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Emblem of The Education University of Hong Kong
Faculty of Humanities
Department of Linguistics and Modern Language Studies
Investigating student teachers’ TPACK development for corpus technology and their self-efficacies for independent language learning and teaching: a mixed method study

Empirical corpus-based studies have demonstrated many positive outcomes in learners’ development of various language skills. However, frontline language teachers in primary and secondary schools are unfamiliar with corpus technology, mainly due to the lack of technological, pedagogical and content knowledge (TPACK) training in corpus technology. To address this knowledge gap, we have recently developed a corpus-based language pedagogy (CBLP) that blends language pedagogy with corpus technology. This proposal aims to frame training in corpus technology for student teachers within the TPACK framework to foster CBLP for effective teaching using corpus technology. This research will also provide a theoretical model by investigating how student teachers in Hong Kong and Mainland China receive TPACK training in corpus technology, and how this can influence their self-efficacies for independent language learning and teaching.


Year: 2023 - 2025

Project Leader -

Dr MA Qing Angel

Capacity: PI

Tonal effects on articulation: Acoustic analysis, ultrasound data, and articulatory synthesis

This project seeks to investigate the relationship between tongue movement and tone in speech production – two parts of articulation formerly considered independent from each other. We look at consonant-vowel coordination in Cantonese and Mandarin, two languages with respectively six and four lexical tones, under different tone and speech rate conditions. Both acoustic (formant) and articulatory (high temporal resolution ultrasound tongue imaging) data will be collected for analysis, followed by analysis-by-synthesis using VocalTractLab. Our findings will shed new lights on (i) our understanding of speech production, (ii) individual differences in articulatory control, and demonstrate (iii) the use of articulatory synthesis as a convenient tool for hypothesis-testing in articulation research.


Year: 2023 - 2025

Project Leader -

Dr LEE Kwing Lok Albert

Capacity: PI

Comparative Prosody Modelling across Languages

Two problems have remained unresolved in speech prosody research. The first one is that there are numerous rival theories that have coexisted for decades -- supporters for one do not necessarily understand the others well. The second one is that in the absence of a universally accepted framework, field linguists working with a new language could propose prosodic analyses not otherwise satisfactory to fellow researchers, in part also due to field-related practical challenges compared with lab settings. Computational modelling can be a useful tool for addressing these problems. This project seeks to promote computational modeling of fundamental frequency as a tool for (i) theory comparison and (ii) hypothesis testing and analysis *for field linguists*. Here we specifically target linguists without background in computer science or statistics.


Year: 2021 - 2023

Project Leader -

Dr LEE Kwing Lok Albert

Capacity: PI

Diagnostic Assessment of Academic Writing from Sources in English: Investigating the Mediation Effects of Self-regulatory Control Strategy and Discourse Synthesis via Structural Equation Modeling

Writing from sources is an important academic literacy skill essential for university students to succeed in academia. Nonetheless, because it involves a set of complex cognitive, metacognitive, and self-regulatory processes and strategies, it is extremely challenging. Existing research primarily focused on the cognitive processes of sourcebased writing, adopting qualitative and case-study based methods. While the research generated a nuanced understanding of the intricate mental struggles and issues during the reading-to-write process, it did not investigate the contextual and behavioural aspects of the process, such as the regulation of time, environment and motivation. There is also a paucity of research adopting quantitative means to connect important antecedent, process and outcome variables to generate a comprehensive picture with sufficient clarify to guide practice and further research. The proposed study will attempt to address the above gaps in the literature.


Year: 2021 - 2023

Project Leader -

Dr XIE Qin

Capacity: PI

Third language (L3) phonological development for multilingual learners in the Chinese context

In Hong Kong, multilingualism is prevalent, where citizens have Cantonese as their first language (L1), Mandarin and English as their second (L2) or third language (L3). Previous studies pointed out that the language acquisition of a multilingual is nonlinear and dynamic (Jessner, 2008), and L3 speakers possess a greater repertoire than L2 speakers in terms of cognitive flexibility, phonetic-phonological articulatory, perceptual knowledge and language-learning awareness that helps L3 learners better acquire a new language (Gut, 2009). Regarding the complexity of language teaching and acquisition, this project aims to examine the interaction amongst L1, L2, and L3 and provide in-depth insights for language teachers and learners in Hong Kong and researchers worldwide.


