Learners' Experience
Featured Colloquia > Learners' Experience
Dr Chris Davison
University of Hong Kong
China
Chris Davison is currently Associate Dean (Research) and an Associate Professor in English Language Education in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. She has worked for many years in English language teacher education in the Asian-Pacific region, and has published widely in the area of curriculum and assessment in English as a second language medium contexts, with recent articles in Journal of Bilingualism and Bilingual Education, Language Policy and Linguistics and Education. Her most recent books are on ESL in the mainstream (Longman Pearson, 2001), English language teaching in China (Continuum Press, 2007, with Xinmin Zheng) and internationally (Springer, 2007, with Jim Cummins). She is co-convenor of the HKU Constituent Theme - Languages, Media and Communication: Language in Education and Assessment with Dr Steve Andrews, and currently leading a team of researchers investigating language attitudes and practices in tertiary education.
Prof Patsy Duff
University of British ColumbiaCanada
Patsy Duff is Professor of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. Her areas of interest include language socialization in multilingual settings, issues in the teaching and learning of English and other international languages, integration of ESL students in high school, university, and society and sociocultural and sociopolitical aspects of language(s) in education. Her recent/forthcoming books include Case Study Research in Applied Linguistics (Erlbaum, 2007), and Language Socialization (Vol. 8, Encyclopedia of Language and Education, co-edited by Nancy Hornberger, Springer, 2007).
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Dr Svetlana Chigaeva
University of Hong KongChina
Svetlana Chigaeva is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Education at the University of Hong Kong. Before joining HKU, she taught academic English courses at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where she also pursued her doctoral studies in applied linguistics. Her research and teaching interests have focused on the question of how non-native-English-speaking students learn English and through English in English-medium universities. She is also interested in qualitative research methodologies and activity theoretical approaches to literacy research.
Dr Andy Gao
Hong Kong Institute of EducationChina
Andy Gao has recently completed his doctoral study in applied linguistics at the English Centre/Faculty of Education, the University of Hong Kong. His research interests include language learning strategy, learners’ learning narratives and teacher development. He is now an assistant professor in the Department of English, Hong Kong Institute of Education.
Dr Yongyan Li
City University of Hong KongChina
Yongyan Li has previously taught in Mainland China and is currently a researcher based at the City University of Hong Kong where she obtained her PhD in 2006. Her areas of research interest include scholarly literacy, academic discourse, and second language writing. She has published widely on the problems of Chinese novice scientists writing for publication in English. She is a 2007 recipient of the Ruth Crymes TESOL Academies Fellowship and the 2008 recipient of the TESOL Award for Distinguished Research.
Dr Sandra Zappa-Hollman
University of British ColumbiaUK
Sandra Zappa-Hollman recently finished her PhD in Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. Her doctoral studies focused on the second language literacy socialization of international Spanish-speaking exchange students in Canada. At present, she teaches in the UBC-Ritsumeikan Academic Program as well as in the Modern Language Education Program at UBC.
Mr Jeremie Seror
University of British ColumbiaUK
Jeremie Seror is a doctoral student in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His research examines the socialization of language minority students into academic literacy practices. His most recent work explores the impact of content instructors' feedback practices on L2 writing.
Dr Sue Starfield
University of NSW
Australia
Sue Starfield is Director, The Learning Centre, The University of New South Wales, and a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Linguistics. She is co-author with Brian Paltridge of Thesis and Dissertation Writing in a Second Language: A Handbook for Supervisors (Routledge 2007). Her current research interests include advanced academic writing, postgraduate pedagogy and issues of identity in academic writing and language learning.
Abstracts
Learners’ Experiences in the Tertiary Context: A Language Socialization Perspective
This two hour colloquium examines issues connected with academic discourse socialization in oral or written modes for English language learners in English-medium courses at tertiary institutions in Chinese and non-Chinese educational contexts. The four presentations explore the ways in which students are (or are not) socialized into the language and literacy practices valued in their new academic communities, from the learners’ own perspectives. The discussant then concludes the colloquium by discussing both common themes and differences across the studies and some implications for future research and professional development.
