CURRENT MEMBERS
Dr. Danping Wang, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Dr Danping Wang is a Lecturer in Asian Studies at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She received her BA in English and MA in Chinese Linguistics from Renmin University of China, and her doctorate at the Education University of Hong Kong. She has taught Chinese as a second and foreign language at different levels in schools and universities in Beijing and Hong Kong for over 10 years. In 2014, she was granted the Teaching Excellence Award for her innovative teaching in Hong Kong. She has been the recipient for the Sino-British Fellowship to visit the University of Cambridge (2014) and the University of Oxford (2017) in the UK. She has published extensively on research topics related to Chinese language teaching and learning, Chinese language teacher education, classroom language policy, bilingual academic literacy and so on. In 2016, her research project on Chinese as a Second Language Education for Ethnic Minority Students was fully funded by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council ($654,096HK).
Dr. Yongcan Liu, University of Cambridge
Dr. Yongcan Liu is Lecturer in Second Language Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. He is Director of the MPhil/MEd in Research in Second Language Education programme and convenes Cambridge Research in Community Language Education (CRiCLE) network. Yongcan trained as a linguist and has taught languages, education research, TESOL/Applied Linguistics courses in China, the UK and the United Arab Emirates. Broadly speaking, his research is based on two sociocultural theoretical frameworks: Community of Practice theory, from a sociological/situational perspective, focusing on issues of identity, participation and social practice, and Cultural Historical Activity Theory, which takes a socio-cognitive perspective and deals with issues such as mediation, scaffolding and potential development. He brings together these two theoretical perspectives to understand the social nature of second language teaching, learning and teacher development. His recent research is concerned with language socialisation of EAL children in transnational and migration contexts, community language education and Chinese teachers’ professional development.
Dr. Li Wei, University College London
Professor Li Wei is a Professor at University College London, and was formerly Director of Birkbeck Graduate Research School and Assistant Dean (Postgraduate Research) of School of Social Science, History and Philosophy. He was Principal Editor of the International Journal of Bilingualism (Sage), Applied Linguistics Review (De Gruyter) and Co-Editor of Chinese Language and Discourse (Benjamins) and Global Chinese. Professor Li Wei’s research interest is in the broad area of bilingualism, multilingualism, and translanguaging, early second language acquisition , speech and language disorders of bilingual and multilingual speakers, the pragmatics of codeswitching, bilingual education, and intercultural communication. His current work focuses on the creativity and criticality of multilingual speakers
Professor Hongyin Tao is Director of the Chinese language program at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prior to UCLA, he taught at the National University of Singapore and Cornell University. His areas of expertise include Mandarin discourse and grammar (e.g., Units in Mandarin Conversation: Prosody, Discourse, and Grammar, John Benjamins, 1996); applied linguistics (e.g., heritage language learning and research), and corpus linguistics (e.g., The UCLA Corpus of Written Chinese and the Lancaster-Los Angeles Corpus of Spoken Chinese). Recent projects include a special issue of The Heritage Language Journal on Chinese as a heritage language, an Online Handbook for Heritage Language Teaching, and a US Department of Education sponsored project for advanced language teaching. He is on a number of editorial boards, including the Journal of Chinese Language Teachers Association and the Heritage Language Journal. Professor Tao’s most recent articles have appeared in Language, Journal of Chinese Language and Computing, International Journal of Corpus Linguistics, and Corpus Linguistics and Linguistic Theory.
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PAST MEMBERS
University of Newcastle, Australia
Dr. Shen Chen is an Associate Professor at the University of Newcastle, Australia. He received his teacher education training at Nanjing Normal University, China and was awarded his Ph.D. degree by the Graduate School of Education at La Trobe University, Australia. He is one of the pioneer trainers of Chinese language teachers for schools in Australia. Dr. Chen has published widely in the field of language education. Two of his research books are well known in China. One is an English book entitled The teaching of cultures in foreign language education. The other is a Chinese book entitled Research on teaching strategies for learning language and culture.Dr. Chen received an Award for Excellence in Teaching and was recommended for the best university teacher in Australia by his university. He has been a visiting scholar at UBC, UC Berkeley, Cambridge University and Hong Kong University.