Year: 2020 - 2022

Project Leader -

Dr CHEN Hsueh Chu Rebecca

Capacity: PI

A Self-Regulated and Personalised Vocabulary Learning Approach Mediated by Mobile Technologies for University Students

Effective learning of second language (L2) vocabulary hinges on the learners’ ability to self-regulate their learning. However, little research interest has been shown in how students self-regulate when they are left on their own to explore L2 vocabulary learning mediated by mobile technologies. In this research, a self-regulated and personalised (SRP) vocabulary learning approach is developed and its effectiveness measured. This research aims to help students develop a heightened capacity for self-regulation to learn L2 vocabulary with mobile technologies more efficiently and effectively. This research adopts a mixed-method design. An experimental design is adopted to find out to what extent students can learn L2 vocabulary using the SRP approach in a mobile technology-mediated environment via a self-directed intervention for one semester. In addition, a multi-case study will be conducted to provide qualitative evidence to verify whether the self-directed SRP approach can lead to a heightened capacity for self-regulation.


Year: 2019 - 2021

Project Leader -

Dr MA Qing Angel

Capacity: PI

Effects of Phonological Rule-Based and Acoustic Perceptual-Based Instructions on the Prosodic Acquisition of English Word Stress by Chinese ESL Learners

English is stress-timed while Chinese is syllable-timed, which makes English word stress placement difficult for Chinese learners of English. This project aims to develop assessment tasks to identify Chinese learners’ difficulties in English word stress placement in perception and production, design training programmes to examine whether word stress can be acquired systematically, and conduct a teaching experiment to evaluate the effectiveness of the training programmes in facilitating the learning of word stress. This project will generate substantial impact in both theory and practice.


Year: 2019 - 2021

Project Leader -

Dr CHEN Hsueh Chu Rebecca

Capacity: PI

Construction of Gender in Primary Literacy Resources: A Study of Readers for Hong Kong Early Learners

The present study arises from the belief that early school readers play a major role in the socialisation of children’s lives and their gender development, and that schooling is an important medium of reproducing cultures and of perpetuating the existing mechanisms of domination. The study aims to examine how male and female characters are represented in the readers produced by local publishers and those recommended by the Education Bureau in its two popular reading schemes, namely the Primary Literacy Programme: Reading and Writing, and Reading across the Curriculum. A total of 180 readers for Key Stage 1 (Primary 1-3) will be selected for the analysis. The value of the investigation is that it will help heighten the public awareness of the power of book authors to position the two genders through various means.


Year: 2018 - 2020

Project Leader -

Prof LEE Fung King Jackie

Capacity: PI (Dr LEE Fung King Jackie)

Capacity: Co-I (Dr CHIN Chi On Andy)

Translator Professionalism in East Asia: Perspectives from Practitioners and Clients

The objective of this research project is to empirically investigate how non-literary translation practitioners and translation clients perceive translator professionalism, which is understood as not only involving knowledge and expertise but also the virtues of trustworthiness and altruism.


Year: 2016 - 2018

Project Leader -

Dr LIU Fung Ming Christy

Capacity: PI

Narrative Development in School-Age South Asian Children in Hong Kong

This proposed study will examine the development of Cantonese narrative in ethnic minority children of Hong Kong with special focus on three sub-groups, namely, Indian, Pakistani, and Nepalese, who are commonly called South Asians.


Year: 2015 - 2017

Project Leader -

Prof CHEUNG Hin Tat

Capacity: PI

Trilingual Education in Hong Kong Primary Schools: English, Cantonese and Putonghua as Medium of Instruction in Different Subjects and Implications for Language Learning

This project aims to carry out a more complete inquiry into trilingual education in Hong Kong primary schools. The research questions are: 1. What are the models of trilingual education in HK primary schools? 2. Which models are more effective in fostering trilingualism?


