Funded Research
Intercultural approaches to teaching Chinese: A basis for pedagogical innovation
In July 2008 Professor Joe Lo Bianco, Professor David Holm, Dr Trevor Hay and Dr Catherine Wang were awarded a $25,000 Strategic Research Initiatives Fund (SRIF) grant for a pilot study entitled 'Intercultural Approaches to Teaching Chinese: A Basis for Pedagogical Innovation'. This pilot study, selected in competition with university-wide projects, will lead to an ARC Linkage grant application for the project in association with Chinese, Australian and international partners. Professor Lo Bianco, Professor Holm and Dr Hay are Chief Investigators. Dr Wang is Post-Doctoral Research Fellow for the project and Dr Hay is the Director.
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Project Summary
The current state of languages teaching in Australia is a matter of public concern. Recent press commentary has highlighted the fact that the percentage of Year 12 students taking languages in Australian schools has fallen dramatically since the 1960s. The depth of problems in teacher education, quality of programs and curriculum design is considerable (ACER, 2007; UniSA, 2008).
This project will conduct research in key areas of Chinese for non-native learners of Modern Standard Chinese (Mandarin, Putonghua) in order to provide a basis for improvement in teacher education, professional development and the resources available to teachers, including textbooks and other curriculum materials. The proposal will stress principles of language teaching and investigate the extent to which the pedagogy is in TCSL (Teaching Chinese as a Second Language) in China, Australia, UK, USA and other countries engages with this principle. It will also propose ways of integrating Chinese and intercultural approaches to TCSL in intercultural teaching methods and methodology in order to improve the results of teaching Chinese to non-Chinese in Australia.
University position-taking strategies in the global environment: a cross-country study of the Asia-Pacific region
On 26 September 2007 it was announced that Professor Simon Marginson was awarded a four year Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant (2008-2011) entitled 'University position-taking strategies in the global environment: a cross-country study of the Asia-Pacific region' ($318,000, solo grant). This project was ranked in the top third of the projects successful at the ARC Social, Behavioural and Economic Sciences Panel, i.e. in the top 7% of all applications.
For an outline of the project see University position-taking strategies in the global environment: a cross-country study of the Asia-Pacific region.
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Project Summary
Much of Asia is developing, modernising and globalising at a rapid pace. Higher education, science and research are central and are growing even more rapidly. The Asia-Pacific has great long-term geo-strategic significance for Australia, including education exports which earn $7 billion per year in the region. Our capacity to understand, to cooperate with and to compete with Asian universities within the worldwide field of higher education will closely affect our future. This project provides the first hard data on the global operations of leading universities in ten Asian nations and will be of value to government, business and education.