Learners' Experiences of Language Socialization across English-medium University Courses
by Prof Patsy Duff, Mr Jeremie Seror, and Dr Sandra Zappa-Hollman
With the increasing number of students studying abroad for short sojourns, combined with such factors as internationalization of English-medium university campuses and the need to accommodate a linguistically diverse local student population, applied linguists and educators must look more closely at language and literacy socialization processes and expectations for English language learners in academic content areas. Research that documents socialization from the learners' own perspectives provides important insights into the growing phenomenon of studying through another language at university, the challenges, the cultural mismatches in expectations in some cases, and the possibilities for learning from English language learners and their local peers and instructors. In this presentation, we briefly outline several related studies at one English-medium university that examined the experiences of students vis-a-vis both oral and written language socialization. Students included Korean, Japanese, and Mexican undergraduates enrolled in academic coursework during exchange programs hosted by a Canadian university. Oral language socialization took many forms, including the need to take part in small discussion groups and present group oral presentations; written socialization took the form of a variety of written assignments and formative and summative feedback provided on written work. Rather than present the details of each sub-study, we provide an overview of themes and issues that emerged at this particular university and consider the implications for other English-medium universities with diverse populations. We also suggest areas in which more explicit and more effective socialization should be provided by host universities and their instructors with respect to optimal oral and written performance by newcomers.
Discourse Socialization through Writing for Publication in English: Ethnographically-Oriented Multiple-Case Study of Chinese Novice Scientists
by Dr Yongyan Li
Recent years have seen a growing interest in language socialization studies in advanced academic settings, illuminating in particular the daunting challenges faced by ESL/non-mainstream postgraduate students in learning to participate in communities of disciplinary practice. The trend towards academic globalization and the internationalization of Asian higher education has increasingly made Asian academe a rich site of exploration into the advanced students’ discourse socialization into the English-medium academia. In my talk I will report my ethnographically-oriented multiple-case study of Mainland Chinese doctoral science students negotiating their identity of apprentice scholars through writing for publication in English. I will begin by outlining the theoretical notions of legitimate peripheral participation and community of practice as well as written texts being sociopolitical artifacts. I will then illustrate the case of the novice scientists by highlighting, firstly, the role of textual mentorship in their process of learning to recontextualise tacit expectations surrounding the linguistic and rhetorical aspects of the genre of research articles; secondly, the role of the expert members of their community of practice, i.e., supervisors and journal gatekeepers, in shaping a manuscript into the final published form; and thirdly, the critical edge to the agency of the novices as represented in their resistance toward certain conventions and power imbalance in the international academia as they perceive between the Anglophone centre and the non-Anglophone periphery. I will end by briefly discussing the methodological and pedagogical implications of my research.
Postgraduate Students’ Academic Reading Practices and Needs at an English Medium of Instruction University
by Dr Svetlana Chigaeva
Reading for academic study is an indispensible part of any tertiary education, where it is assumed to be a major source of disciplinary knowledge which students are expected to learn and reproduce. Reading is also often assumed to be very personal, happening in the mind of the reader and, hence, invisible. The purpose of this presentation is to make the invisible nature of academic reading more visible by presenting stories of several postgraduate students reading academic texts as part of their studies in a Hong Kong university. Verbal, textual, and observational data will be used to discuss those main findings which are important especially in the context of EMI institutions where students have to read academic texts in English, their second or foreign language. These findings include the need to engage in textually-mediated interactions with supervisors which may involve the use of multiple languages, conscious attempts at increasing knowledge about English through reading, and the practice of drawing on others’ linguistic resources to create new texts. Pedagogical implications stemming from these findings will also be discussed.
Beyond Language Learning Strategies: What do Mainland Chinese Undergraduates’ Language Learning Experiences within an English Medium University in Hong Kong Tell us?
by
Dr Andy Gao
English medium tertiary education in Hong Kong has recently attracted many mainland Chinese applicants in their pursuit of better education and English competence. However, most of them face daunting challenges after arrival in Hong Kong’s multilingual tertiary settings. This paper draws on a recently completed longitudinal inquiry to project a holistic picture of mainland Chinese undergraduates’ strategic language learning in an English medium university. Focusing on three study participants’ educational experiences, it illustrates how academic studies in the university provided the participants language learning/use opportunities and at the same time constrained their access to such learning/use opportunities. It also presents how the participants attempted to utilize such language learning/use opportunities and sometimes found their efforts frustrated by contextual constraints. The paper puts forward a micropolitical perspective on learners’ strategic learning, which recognizes the interests of different members in a given learning context as a key to understanding learners’ strategic learning. It contends that pedagogical efforts should empower language learners with capacities to identify appropriate contextual elements for re-configuration and establish sustainable social learning networks in the learning process.
