Faculty Publications and Conference Presentations

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。

<p>Comprehension of metaphorical expressions differs with their degree of novelty. Conventional metaphors are typically comprehended as easily as literal sentences, while novel metaphors are responded to less quickly than their conventional counterparts. However, the influence of metaphor signals on the interpretability and acceptability of sentences with metaphors, especially their potential interaction with novelty, remains an open question. We conducted six online experiments among 1,694 native speakers of American English to examine how interpretability and acceptability ratings of individually presented sentences were affected by metaphor novelty and different types of metaphor signals. Across all six experiments, we consistently found that novel metaphors decreased the interpretability and acceptability of sentences compared to both conventional metaphors and literal controls. Signals, on the contrary, did not impact the interpretability or acceptability of the sentences. Moreover, only in experiment 3b did we find an interaction between metaphor type and signals. Specifically, when a metaphor was marked by double signals (i.e., both lexical signals and a typographical signal were added around the metaphorical keywords) vs. no signals, acceptability of novel metaphors increased, but acceptability of conventional metaphors decreased. We hypothesize that the double signaling of novel metaphors marks their novelty, making them more acceptable. By contrast, the double signaling of conventional metaphors may have been perceived as redundant, leading to a lower acceptability.</p>

<p>To create a more collaborative and communicative learning environment, digital tools are often looked to as possible solutions. Miro, an online whiteboard, is one such tool that allows students to easily share ideas and exchange information using a range of different media. Its strengths are its ability to allow real-time sharing and creation of ideas and information between learners and teachers using a host of multimedia. However, the numerous tools and options provided by the platform does come with a learning curve. Nevertheless, Miro is a useful option for encouraging collaboration between students, giving them a workspace to freely generate ideas and share resources.</p>

<p>This study explores professionals’ construction of their multifaceted identities as representatives of their corporations in business writing. The self-mention framework is applied to explore the representation of the “business-self” which I propose encompasses the projection of individual, collective, and corporate identities. A corpus of 100 CEO's letter to shareholders was examined for the use of personal pronouns and company referential terms and collocation analysis performed to understand the surrounding discourse contexts. The findings reveal a distinct hierarchy of identities; US business professionals communicate with stakeholders by immersing themselves in the identity of the collective and make a concerted effort to project the corporate identity, whereas representation of the individual self is minimal. The study provides important insights into the identity construction work undertaken by professionals in authentic business texts and the findings can help inform English for Specific Purposes (ESP) practitioners of business communication courses in higher education.</p>

<p>This paper examines a new first-year EAP course in a Hong Kong university. It utilizes teacher and student reflections to understand the course’s strengths and weaknesses, aiming to enhance its design and delivery. The study employed a qualitative approach whereby textual analysis was used to interpret the data collected in the form of written teacher reflections, written student reflections, and notes of teacher reflective dialogue. The thematic categories for coding the data were established based on the course’s main learning outcomes: Effective Learning, Spoken Language, and Written Language. Findings reveal that teachers were more critical of the course compared to learners. Teachers expressed dissatisfaction with the pedagogical approach to Effective Learning unit, insufficient time provided in the course to teach solo speaking, and the inability to cover too many organizational and linguistic features in the writing unit. Students, however, did not have much to reflect on about Effective Learning, had mixed views about Spoken Language with some worried about reading from notes, and wrote extremely positively about their learning of Written Language. Nonetheless, their views provide valuable insights for course improvement. Consequently, the paper advocates for a reflective pedagogy approach to EAP that considers both teacher and student reflections to enhance teaching and learning outcomes.</p>

The advent of the internet has made online education more widely available and may have led to a creation of a new teaching model (Harasim, 2000). Online education’s convenience and multimedia options have also broadened the range of skills and courses that can be taught remotely. Online education continued to develop and grow throughout the 1980s and 1990s (Harasim, 2000) and with the ongoing evolution of technology, online education has become a distinct form of teaching and learning. In this context, China’s government initiated the ‘Online Education and Research Network Demonstration Project’ in 1994 (Jiang et al., 2023). In 2012, the trend of online education spread to the global higher education field, and internationally renowned MOOC platforms such as Udacity, Coursera, and EdX were gradually established (Pappano, 2012). It can be argued that the rapid expansion of online education empowers both students and teachers by breaking free from geographical and environmental constraints. However, anecdotal evidence suggests that many students and teachers are still uncertain about the quality and effectiveness of online courses and that it may negatively impact the teacher–student relationship. Also, online education may challenge traditional teacher-learner identities and relationships (Dai &amp; Matthews, 2023). There are also concerns that factors such as limited interaction, time, location and participation may affect the teacher–student dynamic and relationship (Kang et al., 2006). Therefore, this article examines the impact of online education on the relationship between teachers and students in higher education institutions in China, using both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The quantitative research findings indicate that factors such as the communication platform used, student personality, and expectations surrounding the teacher–student relationship have different effects on the relationship. Additionally, qualitative research shows that factors such as course types and major choices have both positive and negative effects on the relationship between teachers and students in Chinese higher education institutions. This article also offers recommendations to help improve the relationship between teachers and students in the context of online education in China.

