To engage student’s participation in the Festival, we cordially invite two students to share their learning experience in HKIEd in student prospective and be panel members of open discussion forum in the Conference (20 March 2015).
Ms. WONG Hing Yi Orieta
Student, Doctor of Education
Developing from a language teacher to an emerging researcher – my pathway in HKIEd
Having been a language teacher in local secondary school for quite some time, I am currently an EdD student major in Educational and Developmental Psychology, and at the same time, working part-time in the Graduate School as a Research Assistant. The chance of affiliation to different departments or research centres is a conscious effort of the Institute to develop the research ability of postgraduate students; and I am grateful for the chance of being shaped and formed and cultivated as a researcher-to-be under this conscious policy. Indeed, the Institute has a clear outlook of developing into both a teaching and research centre for education in East Asia. For this, bounty resources have been investigated on the training of research skills and statistical analysis. My classmates and I will always remember how we stumbled through the first statistical shock to the nightmare of presentation of thesis proposal using well-structured statistical modelling, and hopefully, one day we’ll be able to deliver a well-grounded thesis with evidence-based data that support hard core theoretical arguments. So thanks once again, HKIEd.
Ms. Lorraine DE BEAUFORT
Student, Doctor of Philosophy
Hong Kong and HKIEd: studying the intersection of the local and the global in additional language learning
After twenty years in the classroom trying different approaches to the teaching of French and English, and studying online and by distance, I felt I had reached a turning point. I became aware that in a globalized world, international exposure and new media were affecting students’ foreign language learning practices, use of language and perspectives on language learning. The main questions were: what was the language lesson going to become, with all these influences creeping into the classroom? In tertiary education, do these changes signal the ‘de-centering’ of the traditional university, as claimed by Francis (2010)? What can the study of additional languages such as French tell us about these changes, and how do they relate to learner identities and learning practices?
I was fortunate to be chosen by HKIEd for my PhD project, which is intended to provide some answers to these and other questions. Hong Kong is the perfect place to examine the changes brought about by globalization, and HKIEd, with its expertise in education, is the perfect institution in which to study their effects on language learning. I hope that the study will contribute to an improved understanding of language learning in the age of globalization and new technologies, and that it will be of use for learners, teachers and policymakers.