Home > Networking & Support > Mental Lives of Language Teachers & Learners

The Mental Lives of Language Teachers and Language Learners The University of Hong Kong

The aim of this focal research area is to examine and/or explore:

to provide a forum for those interested in research relating to the beliefs, knowledge, attitudes and strategies of both language teachers and language learners, and to promote collaborative research in this area.

In relation to teachers, the focus will be on language teacher cognitions (what teachers of language believe, know, think and feel), and the relationship between those cognitions and language teachers' pedagogical practice. It will cover not only cognitions about language itself (i.e. subject-matter cognitions), but also cognitions about language teaching and learning more broadly. It will also embrace interests in, for instance, language teacher autonomy and language teacher identity.

In relation to learners, the focus will be on language learners' cognitions and metacognitions, including their beliefs about and attitudes towards language and language learning, their knowledge about language, and the relationship between such cognitions and their learning behaviours. It will therefore cover learning styles and learning strategies. It will also embrace interest in such areas as language learner motivation and autonomy.

The area encompasses the cognitions of teachers and learners of Chinese, English and any other language, and teachers and learners of both L1 and L2.


Meeting Schedule

15 May 2008 (Thursday)
1-2pm
Investigation how activities mediate peer talk in an English immersion context in China
(Presenter: Ms Liang Xiaohua, Susan, PhD candidate, Faculty of Education)

Runme Shaw 205
20 Mar 2008 (Thursday)
1-2pm
Writing book reviews
(Presenter: Agnes Lam)
Runme Shaw 205
21 Feb 2008 (Thursday)
1-2pm
Motivation and language learning as a practice for self-formation" based on Foucault's notion of ethics
(Presenter: Ms Barbara Hennig)
Runme Shaw 205
13 Dec 2007
(Thursday)
1-2pm
Learners' Metacognitive Knowledge and their Strategy Use
(Presenter: Mr Huang Junsheng)
Runme Shaw 205
15 Nov 2007 (Thursday)
1-2pm
Teacher Language Awareness - Native and Non-native Teacher Debate
(Presenter: Dr Steve Andrews)
Runme Shaw 205


Focal Group Members
(*Co-convenors)

Name Email Faculty
Dr Stephen Andrews* sandrews@hkucc.hku.hk Education
Dr Tsang Wai Lan* tsangwl@hkucc.hku.hk English Centre
Dr Stephen Matthews matthews@hkucc.hku.hk Arts- Linguistics
Dr May Wong mwongly@hkucc.hku.hk Arts- Linguistics
Prof Liz Hamp-Lyons lizhl@hku.hk Education
Ms Margaret M. Lo mmlo@hku.hk Education
Dr Yuen Man Tak mtyuen@hkucc.hku.hk Education
Dr Agnes Lam agneslam@hkucc.hku.hk English Centre
Ms Anne Storey amstorey@hkusua.hku.hk English Centre
Mr Peter Voller pvoller@hkucc.hku.hk English Centre
Mr Simon Chan drsimon@graduate.hku.hk EdD candidate, Education
Mr Mike Ladao mil@tsss.edu.hk EdD candidate, Education
Ms Monica Chen monica69@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, Education
Ms Zhao Ke (Coco) cocochao@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, Education
Ms Niu Ruiying ryniu@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, Education
Ms Pei Miao peimiao@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, Education
Mr Huang Junsheng jshhuang@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, Education
Ms Liang Xiaohua liangxh@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, Education
Ms Jessica Wan Zhongyan jessica2292@msn.com PhD candidate, Education
Ms Amanda Liu Zhaoyang amandal@hkusua.hku.hk MPhil candidate, Education
Ms Wang Xiang xiangiris@yahoo.com.au MPhil candidate, Education
Ms Barbara Hennig bbhennig@hkucc.hku.hk Language Centre/ PhD candidate, Education
Ms Yongyan Zheng yyzheng@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, English Centre
Ms Clarice Chan clarice@hkucc.hku.hk PhD Candidate, English Centre
Ms Alice Chik alice.chik@gmail.com PhD candidate, English Centre
Mr Huang Jing peterjh@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, English Centre
Mr Yafu Gong ygong@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, English Centre
Mr Clarence Wang Wenfeng wwfeng@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, English Centre
Ms Lei Xiao, Michelle leixiao@hkusua.hku.hk PhD candidate, English Centre




Research that group members are currently undertaking around the focal area

-
Teacher cognition and language awareness; teachers' subject knowledge and impact on teaching
-
Language policy and experience in China and multilingualism
-
Studying teachers' BAK about tests, testing, and assessment is coming a key issue in educational assessment innovation and washback, and in PD in assessment for teachers
-
English as a Foreign Language Teaching methodology
-
Learner autonomy/teacher autonomy on the mainland
-
ESL curriculum development and second language acquisition
-
Teacher beliefs and curriculum change on the mainland
-
Applying corpus-linguistic approach to English language learning and teaching; how to use corpora such as general-purpose corpora and learner corpora in the classroom in local secondary schools
-
Student conceptualisations of PBL in medicine; individual teacher's teaching 'philosophy' or beliefs underpin their course design and teaching
-
Learner and teacher autonomy, independent learning and language advising
-
Teacher beliefs about communicative approach in the mainland
-
Motivation of tertiary students learning German as a third language
-
Effect of the project-based learning approach on Chinese EIB (English for International Business) students' learning
-
Interlanguage involving individual language learners and supervised theses involving learner's perceptions of the languages concerned
-
Interlanguage vocabulary development; L2 vocabulary growth; learning strategies
-
Narrative inquiry of language learning and Teaching; individual differences and language learning
-
The effect of collaborative output on second language vocabulary acquisition; second language learners' cognitive processing of words in conducting collaborative output tasks
-
Grammatical consciousness-raising among local students
-
Language education (mainly EFL) and language teacher education (English)
-
Second language acquisition: language learning strategies, learning styles, and learning tasks



Constituent Theme-funded Projects

-
Visitorship of Dr Simon Borg, University of Leeds, UK, 13-19 October 2007
-
Seed funding support for the organization of the 9th International Conference of the Association for Language Awareness, 26-29 June 2008


hits since Feb 06