Ken Cruickshank is Associate Professor in Education at Sydney University. He has many years’ experience in teaching languages and ESOL at school and tertiary levels. He is on the NSW Community Languages Schools Board and has been responsible for the professional development of teachers for these schools since 2007.
He has researched and published on Chinese community languages schools in Australia and is chief researcher in a large scale project investigating the learning, teaching and use of Chinese and other languages in Australian school systems and communities. He contributed to and jointly edited with Linda Tsung Teaching and Learning Chinese in a Global Context (Continuum 2011).
Dr. Michael Everson (retired) was an Associate Professor of Foreign Language and ESL Education at The University of Iowa where he managed K-12 teacher certification programs for 8 foreign languages including Chinese. He earned his Ph.D. in Foreign Language Education from The Ohio State University. Dr. Everson’s primary research interest investigates second language reading in Chinese. He has published in a variety of foreign language outlets, and is past editor of the Journal of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. Dr. Everson has sat on the Chinese Language Teachers Association Board of Directors for two terms, the editorial board of the Modern Language Journal, and is past-President of the National Council of Less Commonly Taught Languages. He was co-editor of the (2009) book, Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language: Theories and Applications (Cheng & Tsui, Boston).
Dr. Huamei Han is an Associate Professor in TEAL (TESL/TEFL) at Faculty of Education, Simon Fraser University. Trained in Chinese linguistics, Dr. Han was a faculty member specializing in Teaching Chinese as a Second/Foreign Language at East China Normal University in Shanghai until 1999. In Canada, she taught both adults and children Mandarin-Chinese for four years, with School of Continuing Studies at University of Toronto and Toronto District School Board respectively. Dr. Han earned her PhD in Second Language Education from University of Toronto in 2007. Her current research focuses on language use and identity construction in multilingual settings, and the application and impact of Expressive Writing pedagogy on monolingual and multilingual. Dr. Han has published academically and literarily in both English and Chinese in China and Canada.
KE Chuanren (柯传仁), Professor of Chinese and Professor of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) at the University of Iowa and Zijiang Chair Professor (紫江学者) at East China Normal University, is a specialist in Chinese SLA theory and research. He is also Guest Professor of Beijing Language and Culture University Center for the Studies of Chinese as a Second Language and Guest Professor at Southeast University in Nanjing, China. His research program focuses on CFL (Chinese as a foreign language) reading (including orthography and vocabulary), assessment, grammar, and field building. Professor Ke is a two-term (1999-2000; 2010-2011) president of the national Chinese Language Teachers Association (CLTA). He was Chair of CIEE (Council on International Educational Exchange) China Policy Committee and a member on the CIEE Academic Consortium Board from 1998-2002. Since 2002, he has been Chair of CIEE Chinese Language Advisory Board. Ke has been an ACTFL-certified Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) tester since 1992 and an ACTFL-certified OPI Tester Trainer since 2000. He served as a member on the SAT II Chinese Test Development Committee from 1998-2003 and as The Less-Commonly-Taught Section Head of American Association of University Supervisors, Coordinators, and Directors of Foreign Language Programs (AAUSC) from 2001-2003. Professor Ke is Director of Confucius Institute at the University of Iowa. He edited the Routledge Handbook of Chinese Second Language Acquisition in 2018.
Dr. Jane Orton was Director of the Chinese Teacher Training Centre in the Melbourne Graduate School of Education, where she coordinated modern languages education for twenty years. A speaker of English, French and Chinese, her research interests were intercultural communication and the presentation of self in a second language, and she published particularly on kinesic expression and language learning. Her research projects included the notion of ‘appropriate’ in L2 Chinese speakers’ self-presentation, and student learning from short-term China sojourns. Jane Orton’s publications included Educating Chinese Language Teachers – Some Fundamentals, in L. H. Tsung and K. Cruikshank, Teaching and Learning Chinese in Global Contexts (London, UK: Continuum, 2011); The Current State of Chinese Language Education in Australian Schools, 3rd ed. (University of Melbourne and the Confucius Institute Melbourne, 2010); and China and English: Globalization and Dilemmas of Identity (Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2009) co-edited with J. Lo Bianco and Y.H. Gao.