Year: 2014 - 2016

Project Leader -

Dr WANG Lixun

Capacity: PI

L2 Phonemic Quantity Contrasts: Production and Perception by Cantonese, Mandarin, English and Japanese Speakers

This project examines an underexplored yet fundamental question in second language (L2) research: when acquiring new speech sounds, do L2 learners draw on knowledge of their first language (L1) phonology sound-by-sound or along some continuous dimension such as length?

Taking phonemic length (i.e. short vs. long sounds) as the test case, we will compare native listeners with different L1 backgrounds producing and perceiving length contrasts in non-native language(s). Their relative performance will answer numerous questions about how L1 transfer occurs.

The findings of the study are expected to have both theoretical and pedagogical implications. At the theoretical level, our findings can lead to a definitive conclusion at the ‘feature vs. category’ dialogue in L2 phonological acquisition. In turn, this will benefit learners of languages where length distinctions matter, such as Japanese. In the long run, our findings can also help teachers devise more effective pedagogical strategies.


Year: 2020 - 2021

Project Leader -

Dr LEE Kwing Lok Albert

Capacity: PI

Working Towards an iClinic: Developing a Suite of Diagnostic Language Testing Instruments for Academic Writing in English (DiaWrite)

This project aims to fill this research gap by developing and validating a coherent suite of language testing instruments (DiaWrite) to diagnose Hong Kong undergraduates’ relative strengths and weaknesses in writing academic essays in English.


Year: 2016 - 2018

Project Leader -

Dr XIE Qin

Capacity: PI

Linguistic Analysis of Mid-20th Century Hong Kong Cantonese by Constructing an Annotated Spoken Corpus

In addition to providing a rich source of authentic spoken data, both quantitatively and qualitatively, for studying mid-20th century Cantonese, this proposed project will also focus on the possible mechanisms and the conditions involved in the development of Cantonese by comparing against 19th century and contemporary data.


Year: 2013 - 2016

Project Leader -

Dr CHIN Chi On Andy

Capacity: PI

Cantonese phonetic input method (Jyutping) with minority language support

Year: 2021 - 2023

Project Leader -

Dr LAU Chaak Ming

Capacity: PI

A self-learning open platform of Chinese for non-Chinese speaking learners

Year: 2019 - 2021

Project Leader -

Dr CHIN Chi On Andy

Capacity: PI

Children’s literature in English language teaching for primary students in Hong Kong

Year: 2018 - 2020

Project Leader -

Prof LEE Fung King Jackie

Capacity: Co-I

ELPA: A collborative project on developing an English test to assess students' English proficiency after admission

Year: 2015 - 2018

Project Leader -

Prof CHEUNG Hin Tat

Capacity: PI

The Role of Consonants, Vowels and Tones in Early Lexical Acquisition (COVOTO)

The present project will be the first to address this issue, exploring infants ’ relative sensitivity to and use of consonants, vowels and tones in Cantonese and French environments.


Year: 2016 - 2019

Project Leader -

Prof CHEUNG Hin Tat

Capacity: PI

Gender Awareness in Language Education

Year: 2017

Project Leader -

Prof LEE Fung King Jackie

Capacity: PI

Language and Gender Studies in Educational Materials in East Asia

Year: 2013

Project Leader -

Prof LEE Fung King Jackie

Capacity: PI

A study of Western missionaries' production of religious and pedagogical books in the Cantonese language in late-Qing period

Year: 2021 - 2022

Project Leader -

Dr KATAOKA Shin

Capacity: PI

Digitalisation and Publication of Audio Storybooks for Hong Kong Indigenous Languages: Hakka and Waitau

Year: 2021 - 2022

Project Leader -

Dr LAU Chaak Ming

Capacity: PI

A Study of the Cantonese Bibles by Western Protestant Missionaries in the Late-Qing and Early-Republican Era

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr KATAOKA Shin

Capacity: PI

A comparative study of culture education in ELT textbooks – the cases of Hong Kong and Mainland China

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Prof LEE Fung King Jackie

Capacity: PI

A preliminary investigation into translator status signalling mechanisms in online communities

