Personal statement
I joined the School of Education in January 2016 following the completion of my PhD in Education from the University of Edinburgh. The project was fully funded by the Principal’s Career Development Studentship and the Edinburgh Global Overseas Research Scholarship. I am a member of the British Association for Applied Linguistics (BAAL), the European Second Language Association (EUROSLA), the Scottish Educational Research Association (SERA) and the European Educational Research Association (EERA). I am registered with the General Teaching Council for Scotland (GTCS). I am a Fellow of Higher Education Academy (FHEA).
Teaching
My teaching reflects my research experience and expertise. Since joining Strathclyde, I have held key roles in the innovation, leadership, management and delivery of a number of courses. These include:
- BA (Hons) Education & TESOL
- International PG Certificate in Education (iPGCE)
- PGDE Modern Languages (Mandarin)
- MSc TESOL and Intercultural Communication
In addition, I teach on the BA Primary Education and PGDE Secondary Education courses. I supervise BA and Master’s dissertations as well as PhD/EdD theses.
I am the External Examiner for the PGCE Modern Languages (QTS) programme at the University of Manchester.
Research interests
My research focuses on three areas: second/foreign language education, teacher professional learning and digital technologies in education. I have a particular interest in the application of sociocultural theory and an ecological approach to learning and teaching.
My recent projects include exploring the dialogical nature of interactive listening, plurilingualism in Scottish education, student teachers’ digital knowledge and skills in ITE, and professional dialogue for teacher professional learning. At the theoretical level I am interested in the underlying links of language and thought, especially with regards to the way in which the wider sociocultural contexts contribute to the communication process.
Professional activities
- British Educational Research Association (BERA) Early Career Researcher Network Symposium Series
- Organiser
- 29/11/2019
- Guangdong University of Finance and Economics
- Visiting researcher
- 22/10/2019
- Dalian University of Foreign Languages
- Visiting researcher
- 21/10/2019
- Northeast Normal University
- Visiting researcher
- 18/10/2019
- External Examiner for BA Primary Education
- Examiner
- 10/2019
- Plurilingualism: Teachers implementing languages education principles in the classroom. Stirling Translation Event
- Speaker
- 21/8/2019
more professional activities
Projects
- Dalian University of Foreign Languages & HASS
- Huang, Alan (Principal Investigator)
- 16-Jan-2019
- An exploration of the role of visual professional learning tools in teacher professional learning
- Beck, Anna (Principal Investigator) Huang, Alan (Research Co-investigator)
- 10-Jan-2018 - 28-Jan-2019
- Challenging Mandarin Teachers’ Pedagogical Approaches to the Teaching of Chinese Characters
- Huang, Alan (Principal Investigator) Lam, Sophia (Principal Investigator) Diamantidaki, Fotini (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2018 - 31-Jan-2019
- Teaching in Higher Education: Training Programme with Beijing Institute of Technology (Zhuhai)
- Huang, Alan (Principal Investigator)
- 30-Jan-2018 - 24-Jan-2018
- Enacting Plurilingualism: Exploring teachers’ perspectives on the classroom realisation of languages education principles
- McPake, Joanna (Principal Investigator) Huang, Alan (Principal Investigator) Birnie, Inge (Principal Investigator)
- The principal research questions this study sets out to answer are:
1. How do newly qualified and more established languages teachers link the principles set out in the National Framework for Languages to current and / or future classroom practices?
2. What kind of professional education do they consider most valuable in developing the competences they need to do this effectively?
- 20-Jan-2018 - 19-Jan-2018
- From being (a student) to becoming (a graduate): Exploring graduate attributes in the 21st century
- Huang, Alan (Principal Investigator) Karagiannidou, Eleni (Principal Investigator) Zike, Jennifer (Post Grad Student)
- The project aimed to contextualise Graduate Attributes by developing a model of innovative learning and teaching practices to support Initial Teacher Education (ITE) students transitioning beyond Strathclyde. To do this, we drew on real work-based learning experiences encountered by recent graduate teachers in their Probationary year. Some interesting data emerged from focus group discussions with graduates, and initial analysis of the data identified some of the challenges new teachers tended to face, and the ways in which they used knowledge and skills developed during their ITE studies to negotiate these.
Employing the P21 Framework for 21st Century Learning, we developed a Problem-Based Learning (PBL) task which we then used with current students, This focused on the following skills and attributes: self-direction, critical thinking & problem-solving, and collaboration.
Utilising a PBL approach, students were first presented with the problem. They then worked within their own group to brainstorm, research, and discuss this. Once they came to a shared solution to the problem, they presented it to other groups. They also had a chance to learn from the probationary teachers’ problem-solving process, while developing their own solutions. Emerging data allowed for an understanding of the ways in which current students engage with authentic work-base problems. - 01-Jan-2017 - 30-Jan-2017
more projects
Address
Education
Lord Hope Building
Lord Hope Building
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