Welcome to our new Graduate Researcher: Xiaoqing Chen

Hi, I’m Xiaoqing Chen, a PhD student studying at MGSE, University of Melbourne. I’m very glad to join our CLIL lab with this warm family.

My past experiences are all about education and specifically language teaching. I did my Bachelor’s in English Teaching in my hometown China, and an MSc in TESOL in Edinburgh, United Kingdom. I also have worked as a teacher for two years after getting my master’s degree, conducted regular English language courses and assessments, and trained student teachers in the English major.

In terms of research experience, I am currently working on a PhD project at the University of Melbourne supervised by Prof Russell Cross, A/Prof Yvette Slaughter, and Dr Shu Ohki. This project aims to explore the impacts of Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) on students’ cognitive development, especially how CLIL teachers perform their function in this process with a focus on primary education in Victoria. I am adopting a cultural-historical perspective and applying qualitative research skills such as document analysis, classroom observations and semi-structured interviews to investigate this issue. Meanwhile, I’m also collaborating with my supervisors in an MGSE seed funding scheme this year, which focuses on the possible either language-oriented or content-oriented practices among CLIL teachers who are supposed to treat both sides (language and content) equally. Both projects are part of our Lab’s focus on Teacher dispositions and agency across content and language integrated spaces for schooling.

Prior to joining the University of Melbourne, I did a postgraduate project at the University of Edinburgh, which involved a comparison between the language competence tested in the Writing section of Test for English Major and described in China’s Standard English ability scales.

I am really looking forward to getting inspiring ideas from people of the other research community and learning more about the field of CLIL, TESOL, and teachers’ professional development.

Research interests

  • Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL);
  • Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL);
  • language teaching methodology;
  • language testing;
  • language teaching curriculum;
  • teachers’ professional development