Faculty Publications and Conference Presentations

<p>British higher education institutions attract a large number of international students, especially Chinese students, to pursue degrees in the UK every year. This longitudinal mixed-methods study tracked the informal language contact and social networks of Chinese foundation program students in the UK for two terms. A Language Contact Questionnaire and a Study Abroad Social Network Survey were administered to 84 students and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 26 participants in the first term and the second term of study. Data revealed that the participants generally had a high percentage of L1 use, high academic L2 contact, and mainly L1 social networks during studying abroad, with little variation over the two terms. Their relationships with international friends were superficial and a vibrant international student community was not found. L2 topic multiplexity and online L2 contact frequency weakly predicted the total informal L2 contact at Term 1 and Term 2. This study underscores that degree-oriented SA participants may have different prioritization and leisure time routines compared with summer school participants or exchange students abroad. Thus, with an extra foundation year in the host country, the current sample seemed to prioritize academic preparation, rather than social integration.</p>

The long-established notion that language is not the only available means of communication has led to a growing interest in diverse communication modalities, which can be extended to higher education assessment. Traditionally, language courses in higher education rely on written essays and presentations for assessment. However, the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence has introduced challenges to these conventional assessment methods, because students can complete these tasks with some simple prompts for ChatGPT. To enhance higher education assessments, incorporating multimodal components that merge various semiotic modes has been proposed. While scholars have addressed the integration of multimodality into course design, few studies have explored its practical implementation in assessment and course design. This article examines the effects of multimodal assessments on 86 students enrolled in an English communication course and the transferability of assessment skills to other courses and domains. As an initial exploration of a two-year large-scale project, by utilizing data from content analysis of qualitative student interviews along with quantitative survey results, the study assesses the implications for English communication assessment and skill transferability based on students’ self-perception. Initial 4ndings reveal that students who engaged in the course and multimodal assessment effectively translated a variety of so skills into other university courses and other domains. is study also showcased that collaborative multimodal projects are conducive to so skills development and transfer.

<p>The benefits of using digital storytelling are well documented in the literature. Whether and how these advantages can be extended to digital story-writing, especially for young learners, remains underexplored. Recent advancement in technology has the potential of streamlining the stages of planning and revising in a process approach to second language writing. The present study examined how English teachers in two Hong Kong primary schools adopted a process approach to teach digital story-writing. They planned eight writing lessons for 10 Primary 3–4 classes. Students were taught to use Google Slides to write their stories on iPads and complete a recording in small groups, which were then published on an online platform. Findings from focus-group interviews, lesson observations and student writings revealed that students were highly engaged in the lessons, and their writings also had fewer grammatical mistakes. However, they rarely engaged in meaningful dialogues during group work, whilst some teachers also expressed concerns about time constraints and their own readiness to use digital story-writing, which may hinder successful implementation of this innovative approach in classroom settings. Implications of how digital story-writing can be effectively deployed on young learners are discussed.</p>

<p>The proliferation of COVID-19 fake news on social media poses a severe threat to the health information ecosystem. We show that affective computing can make significant contributions to combat this infodemic. Given that fake news is often presented with emotional appeals, we propose a new perspective on the role of emotion in the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors of the dissemination of information. We study emotions in conjunction with fake news, and explore different aspects of their interaction. To process both emotion and 'falsehood' based on the same set of data, we auto-tag emotions on existing COVID-19 fake news datasets following an established emotion taxonomy. More specifically, based on the distribution of seven basic emotions (e.g., Happiness, Like, Fear, Sadness, Surprise, Disgust, Anger), we find across domains and styles that COVID-19 fake news is dominated by emotions of Fear (e.g., of coronavirus), and Disgust (e.g., of social conflicts). In addition, the framing of fake news in terms of gain-versus-loss reveals a close correlation between emotions, perceptions, and collective human reactions. Our analysis confirms the significant role of emotion Fear in the spreading of the fake news, especially when contextualized in the loss frame. Our study points to a future direction of incorporating emotion footprints in models of automatic fake news detection, and establishes an affective computing approach to information quality in general and fake news detection in particular.</p>

<p>Collaborative digital multimodal composing (CDMC) has recently gained traction in the advent of technology-enhanced language learning, yet scant attention was paid to the influence of semiotic resources on the interaction patterns between learners. The present study attempted to fill the research gap by examining the interactions between English as a Second Language (ESL) learners in an online English for Academic Purpose (EAP) course. Using a multiple case-study design, three pairs of undergraduates completed a collaborative multimodal writing and video-making task for presentation using ZOOM. Influence of semiotic resources can be unveiled through manipulating the mode of presentation. Data of this study includes the verbal exchanges and non-verbal on-screen interactions between the participants while they are working on the tasks. Their interaction patterns were analyzed through conversation analysis and two aspects of collaborations, namely equality and mutuality, were also examined. Their interaction patterns were found to be strikingly different across both tasks, and languaging mainly serves the function of verbalization of content-related issues, such as searching for information and assembling various multimodal elements, with only rare instances of either grammar-based or lexis-based language-related episodes (LRE). Another striking finding is that pairs who are working collaboratively with balanced division and mutual contribution are less susceptible to our manipulation, as compared to those who are demonstrating a dominant-dominant or expert-novice working pattern. Implications of these findings on fostering peer collaborations during CDMC are discussed.</p>

This paper proposes the design of a course which integrates ChatGPT into Project-based Learning (PBL). It is a 12-hour Chinese language course which aims to cater to the diverse learning needs of the students in the formal Chinese language courses at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST). The design of the course empowers learners to set their own intended learning outcomes and to determine a topic for a group project which leads to a product based on their learning needs and interests. They can achieve the intended learning outcomes through exploring and accomplishing the project with the guidance of the teacher and the utilization of ChatGPT. The course objective, content and sequencing, format and presentation, and assessment are illustrated based on Nation and Macalister’s (2010) model. Through the analysis of the findings, we have identified the various roles of learners, teachers, and ChatGPT in the course. This paper provides insights into the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in language education and a useful reference for future AIintegrated course design. 本研究旨在提出一个将 ChatGPT 融合到项目式学习中的短期汉语课程设计框架。该课程共 12小时，旨在满足香港科技大学学生多样化的学习需求，尤其是他们在正式课程中无法实现的个体需求。课程初始阶段，学生可以自主设定预期学习成果，并据此确定一个小组成员皆感兴趣的项目主题及最终产出成果。此后，学生会运用 Chat GPT 进行内容和语言方面的探索，并在教师的指导下完成项目。本文基于 Nation 和 Macalister（ 2010）的语言课程设计模型，详细论述了课程目标、教学内容与组织、学习活动，以及评估方式。在研究发现中，本文总结了学习者、教师和 ChatGPT 在课程中所扮演的角色，据此分析了人工智能（ AI）工具在语言教育中的潜力，并为未来整合 AI 的中文课程设计提供了参考建议。