Grounded on “Abeunt studia in morse,” my teaching strives to place students at the center of instruction, to engage students with authentic materials to learn within real-life contexts, and to encourage critical interpretation and reflection. As one who has traveled across regions for education and employment, I always welcome students to share their personal stories and to look beyond readings with insights from personal experiences. I firmly believe in being sincere, helpful, and honest with my students at all times. By creating an engaging and supportive learning environment and reducing the power distance between students and me, I often play an active role in facilitating and scaffolding their learning, fostering a dynamic exchange of knowledge and insights for mutual learning. For example, in my Foundations Writing course syllabus, I emphasize my teaching philosophy with the statement: “We work together for the success of this course. This is a class that centers on your writing and your experience as a writer, and your participation is essential. … I am excited to hear different perspectives/insights from you. By listening carefully, reading actively, and questioning critically, you will … help co-construct this learning community into an enriching experience for everyone involved.” Such a statement strongly encourages student participation and contributes to the success of my teaching. With this philosophy, I have consecutively won the Global Professor Teaching Award (2024, 2025) from the University of Arizona Writing Program in recognition of my dedication to student engagement and teaching excellence.

Being goal-oriented, I always clearly outline the learning agenda and articulate the expected learning outcomes at the beginning of each class while summarizing key takeaways at the end. Such a structure assists students in navigating the learning process more effectively and helps them stay on track with their learning outcomes. Against the backdrop of English as a Lingua Franca, my primary objective in teaching English language courses (e.g., TELC1011 University English Tutorial I at the University of Macau) is to help students develop fluent written and verbal communication skills, so as to prepare them for academic success in English and enhance their employability in the job market. With insights from Task-based Language Teaching, I design and adapt authentic learning activities aligning with students’ English proficiency, helping students improve their English skills through real-life situations; moreover, I cherish the opportunity to develop students’ information literacy skills. To take an example, when lecturing on the tourism topic, I had students search resources online, discuss within groups, and then deliver a short introductory presentation on Macau-based tourist destinations (e.g., Ruins of St Paul’s) in English. Through group work, students, rather than solely relying on internet resources, were motivated to communicate with local peers in English for information-seeking and information-clarifying. Later informed by language awareness pedagogy and the Global Englishes literature when teaching Foundations Writing courses at the University of Arizona, I pay particular attention to helping my EAL (English as an additional language) students understand the relationship between accent and identity and discussing the “accent policing” phenomenon on social media platforms in China. This effective pedagogy has refreshed their understanding of English pronunciation, eased my students’ anxiety about speaking English with accents, and increased their willingness to communicate in class.

Furthermore, as a member of Generation Z, I appreciate the convenience and unique affordances of technology-assisted learning. In my teaching, I have used varied functions embedded in learning management systems (e.g., Desire2Learn, Moodle, iSpace) to support and engage students in face-to-face, online, and blended courses. To take an example, I use the quiz tool to check students’ understanding of specific knowledge points in a timely manner, and the Discussion tool to conduct peer reviews, invite interactive discussions on various course-related topics, and encourage students to pose questions that may benefit their classmates. I also promote collaborative learning in my courses through Padlet, Google Docs, and Microsoft Word. By using shared platforms for group learning activities, students can easily track member participation, follow up on thoughts/ideas from their peers, and develop digital literacy skills. The emergence of Generative AI tools, in particular, has challenged the language education profession. Rather than telling students what they cannot do with GenAI in Foundations Writing courses, I design a learning activity worksheet to help students understand the concept of generative AI technologies, appreciate the writing differences between human-written and machine-generated texts, and recognize the importance of writing in this GenAI era. My excellence in implementing innovative technology-based pedagogy was recognized with the Teaching with Technology Award (2025) from the University of Arizona Writing Program.

Drawing on my learner-centered research interests in language testing, I value students’ active and critical roles in assessments and advocate for transparent assessment. To level the playing field, I take effective measures to make sure students understand my expectations and know the assessment criteria. Through Jigsaw reading activities, students first collaborate with classmates to locate, discuss, and share answers for assigned questions, gaining a general understanding of the assignment prompts. Following this, I walk students through potential confusing points with clarifications and explain the rubrics with details; if possible, I invite former students to comment on the rubrics, such as suggesting additions or deletions of criteria. Besides, I always offer opportunities for students to assess/reflect on their own learning and conduct well-scaffolded self- and peer-assessment. Collectively, these diverse assessments promote fair and just evaluation practices while empowering students to take ownership of their learning. To further facilitate students’ learning, I always provide timely, detailed, and constructive feedback on students’ assignments. In addition to traditional written feedback, I organize individual conferences (small class size; around 15–20 students) or provide general verbal feedback (middle/large class size; around 21–100 students) to feedforward students in an interactive manner. In such a way, students can better understand how to use feedback to guide their learning rather than only focusing on the scores in red ink.

Moreover, I embrace the idea of “Education for all” in my teaching. Informed by the individual differences theory, I cherish the opportunity to embrace diversity and build rapport with every student. I follow a developmental perspective on learning and respect students’ learning trajectories. Guided by the Pygmalion Effect, I maintain high standards in my classroom and set high expectations for my students. However, I emphasize that they are not competing with their classmates; instead, as long as they are making learning progress—be it small or significant—they are successfully achieving the learning outcomes. Drawing on the notion of cultural capital, I never assume my students’ prior knowledge. Instead, I administer pre-class and progress report surveys, conduct classroom observations, and schedule individual consultations to understand each student’s case. I am also eager to create an optimal environment to maximize students’ development opportunities.

My teaching career is an ongoing journey of life-long learning. I have actively sought opportunities to participate in professional development programs both within intuitions and beyond (e.g., the Teaching English for Academic Purposes professional development programme offered by The University of Hong Kong), attend local, regional, and international TESOL conferences, as well as engage in course observations of my colleagues. These opportunities allow me to reflect on and improve my teaching, and I will continue to engage in similar experiences to learn and grow. I also look forward to sharing my teaching experiences and practices with colleagues within and beyond my institutions. Further, I am a firm believer that teaching fosters mutual learning. I love to learn from my students and create new possibilities when I pass on my existing knowledge to them.

Teaching Interests

Informed by my research interests and existing teaching experience, I am interested in teaching courses in areas of English for academic purposes (with emphasis on academic writing), research writing for publication purposes, (first-year) composition, and academic literacy at both undergraduate and graduate levels. In the future, I would like to develop a course focusing on academic literacy, digital literacy, and critical GenAI literacy to help students thrive in their college and research careers. I am also prepared to teach courses in English for general purposes, writing pedagogy, Global Englishes, language testing and assessment, and applied linguistics at the undergraduate level, as well as to provide training for writing tutors in writing centers or studios.