Past Seminars

Increasingly around the world, children are required to learn foreign or second languages through primary school education. In this talk I begin by discussing some of the consequences of these policy decisions, and focus on the specific issue of crosslinguistic influence. Historically, researchers have examined the issue of crosslinguistic influence from the direction of the first language to the second (L1 –> L2). However, one of the consequences of lowering the age at which children are taught foreign/second languages is that it is likely their L1s are not fully developed at the time the L2 is introduced. This timing creates an opportunity for the L2 to influence aspects of the L1 (L2 –> L1). I discuss some of the research on crosslinguistic influence generally, and then present the findings of studies which show that L2 learning can influence key aspects of developing L1 skills, notably literacy. Learning a foreign/second language at primary school can, therefore, have much wider reaching consequences when introduced at younger ages in primary education contexts.

There are well-established relations from overall levels of phonological and spatial abilities to Chinese reading and mathematical competencies: people who are stronger in the former perform better on tests of the latter. However, do the rates of growth in phonological and spatial abilities also matter? This longitudinal study of Hong Kong Chinese children (aged three to six) demonstrated that growth rate in phonological awareness during the preschool years significantly predicted both Chinese reading and mathematical competencies at the end of preschool, and that growth rate in spatial perception also significantly predicted mathematical competence. These effects were over and above the overall levels of phonological awareness, spatial perception, and spatial reasoning. The findings highlight the need to provide phonological and spatial learning opportunities for preschoolers whose rates of growth in these skills are slower than those of their peers.

In this talk, we will present the Hong Kong Archive of Language Learning (HALL), the first digital archive in Hong Kong that collects, archives and disseminates stories of English learners in the city. At present, the HALL has more than 3,000 language learning narratives collected through face-to-face interviews and paper-based surveys across university campuses in Hong Kong since October 2014. The digital archive is a public-access resource that provides a holistic record of the diverse language learning and reading practices of Hong Kong learners in academic, leisure and professional settings. We will then draw on preliminary analysis of the narratives and discuss its potential as a pedagogical resource for language learners, teachers and researchers to develop English learning and teaching strategies both within and beyond the curriculum.

Based on sociocultural theory of second language acquisition (SLA), a meaningful language must be learned in conjunction with society, culture and personally relevant life experiences. However, most schools are not funded to build an English Village, and most students do not have the opportunity to study abroad. Fortunately, thanks to the rapid advances in and popularity of wireless communication and multimedia environments, language learning in a virtual reality (VR) environment have received considerable attention in the past few years. This talk will first emphasize the importance of context for L2 learning. We believe that successful second language acquisition involves the information processing theory, the sociocultural theory, and embodies cognition. Next, a series of studies from my research team working with different universities in Australia and the U.S.A. and elementary schools in Taiwan will be reviewed. The research aim is to create a virtual environment for student-centered, task-based, and self-directed learning. I will start with the construction of our 3D virtual worlds, including the NTNU campus, a zoo, a kitchen, a restaurant, etc. and move on to their applications, especially in Mandarin learning and English learning. Following these topics will be a description of another experiment, Build & Show, a platform which involved participants’ active participation in constructing buildings of their own. Overall, in this talk, two main questions will be discussed: 1) How do we construct a 3D multi-user virtual environment for language learning through acceptable and effective context? and 2) Is the virtual context able to enhance students’ language performance? Suggestions for future research will also be provided. Through this talk, I will raise many other relevant issues, such as learning in different contexts, studying abroad, language education for immigrants, human brain, etc.

A three-year study was launched in a Hong Kong secondary school to investigate the effects of the medium of instruction (MOI), specifically English and Chinese, on the learning of certificate-level physics. A total of 199 Secondary Four (S4 or tenth-grade) students, divided into three major ability groups, participated in a teaching intervention designed to determine the effects of MOI on their learning achievement and motivation. The results of conceptual assessments and physics examinations revealed Chinese to be a superior MOI in enabling low-ability students to attain a higher level of achievement, whereas English was more suitable for their high-achieving counterparts. However, little conclusive evidence regarding the role of MOI for the medium-ability groups was found. A questionnaire-based survey indicated that students were more motivated to learn physics through Chinese as the MOI (CMI) rather than English (EMI), although significant limitations to its use were identified for the topic of “Heat”. Deficiencies in the vocabulary needed for abstract scientific concepts in Chinese may account for these limitations (for instance, Chinese uses the same word, “re” (熱), for both “heat” and “hot”). Finally, follow-up interviews at the end of the study revealed a sharp contrast between the learning prospects of EMI and CMI students.