Teachers' Lift

Now, Darren Harbutt is not new to the teachers‘ Lift. Back in 2020, he featured in one of our early episodes when HKU hosts, Phil Smythe and Aditi Jhaveri, where he shared his expertise on blended learning with a focus on e-assessment. Now it’s the turn of Dawn Gillis and Eric Tindall asking the questions, as we take a look in the rear view mirror of the last two years and ask whether there have been any silver-linings to all the hurdles we’ve faced since the days when zooming required a telephoto lens. In this illuminating discussion, Darren introduces us to the exciting new world of HyFlex, where in-class instruction meets on- and off-line learning, and leaves us asking the question, will this become the new normal.

Bilingualism in Hong Kong is often the product of learning English as a second language (L2) after Cantonese has been acquired as the first language (L1). Issues of code-switching (speakers alternating between two or more languages), interference (use of elements of one language while speaking or writing another) and translanguaging (with an emphasis on the interconnectedness of languages allowing learners to use the full range of their linguistic repertoire) often come up in most discussions pertaining to teaching English to bilingual learners. Yet, when confronted with these issues, many teachers express ambiguity, and anecdotal evidence suggests that language educators feel unsure about which side of the debate they are on. In this episode, Professor Stephen Matthews from the Department of Linguistics at HKU, clarifies some of our common misunderstandings and responds to certain criticisms and confusions surrounding bilingualism.

Now in this latest episode from the Teachers’ Lift, we hear from Dave Gatrell, pedagogical consultant at PolyU's Educational Development Centre. Hosts, Dawn Gillis and Eric Tindall quiz Dave about his phd studies, and how video annotation software can help boost the communication skills learners for today's academic environment. Listeners keen to spice up their own classes can pick up a few tips and tricks from Dave as he waxes lyrical about his ongoing collaboration with teachers from the English Language Centre in an effort to add video annotation software to their ever-growing box of technological tools.

In this episode, our hosts Colin Tait and Levi Lam are chatting with Dr. Lisa Cheung about the work she has done in developing an English in the Discipline (ED) Course at the Centre for Applied English Studies at HKU. Lisa reflects on her long experience of engaging with colleagues in the Faculty of Dentistry to create a course that can best serve the disciplinary communication needs using a needs analysis informed development process.

In this episode, Dr. Svetlana Chigaeva-Heddad inv…