丁香园AV

Faculty of Education Research Hub

To learn about Faculty of Education Research and my work with colleagues in the Research Hub, please click on the following link: /education-research-hub.html

My research focus

My research encompasses the following: plurilingual/international students' learning strategies and experiences in higher education, study abroad and international education, academic literacy, and linguistic landscapes.

My higher education research ranges from small-scale ethnographic projects in linguistically diverse classes across the disciplines to a large-scale impact assessment of a first-year academic literacy program, comparing post-program GPA and retention rates of up to 80,000+ students. In recent years, I have researched teaching and learning across the disciplines in higher education, in particular, plurilingual/international students' sense of belonging, identities, and use of languages other than English (e.g., Mandarin, Cantonese, Korean, and Punjabi) as tools for learning. I have also researched instructors' pedagogical responses to cultural and linguistic diversity in their classes.

In the field of international education, I have analyzed the study abroad experiences of teachers from Japan, Taiwan, and several southeast Asian countries through post-program site visits, interviews, and analysis of reflective narratives written during and after study abroad. In my role as Associate Dean, Research and International, my focus is on the need for sustainable, ethical, reciprocal international partnerships, as well as post-program impact assessment. I am currently developing collaborative research with several global partners at institutions in Asia, Latin America, and Europe.

My research on linguistic landscapes has focused on three areas: the educational potential of linguistic landscape activities in graduate studies as a way to engage critically with multilingual communities, public pedagogy during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the linguistic landscapes of university spaces with regard to current policies of decolonization and equity. 

I also write textbooks, and am the author of Advance in Academic Writing 1 & 2, and Grammar for Academic Purposes 1 & 2, published by ERPI ELT (previously Pearson), Montreal.

And finally, I have a YouTube Channel - OnScreen Academy. The channel offers free-access short screencast videos on English language and academic writing, and has received over 275,000 views from students around the world. Here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKmMdQxeZJxzHDl6z528Q2A