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 invites us to imagine the future of English language teaching and talks to Aditi about why this is necessary. She describes Futures Literacy in terms of acknowledging the uncertainties we face, being aware of the constant state of flux we are in, and the capacity to act when we find ourselves dealing with the unfamiliar.

From Nina Simone to Bowie, the Velvet Underground to the Rolling Stones, taking in Cairo and Beijing along the way, this wide-ranging conversation with the PolyU’s former Director of the English Language Centre, Bruce Morrison, looks back at his career and his thoughts on students teachers. Podcast hosts Dawn Gillis and Eric Tindall ask the questions (sometimes) and get a musical education at the same time.

What’s the role of self-access language learning centres in today's online world? Do they still have a place? Can they be re-imagined? In this episode of Teachers’ Lift, the tables are turned on host Eric Tindall as he is interviewed by Dawn Gillis and Jessica Xia from PolyU about how the ELC’s Centre for Independent Language Learning is changing with the times.

We’re always looking for ways to make our students more engaged and make teaching more engaging for us – one possibility is to incorporate design-based learning. But first, we need to know what this is, its benefits, its challenges, and how this can be applied to the courses that we teach in our respective centers. Listen to this episode with Mike Ladao to get some of these answers.

Why do Hong Kong university students learn German? What makes them interested in the German language and culture? And how do teachers build on students’ skills acquired while learning a first and second language to help them learn a new foreign language? Tune into this episode with Tonja Fung to know.

As HKU prepared to return to face-to-face teaching and learning this semester after almost 2 years of being online, Dr. Alvin Wong from the Department of Comparative Literature and Dr. Brenda Allegre from Gender studies, gauge the mood of their students and talk about their own feelings and experiences after being back on campus.