Dean (Emeritus), Faculty of Education UBC
Dr. Rob Tierney was the Dean of the Faculty of Education at UBC and then Dean of the Faculty of Education and Social Work at the University of Sydney for many years. As an international scholar, he has authored books and articles on literacy education, educational assessment, teaching, and learning. His recent writing focuses on discussions of professionalism and meeting student needs in the current political climate of accountability, evidence-based practices, and meeting student needs. As a teacher educator, researcher, administrator, and former classroom teacher, Rob is very active in education initiatives throughout Canada, the Asia Pacific Region, and the US. For the past decade he has been involved in issues pertaining to the cultural politics of knowledge production and publication in China vs. Canada and the US.
Dr. Linda Tsung is Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Sydney. Her research interests are multilingualism, multilingual education, language policy, and cultural identity in Australia and Greater China. She has published more than 50 publications on these topics. Dr. Tsung is one of the Chief Investigators for the Australian Research Council funded project: Maximizing the Potential of Australia’s Language Resources: exploring and developing languages across sectors, schools and communities. She has recently co-edited a Contemporary Chinese Discourses and Social Practice in China (Benjamins 2015) and is the sole author of Language Power and Hierarchy: multilingual education in China (Bloomsbury 2014) and Minority languages, Education and Communities in China (Palgrave Macmillan 2009), which has received excellent reviews by scholars in Asia, the UK, and the USA. Her co-edited book, Teaching and Learning Chinese in Global Contexts (with Ken Cruickshank, Continuum 2010), provides research leadership in the discipline of teaching Chinese as a second language globally.
National Foreign Language Center, University of Maryland
Dr. Shuhan C. Wang (retired) was deputy director for the National Foreign Language Center (NFLC) at the University of Maryland. She was also co-principal investigator of STARTALK Project, a multiyear federally funded initiative under the National Security Language Initiatives that promotes the study and teaching of critical languages such as Arabic, Chinese, Dari, Hindi, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Turkish, and Urdu in the United States. Prior to coming to NFLC, Dr. Wang was Executive Director for Chinese Language Initiatives at the Asia Society from 2006-2009 and Education Associate for World Languages and International Education for the Department of Education, State of Delaware.
Dr. Geoff Williams was Professor and Head of the Department of Language & Literacy Education at UBC. His research and teaching interests include educational linguistics, socio-semantic variation and early literacy development, functions of grammatical description in literacy learning, and the poetics of children’s literature. He has published extensively on these topics. His research projects have included: Children Learning Orientations to Discourse Structure through Everyday Talk, Functional Grammatics for Literacy Learning, A Social Semiotic Analysis of Children’s Picture Books, Children’s Development of Knowledge about Language, and The Poetics of Children’s Picture Books.
Dr. Joe Wu was an associate professor at the University of Alberta specializing in second language acquisition and teaching methodology. After several years teaching at the Harbin Normal University, China, he earned his Master of Education and Ph.D. at the University of Alberta. His research interest lies in socio-cultural aspects of second language acquisition and bilingual education, and he has published many journal articles and book chapters in these areas. Dr. Wu was also the curriculum designer of “Learning English”, an English textbook series authorized by China’s Ministry of Education as one of the five recommended English textbooks for middle school students. He conducted research projects in Edmonton’s Chinese bilingual program, did second language teacher training, organized the Chinese Language conference and consortium, and developed policy papers and action plans for enhancing Chinese language education in Alberta and Canada. Currently, he is working on a Teachers’ Handbook for teaching Chinese in North American schools.
California State University Long Beach
Tianwei Xie (谢天蔚) Ph.D., Foreign Language Education, University of Pittsburgh
Dr. Tianwei Xie studied Russian and taught English and linguistics in China. He taught Chinese in the University of Pittsburgh, University of San Francisco and the University of California at Davis. He was Professor of Chinese at the Dept. of Asian and Asian American Studies, California State University, Long Beach. His publications included books and papers on socio-linguistics, the second language acquisition and using computers in teaching Chinese. His web site ‘Learning Chinese Online’ (http://learningchineseonline.net) is one of the most popular websites among Chinese teachers and learners.