Educational Background

M.Phil (University of Hong Kong) (Thesis Title: Acquistuion of Japanese -te iru by Cantonese Speakers)

Current Post

高級講師 Senior Lecturer

専攻言語プログラムコーディネーター Japanese Language Course Coordinator for Major Program

Contact

Profile

My philosophy of teaching is that language cannot be taught without teaching about the culture in which a language is embedded. Having this principal in mind, I teach Novice to Advanced level courses with Japanese culture as the background of the Japanese language.

I studied how Cantonese speakers learn and acquire the Japanese language at University of Hong Kong and completed a master of philosophy degree in 1998. Since then, I have been teaching as a full time language teacher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Before joining the University, I had teaching experience in two universities in the United States. My strength in teaching is that I understand the difficulties Cantonese speakers encounter when learning the Japanese language. Another strength is that I am able to teach at various levels. Presently, I teach Novice/Intermediate level of JASP2470/2480, JASP3320 Intermediate Japanese Conversation, JASP3280 Intermediate Business Japanese, JASP4180 Advanced Business Japanese, and JASP4440 Improvement Strategies, which is a preparatory course for the most recognized exam of JLPT N1. Over 90% of our undergraduate major students graduate with JLPT N1. I also taught Japanese pedagogy for MA students in the past years. The program, which is one of the most competitive programs in this area in Asia, had produced many Japanese language teachers in Hong Kong and mainland China.

I am also a certified OPI (Oral Proficiency Interview) interviewer, and I have trained students’ oral skills based on OPI standards.

Pedagogical Research

My research interest lies in the interaction between culture and language. In early 20th Century, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf brought attention to the relationship between language, thought, and culture, and theorized that thought and behavior are determined (or are at least partially influenced) by language. However, I think that it is difficult to say which determines which, and that culture and language interact and influence each other. As an extension of this idea, I believe we can’t teach the Japanese language to Chinese students without teaching about the Japanese culture, and vise-versa. Based on this belief, I wrote a conversation textbook for Cantonese speakers that focuses on cultural differences between Hong Kong and Japan, and co-authored a book chapter on Chinese people’s behavior for Japanese readers. Both are pioneering works and the former is used here at Chinese University as a textbook, and the latter is used at University of Tokyo and University of Air in Japan.

My research interests are closely tied to my teaching responsibilities. As a Japanese language teacher, my primary objective is to teach well and educate students as best as I can. To me, doing research is an important way to benefit my teaching capability as well as to contribute to the collective knowledge in this area. For instance, some of my research and the decision to write textbooks were triggered by the difficulties and perplexities I encountered when teaching the Japanese language. I was very puzzled why my students (mainly Cantonese speakers) had a hard time acquiring the Japanese aspect of -te iru and -ta even though their first language has a complicated aspectual system and possesses a lot of aspect markers and verbal suffixes. I have been doing research on aspect in order to help students learn effectively and efficiently.

Member of 

• Society of Japanese Language Education
• Hong KongEuropean Association of Japanese Studies
• Japan Second Language Association(J-SLA)

License

• Tester, Oral Proficiency Investigation (OPI)

Courses Offered

Current Research Projects

1. The role(s) of L1, L2‘s lexical and grammatical aspect when Cantonese Speakers Acquire Japanese -te iru.
2. Overextended Use of Japanese Intransitive Verb’s Potential Form by L1 Cantonese Learners of Japanese.
3. Acquisition of Japanese Transitive and Intransitive verbs and its pedagogy.

Selected Publications

 Research Grants

Full publication list can be found here.