Past Seminars

The aims of this paper are threefold. First, it describes the design of the enhanced version of the Essay Critiquing System (ECS2.0) for English writing, drawing on second language acquisition theories. Then it reports and compares the writing behaviours, responses to the system feedback and performances of 89 Secondary 3 and 4 students aged 13-16, representing high, mid and low English proficiency levels of three secondary schools in Hong Kong, after using the system in five workshops. With reference to the Paired Samples Test results, the three groups of students demonstrated a statistically significant difference (p<.05) in the timing of seeking their initial feedback from the system, and improvement in content score over the period of the study. The recorded verbal protocols of 12 students revealed the ways they incorporated the system feedback into their writings and revisions. Finally, students highly rated the usefulness of the system, and valued the frequent and comprehensible writing feedback. The quantitative and qualitative data and students’ responses provided useful learning-related information for teachers and schools to understand students’ learning process and progress, and could help them make informed pedagogical decisions to optimize opportunities for computer-supported English writing and learning in their contexts.

In this paper, I seek to deconstruct the discourses that naturalise and normalise what I call ‘postcolonial desires for colonial English’, a phenomenon observed in many officially post-colonial or independent societies, as well as in contexts themselves considered imperial powers. I do this first by tracing the historical origins of the gradual inscription of these desires upon the subjectivities and cultural imaginaries of the colonised by analysing the historical processes of imperialism, colonialism and Cold War structures, and the cultural and psychological aftermath of such processes. I conclude by outlining what is needed to interrupt the working of the effects of these processes at the level of subjectivity and cultural imaginary, and propose new ways of reconstituting desires in learning languages in multilingual contexts without subscribing to historical or contemporary hierarchies of languages.

This study explored the processes of utilization of resources in secondary students’ self-regulated strategic writing for academic studies in an English as medium of instruction context in Hong Kong. Drawing on multiple data sources collected through the observation of lessons, stimulated recall and semi-structured interviews, the study examined the features of six secondary students’ self-regulated writing with focus on how they used resources strategically to overcome challenges in academic writing. Self-regulated strategic writing processes of high achievers and underachievers were compared in the analysis. Differences were found in the ways resource utilization unfolded in the learners’ self-regulated writing activities. Seven processes, namely, noticing, selecting, reorganizing, evaluating understanding, reviewing and memorizing, imitating, as well as adapting, were found in the high achievers’ self-regulated writing, while only imitating and reorganizing were identified in the case of underachievers. Differences were also found in terms of why and how the high achievers and the underachievers imitated and reorganized resources. The study suggests that underachievers should be encouraged to reflect on their self-regulated writing processes and language teachers can help these students to deploy strategies in ways high achievers use them.

In this seminar, I will first outline the reasons why the Hong Kong SAR government’s biliteracy and trilingualism (兩文三語) policy since 1997 is such a tall order, before reviewing empirical evidence in support of alternative measures in our language-in-education policy. The nature of the challenge will be elucidated by examining various critical issues from multiple perspectives: linguistic, sociolinguistic, psycholinguistic, and curricular. I will then briefly review recent research in neurolinguistic research, with a view to addressing a key question at the level of language policy and planning: Is there room for rethinking the priority of language learning and enhancement support for Cantonese-dominant students at earlier life stages?

This talk will argue that in some contexts, policies and ideologies of language revival which claim to be empowering disadvantaged populations may actually be more closely linked to furthering nationalist agendas. Drawing on interviews and policy analysis, this talk examines how nationalists in both Kazakhstan and Mongolia make use of ideologies of linguistic/ethnic threat and revival to justify potentially exclusionary policies. In Kazakhstan, post-independence promotion of the Kazakh language after its suppression during the Soviet Union has come hand in hand with policies which centralize power among the ethnic Kazakh elite. In Mongolia, discourses about encroaching threats, primarily from China, are used to justify a strain of nationalism centered on keeping the nation “pure” and a glorification of selected national symbols, including the Mongolian language and traditional script. This talk will consider in what ways such discourses are different from or similar to language revival movements which have typically been celebrated by linguists and the general public. Overall this research demonstrates that a critical perspective is necessary to show how framing languages as threatened or reviving can participate in potentially exclusionary nationalist agendas.