This paper explores the intricate relationship between identity and language use in a multilingual university context by analyzing a Filipina international student's narrativized accounts of her experiences in a Hong Kong university. The findings suggest that the international student's identity negotiation and language practices vary markedly…

This paper sets out to offer emic insights into doctoral students' identity formation processes emerging at the interface of their personal biographies and situational doctoral conditions. Leaning on a dialogical theorisation of identity, the study analyses life stories told by four PhD students, focusing on how participants narratively position…

The transition to university life is challenging, involving academic adaptation and social and lifestyle adjustment, so it is no surprise that attrition is at its highest in the first year of attending university. Studies have investigated factors influencing students' adjustment, and the formation of a new learner identity within university has…

In the last two decades, academic reflections on the PhD experience and studies on various aspects of doctoral research education have attracted scholarly attention in the higher education and advanced academic literacy literature. In this article, I adopt a reflective-narrative framework to recount my engagement with the doctoral program at The…

Purpose: While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as "Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools" and "Serving the Community through Teaching English," this paper aims to argue that teaching students to teach language(s) is yet to be the…

The experiences of participants in disrupted study abroad (SA) programs have been largely overlooked in the literature, especially when it comes to experiences outside the norm. To fill this gap, this research explores the experience of an Australian university student taking part in an exchange program in Hong Kong (HK) during a turbulent period…

In this essay, Chung-Hin Kevin Ho, a history education university student in Hong Kong, narrates his search for civic identity. Composed through a process of critical and reflective dialogue with Hayes Tang, the essay describes the tension between Chung-Hin's Chinese ethnic and cultural identity and the democratic values held by Hong Kongers. As a…

Background: 'Internationalisation' is what makes the University of Hong Kong (HKU) reputable. Ranked as the world top 25, in QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) 2019 World University Ranking, HKU provides students with ample opportunities to experience the global world, to possess a global mind. The HKU Worldwide Exchange Programme, established in 1998 by…

This paper highlights how a small group of minority students worked to take advantage of the privileges available once they were admitted to an elite school. The argument proposed is that, unlike their more privileged peers, minority students who have made it through the gateways of elite schools have to work out a salvation of privilege to level…

This article uses the findings from an empirical study on Hong Kong students' reading practices as collected through face-to-face interviews on major university campuses in Hong Kong to argue for the importance of "affective" and "imaginative" engagement with literary texts if students are to develop an interest in reading.…

This study focuses on how two teachers working in reduced-size secondary classes of the same grade adapted their pedagogy as a result of a brokered dialogue between myself as researcher and 43 grade 10 students from the teachers' classes. Research was carried out over the course of one academic year. First, students' perspectives on studying in a…

One of the strengths of narrative research in TESOL is its potential to provide insight into long-term language learning experiences that cannot be investigated in real time. Reliance on retrospection, however, brings two problems that are addressed in this article through the concept of "language learning careers". The first problem is…

This article reports on a longitudinal inquiry into mainland Chinese students' language learning experiences with a focus on their efforts to improve their English competence in a leading English medium University in Hong Kong. The inquiry problematizes an uncritical assumption of a shared pursuit of linguistic competence among different students…

Describes the pressures exerted on Hong Kong students by the examination system, discussing the historical background, function, and nature of examinations in Hong Kong and explaining that the Chinese examination experience is different from the contemporary emphasis on examination in North American schools. Writings by Hong Kong students and…

Excerpts from interviews with 30 Asian high school students concerning their acculturation to the American classroom are presented and discussed. The students had been in the United States for no more than 2 years, and were here for a variety of reasons, including extended visits with relatives to temporary appointments of their parents to U.S.…