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr LIU Fung Ming Christy

Capacity: PI

A Self-regulated and Personalised Vocabulary Learning Approach Mediated by Mobile Technologies for Hong Kong and Mainland Chinese University Students

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr MA Qing

Capacity: PI

Comparative modelling of speech prosody: AM theory vs. PENTA model

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr LEE Kwing Lok Albert

Capacity: PI

Production and Perception of L2 Phonemic Quantity Contrasts Across Languages

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr LEE Kwing Lok Albert

Capacity: PI

The effect of statistical distribution of the input on bilingual morpheme acquisition

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr LUK Pei Sui Zoe

Capacity: PI

The roles of L1 and L2 phonological features in L3 pronunciation learning and teaching in a multilingual society

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr CHEN Hsueh Chu Rebecca

Capacity: PI

Connecting to Key Stakeholders: Developing a Grounded Framework of Language Assessment Literacy for Primary English Language Teachers in Hong Kong

Year: 2017 - 2019

Project Leader -

Dr XIE Qin

Capacity: PI

Trilingual Education in Hong Kong Secondary Schools after Fine-Tuning of Medium of Instruction (MOI) Policies: Issues and Implications for Language Education

Year: 2018

Project Leader -

Dr WANG Lixun

Capacity: PI

The Effects of Tone Visualization Training on L2 Mandarin Tone Acquisition by Tonal and Non-tonal Language Learners

Year: 2017 - 2018

Project Leader -

Dr CHEN Hsueh Chu Rebecca

Capacity: PI

Toward a Research Cluster in Clinical Linguistics

Year: 2020 - 2022

Project Leader -

Prof CHEUNG Hin Tat

Capacity: PI (Prof CHEUNG Hin Tat)

Capacity: Co-I (Dr CHIN Chi On Andy, Dr LEE Kwing Lok Albert)

Establishing a Research Cluster in the EdUHK for promoting research on Multilingual Acquisition and Mulitilingual Education

Year: 2017 - 2019

Project Leader -

Dr WANG Lixun

Capacity: PI (Dr WANG Lixun)

Capacity: Co-I (Prof CHEUNG Hin Tat, Dr KATAOKA Shin)

A Collaborative Research on Digital Humanities in Cantonese

Year: 2017 - 2018

Project Leader -

Dr CHIN Chi On Andy

Capacity: PI

Enhancing English Reading Skills of Children Living in Poverty by E-books: A Randomized Experimental Study

Year: 2018 - 2019

Project Leader -

Dr MA Qing

Capacity: Co-I

A keyword study of novice and expert researchers’ research reports related to language studies/education

Year: 2014 - 2015

Project Leader -

Dr MA Qing

Capacity: PI (Dr MA Qing)

Capacity: Co-I (Dr CHIN Chi On Andy, Dr LUK Pei Sui Zoe)

Corpus-based feature analyses of Hong Kong/Mainland university students’ spoken English

Year: 2014 - 2015

Project Leader -

Dr CHEN Hsueh Chu Rebecca

Capacity: PI (Dr CHEN Hsueh Chu Rebecca)

Capacity: Co-I (Dr LEE Fung King Jackie, Dr WANG Lixun)

Enhancing students’ professional development and knowledge exchange in translation via Mahara

Year: 2020 - 2021

Project Leader -

Dr LIU Fung Ming Christy

Capacity: PI

Revamp of the corpus-based online pronunciation learning system and acoustic analysis of spoken learner corpus for Cantonese learners of Mandarin

Year: 2020 - 2021

Project Leader -

Dr CHEN Hsueh Chu Rebecca

Capacity: PI

Enhancing Learners’ Self-regulated Skills Mediated by Mobile Technologies for Language Learning

Year: 2019 - 2021

Project Leader -

Dr MA Qing

Capacity: PI

Development of Teaching and Learning Materials for a Professional Course Involving Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Dr CHIN Chi On Andy

Capacity: PI

Lesson Study of Grammar Instruction in Schools

Year: 2019 - 2020

Project Leader -

Prof LEE Fung King Jackie

Capacity: PI