Language and literacy education

Our community of teacher educators conducts research, teaches and advocates in areas related to language, literacy and culture across the entire education system. We also research and teach children’s literature, multimodal digital literature and advocate for multimodal literacy education to prepare children for compelling literacy skills in the digital era. We have specific expertise in school-age education as well as adult, community and higher education.

We have a rich experience gained from working with diverse language and cultural groups, including linguistic minorities, immigrant and refugee communities, transnational students, EAL/D (English as an additional language/dialect) /EFL (English as foreign language)/ESL (English as second language) students, and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders peoples. We are acutely aware of the politics of colonisation and assimilation and issues of educational disadvantage, and our work seeks to resist the disenfranchisement that these politics cause.

We explore how deficit framings – set against dominant assumptions about educational background, linguistic heritage, affiliation and expertise, and student and family capacity – create implicit and explicit barriers for engagement and success in multilingual educational communities in Australia and internationally. We identify ways to empower students, teachers, teacher educators, curriculum developers and policymakers with critical awareness and resources in response to the challenges associated with language, literacy, literature and culture in education.

Themes and signature projects

ARC Linkage project – with Doctor Sally Baker, Professor Massimilano Tani and Dr Claire Higgins
Led by Associate Professor Hoa Nguyen, Professor Andy Gao, Dr Dennis Alonzo, Emeritus Professor Sue Starfield, Dr Lisa Gilanyi, Dr Hang Nguyen, Trang Hoang.
With Doctor Rose Amazan and Associate Professor Kevin Lowe

Download the project details
Led by Doctor Ellen Lee and Doctor Thu Ngo
Led by Doctor Thu Ngo and Professor Len Unsworth (ACU)

Research team – who we are

School of Education staff

Academic staff

Researchers	Expertise
Researchers	Topics	Theoretical framework
Andy Gao	Language Education Policy (e.g. medium of instruction, CLIL, language curriculum) Language Teacher Education Language Learning strategies (e.g. SLA)	Social cultural theory
Hoa Nguyen	Language Teacher Education & Professional Development	Social cultural theory
Sally Baker	Equity in higher education Academic Literacies and oracy, Supporting Culturally and Linguistically Marginalised Migrants and/or Refugees (CALMMR) in higher education Educational transitions Advocacy: Refugee education Higher education equity	Critical sociological concepts: Academic Literacies (Lea & Street) Hospitality (Derrida) Graduate capitals (Tomlinson) ‘Cruel optimism’ (Berlant) Student engagement (Kahu & Nelson) Wilfulness (Ahmed)
Thu Ngo	Multimodal literacy: language, body language, image and sound Digital literacy: technology in language teaching & learning Language education Children’s literature	Systemic Functional Linguistics/ Semiotics Literature studies Film studies

Honorary staff

Casual staff

Dr Lisa Gilanyi
Dr Sara Mashyekh
Katherine Thompson
David Coombes
Rubee McManus

Professor Bonny Norton (University of British Columbia)

Professor Jim Cummins (University of Toronto)

Professor Constant Leung (King’s College London)

Professor Jo Lo Bianco (University of Melbourne)

Professor Brian Paltridge University of Sydney

Professor Zhu Hua (University of Birmingham)

Professor Yongyan Zheng (Fudan University)

Dr Cathie Burgess (USyd)

Associate Professor Neil Harrison (Macquarie)

Dr Mairin Hennebry-Leung (University of Tasmania)

Dr Laura Grassick (University of Leeds)

Dr Hang Nguyen (Vietnam National University)

Dr Lan Anh Tran (Vietnam National University)

Dr Obaid Hamid (University of Queensland)

Professor Len Unsworth (Australian Catholic University)

Current HDR candidates

Felipe Balotin
Priyanka Bose
Jie Fan
Alex Harper
Noryani Neni Binti Ahmad Jamain
Fernadita Jayanti
Jiao Li
Ting Liu
Jamila Al Maawali
Hanna Morrison
Eun Kyong Park
Bita Dwi Rahmani
Rodrigo F. Arellano 
Junjun Ramdani
Alice Sun
Susanne Stanyer
Anna Xavier

Name	Thesis Topic	Supervisor 1	Supervisor 2	Research interests
Hengxi Wang	ESP teacher identity construction in China	Andy Gao	Jasper Hsieh	TESOL
Noryani Ahmad	The Implementation of Systemic Functional Linguistics in Enhancing Anakytical Wtiting Skills among ESL Engineering Undergraduates	Dennis Alonzo	Chris Davison	SFL, Second Language Acquisition
Muhammad Iqwan Sanjani	Family Language Policy, Translanguaging, Transnational Families, Migrants	Sally Baker	Andy Gao	Language Policy, Multilingualism, Translanguaging
Bita Dwi Rahmani	Teacher Feedback Literacy	Dennis Alonzo	Chris Davison	feedback practices, language assessment, language testing, teacher professional development
Nina Inayati	Exploring Language Teachers and Learners’ Experience of Online Informal English Language Learning in Indonesian Higher Education Contexts	Andy Gao	Hoa Nguyen	informal language learning, technology in language learning, autonomy in language learning
Thi Hoa Le	Professional development for CLIL teachers	Hoa Nguyen	Tony Loughland
Yi Sun	The Professional Experience of Return TESOL Graduate Teachers in China	Andy Gao	Jasper Hsieh	TESOL pedagogy; teacher education; teacher professional development; educational leadership
Yixi Qiu (visiting scholar)	Transnational teachers' and students' epistemic participation in English medium instruction programs	Andy Gao	Yongyan Zheng	Multilingualism; Language policy & planning
Minghao Chen	Dual Roles of parent-teachers in the intersection of family language policy and language education policy	Andy Gao	Sue Starfield	Family language policy
Priyanka Bose	Understanding Family Language Policy Using Digital Communications Among Bengali Immigrants in Australia	Andy Gao	Sue Starfield	sociolinguistics, applied linguistics, discourse analysis, thematic analysis, multimodal discourse analysis
Hui Wang	Language Maintenance and Shift in Ethnic Russian Families: A Transnational Study on the Russian Chinese Diaspora in China and Australia	Anikó Hatoss	Andy Gao	Sociolinguistics, language shift
Alice (shuting) Sun	International students' experiences of and responses to assessment and feedback in Australian universities	Andy Gao	Chris Davison	Assessment and feedback, Higher Education, International student experience

Current activities

Online, monthly (complemented by face-to-face seminars pre- and post-COVID19)
Online monthly meetings including collaborators in Australia and overseas (complemented by face-to-face seminars pre- and post-COVID19)

Partners and collaborators

Courses and programs

Master of Teaching, Bachelor of Education,
Master of Education, Graduate Certificate of Education (TESOL)
Master of Educational Leadership
MEd (Research), EdD, PhD

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