RESEARCH PROJECTS

1/2017 – present: Pragmatics learning with asynchronous computer-mediated communication

• Used a quasi-experiment to test the effects of asynchronous computer-mediated oral communication in pragmatic consciousness-raising activities on students’ learning of request making in Chinese.

7/2016 – present: An action research on students’ interactions in hybrid language classrooms

• Looked into how a hybrid language-learning environment affords and constraints students’ interaction with the instructor, peers and learning materials.

06/2011 – 05/2014: Distributed language learning in 3D virtual environments 

• Invited English speakers who were learning Chinese to co-design a virtual space in a 3D virtual world with Chinese native speakers
• Investigated how translanguaging took place during bilingual language learners’ joint problem-solving activities in a 3D virtual environment.

10/2010 – 05/2011: China World in Quest Atlantis

• Designed content for Quest Atlantis (now called Atlantis Remixed), a 3D quest-based virtual environment for education, to help intermediate-level and higher Chinese learners study Chinese proverbs and pragmatics.

10/2010 – 04/2011: Participatory research of bilingual and biliterate practice for immigrant students

• Examined how biliterate practices may contribute to immigrant students’ identity development and enculturation into the host society, and further revealed the conflict between the monolingual institutional environment and immigrant students’ language and identity development, through a participatory action study in a local school at Hawai’i.

09/2009 – 09/2010: Distributed agency in the eco-system of classroom and virtual environment

• Transcribed video and audio data of English learners’ interactions in Quest Atlantis (a 3D virtual environment, which is now called Atlantis Remixed) and in a traditional face-to-face class.
• Compared students’ agency in the settings as mentioned above through multimodal analysis.