<p>Previous language attitude research has paid little attention to the (para)linguistic inventory of the speech samples used for accent evaluation. As an example, this study used five Hong Kong English (HKE) voices with more or less localised features, which were assessed by 100 English language teachers in Hong Kong in a verbal-guise experiment. In addition to the closed questions used in the verbal-guise study, we asked the listener judges, in open-ended questions, to reflect on their first-hand impressions of the speakers, their perceived likability, and what in particular they had noticed in the speakers’ language. Findings show that suprasegmental features are highlighted as important for speaker identification and evaluation, whereas segmental features are not mentioned. Listener judges mention prosody (intonation, pitch and stress) as particularly salient; nativeness and level of proficiency are also highlighted. Findings are discussed vis-à-vis language attitude research methodologies, and we argue that the study has contributed towards disentangling the language attitudes processes by emphasising the salience of suprasegmetals for accent recognition and evaluation. We conclude with a call to replicate the research in other socio-cultural contexts and to include other research methods.</p>

<p>Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools such as ChatGPT with their human-like intelligence and language processing capabilities are significantly impacting the way we live, work, and communicate with each other. While scholars have increasingly focused on the use of GenAI in higher education since its inception, little is known about how key higher education stakeholders, particularly students, perceive its impact on teaching and learning within the context of academic communication, an area central to students' development of transferable skills and literacy competencies yet heavily influenced by the technology. This empirical study addresses the gap by investigating students' experiences and attitudes toward GenAI tools for English academic communication, focusing on their overall perceptions, perceived benefits, limitations, and challenges. Drawing on data from a questionnaire survey with 475 students and interviews with 12 at two universities in China, our findings indicate that students generally view GenAI positively, considering them useful for learning academic communication skills, particularly in writing, grammar, vocabulary, and reading. However, limitations are recognized in terms of giving feedback on critical thinking, creativity, and speaking skills. In addition, information reliability, ethical issues, and impact on assessment and academic integrity also emerged as important concerns. Our study argues that universities should embrace and capitalize on the affordances of GenAI and address its challenges to better support students' learning of critical academic literacy.</p>

Ugruntowane od dawna przekonanie, że język nie jest jedynym dostępnym<br/>środkiem komunikacji, przyczyniło się do wzrostu zainteresowania multimodalnością w komunikacji, którą można zastosować również w egzaminowaniu w szkolnictwie wyższym. Tradycyjnie, kursy językowe w szkolnictwie wyższym opierają się na egzaminach opartych na esejach pisemnych i prezentacjach. Jednakże pojawienie się mediów społecznościowych i sztucznej inteligencji wprowadziło wyzwania dla tych konwencjonalnych metod egzaminowania, zwłaszcza w kontekście przenoszenia nabytych kompetencji. W celu udoskonalenia<br/>egzaminowania w szkolnictwie wyższym ten artykuł proponuje wprowadzenie komponentów multimodalnych, które łączą różne tryby semiotyczne. Chociaż badacze zajmowali się już integracją multimodalności w komunikacji w projektowaniu kursów akademickich, niewiele<br/>badań dotyczyło jej praktycznego wdrożenia w egzaminowaniu i projektowaniu tychże kursów. Artykuł ten analizuje wpływ egzaminów multimodalnych na 86 studentów uczestniczących w kursie komunikacji w języku angielskim oraz przenoszenie nabytych kompetencji na inne<br/>kursy i dziedziny życia. Jako wstępne badanie w ramach dwuletniego projektu na dużą skalę, wykorzystując dane z analizy treści wywiadów jakościowych ze studentami oraz wyniki ilościowych badań ankietowych, badanie ocenia implikacje dla egzaminowania komunikacji w języku<br/>angielskim i przenoszenia nabytych kompetencji w oparciu o samoocenę studentów. Wstępne wyniki pokazują, że studenci, którzy uczestniczyli w kursie i egzaminach multimodalnych, skutecznie przełożyli różnorodne kompetencje miękkie na inne kursy uniwersyteckie i inne dziedziny życia. Badanie to wykazało również, że projekty multimodalne oparte na współpracy sprzyjają rozwojowi i transferowi kompetencji miękkich.<br/><br/>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.