiences from a UK–HK Teacher Education Partnership (by Nicole Tavares & Dr. Jim Chan)

Abstract:
With recent technological advancements, COIL has become an increasingly popular model of international exchange in higher education. This approach promotes virtual international collaboration, fosters foreign language/content learning, and enhances intercultural awareness via the pedagogical principles of co-developed learning/teaching practices, shared learning outcomes, and deep collaboration. This webinar showcases how COIL can be applied to internationalise teacher education through a postgraduate course jointly organised by a Hong Kong/UK university. It reports on the COIL experiences of two cohorts of MA(TESOL) students (n=83/69) in a core module, English Language Teaching Methodology, offered by two universities, one in Hong Kong and the other in the UK. The COIL initiative sought to broaden the multilingual student-teachers’ repertoire of TESOL methodological practices, strengthen their multicultural competencies and sharpen their collaboration skills. With micro-teaching as the shared goal, they engage in collaborative lesson planning and material design, peer feedback, video annotation and joint reflections through various synchronous/asynchronous activities.

Adopting an action research framework, the teacher-educators sought ways to leverage the student-teachers’ COIL experiences in two cycles (12 weeks each). Data were collected via web-based interactions in spoken and written forms, artefacts of the student-teachers’ work (lesson plans/teaching materials), video-recorded teaching practice, questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, reflective (video) essays, and observational notes. The findings reveal the participants’ notable pedagogic gains and personal growth despite several challenges. The paper highlights the strategies that were found to work to good effect in heightening their multicultural awareness, fostering professional exchanges and peer learning in the target language, and honing their communication/collaboration skills. It concludes by discussing how COIL activities can be strategically devised and implemented using a task-based approach, how learner empowerment can be advocated, and how combining synchronous/asynchronous methods can enhance multicultural awareness.

Talk 2: An Inclusive and Multiliteracies-Informed Virtual Exchange Pedagogy
Through Digital Cultural Artefacts (by Dr. Müge Satar)

Abstract:
Virtual exchange (VE) plays a pivotal role in the internationalisation of higher education (O’Dowd & Beelen, 2021). While pedagogical models such as COIL (Rubin & Guth, 2023) and telecollaboration (O’Dowd & Ware, 2009) have been widely adopted, there are few examples of VE research and practice on inclusive approaches through co-creation, sharing, appropriation and re-enactment of digital cultural artefacts from various cultures. This talk introduces the ENACT VE model, which leverages a task-based digital pedagogy informed by multiliteracies (The New London Group, 1996) to foster social interaction and intercultural dialogue. By examining three implementations of the ENACT VE model at Newcastle University between 2020-2022, this talk presents three configurations (synchronous and asynchronous; individual and co-created), tasks and procedures. The findings show the impact of these configurations on outcomes and how the ENACT web app supports inclusive VE practice.