Past Seminars

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.

This seminar will first present an anti-plagiarism intervention programme, called UPCC, and its effectiveness in developing junior secondary school students’ understanding of plagiarism and their ability to avoid plagiarism in project-based learning (PjBL); then with an analysis of a corpus of Chinese-medium interim texts collaboratively composed by the students on a group work platform (PBworks), we will show how the learners used and cited sources, in ways that leave room for pedagogical intervention. Implications will be discussed in relation to the design of PjBL, creation of source-use guidelines, in-service teacher education, and future research.

This talk explores the tensions and complexities of developing second language teachers and teacher educators’ understanding of assessment literacy through a collaborative action research project in the context of language assessment reform in Hong Kong. Drawing on the principles of critical discourse analysis and social theories, I will share textual data from the study (interviews, emails and meeting transcripts) and examine school-university collaboration through the lens of praxis to show how teachers and teacher educators learnt together as professionals – what worked and what didn’t work. Findings and implications for school-university partnership as praxis for the professional development of language teachers in the context of education reform will be discussed.

People from less advantaged social backgrounds, ethnic and culturally diverse groups remain under-represented in medicine worldwide (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2011; BMA, 2009). Although Widening Access (WA) programmes have been implemented to encourage applicants from diverse social backgrounds, recent evidence from the United Kingdom indicates that those from less affluent backgrounds remain less likely to apply and less likely to gain an accepted offer to study medicine than applicants from more “traditional” backgrounds (Steven et al., 2016). This paper investigates how language use from within medical schools contributes to social exclusion in medical education. By examining authentic data from interviews with Medical Admissions Deans from 26 UK medical schools, this paper considers the linguistic barriers to reducing inequality in medical education. Critical Discourse analysis is employed in order to identify the construction of ‘othering’ discourse in statements that refer to students undertaking WA programmes. The results indicate that language use serves to maintain prejudice and block reform of WA practices. This highlights prevalent social development barriers and a need for a review of language use in medical education to promote inclusivity and reduce social inequality.