Faculty Publications and Conference Presentations

Peer observation in language teaching within higher education has been recognized as valuable for teacher professional development, yet teachers’ attitudes towards observation practices remain mixed. Most criticisms of the practice are related to its top-down nature, teacher time constraints, and its rigid procedure. It has also been known to cause stress and anxiety. These drawbacks of peer observation of teaching (PoT) approaches have resulted in teachers perceiving a loss of agency in the process, and to their consequent sense of disempowerment. With the purpose of redressing these issues, the Center for Language Education at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, started introducing changes to its PoT model. A variety of observation formats were provided for teachers to choose from and the importance of dialogue with a peer, and reflexive praxis were emphasized. Through data collected from a survey, semi-structured interviews, and content analysis of written reflections, this study sought to examine teachers’ views about this new approach. Results show that: a) participants found the opportunity to talk about teaching with a trusted peer of their choice particularly rewarding and b) they mostly did not avail of the different PoT formats despite indicating through the survey that they welcome these options. The latter could be due to teachers’ unfamiliarity with new ways of conducting PoT or it could be reflective of the contradictions between what they think and what they do. This paper, therefore, raises key questions about flexibility and choice in PoT and discusses these issues in detail.

<p>The genitive marker 的 li⁵⁵ in Chongqing Mandarin can also function as a coordinating conjunction. This function develops from the usage of li⁵⁵ to link numbers or quantities in calculations. Several restrictions are found on the coordinator li⁵⁵, e.g., conjuncts must be nominal and shall be all the members of a definite set; li⁵⁵ must be used between every two conjuncts and can only be used in informal registers. Similar coordinate function of genitive markers can also be found in other Sinitic languages while rarely seen in other language families, which merits further typological investigations.</p>

It has long been a challenge for teachers to provide personalised speaking training for students with limited class time and space in a physical classroom, and the pandemic has made the issue even more pronounced, under which in-person, teacher-student practices were implausible. As part of the post-pandemic new normal, the implementation of e-learning technology, particularly, Virtual Reality (VR), has become a viable solution with higher task authenticity and personalization for language and communication training. This paper begins by depicting the hurdles of teaching and acquiring communication skills for HKUST business students; the present project showcased the development and implementation of the VR mobile application, I’m IN – HKUST, in a business English course. The application encompasses 2 main functions, providing communication practices, corresponding to the needs and the majors of the business students, by VR trainers and introducing job-seeking related topics (in the form of mini-lessons). It also provides standardised feedback based on self-reported performance levels, integrated as a blended reflective learning task. Users’ surveys, field observations and focus group interviews were conducted within HKUST, and the results indicated that the introduction of VR technology enhanced the teaching and learning of business communication successfully.