Pingping Huang-Short presentation and paper proposal outline

[Pingping HUANGParticipant]

Hi, I’m Pingping.

Institutional affiliation

I’m a third year PhD student at the University College London – Institute of Education (UCL-IOE). My PhD research is to discuss the knowledge and power relationship represented in textbook content and textbook learning.

Training background

I got my bachelor degree in English Education at the University of Macau with minor in English-Chinese Translation. My undergraduate courses basically are relevant to education, teaching English for non-native speakers, English literature, English linguistics and academic writing. After that, I did my MA in Effective Learning and Teaching at the UCL-Institute of Education with final dissertation about the contextualization of English learning textbooks. The main modules that I took are Guiding Effective Learning and Teaching, Curriculum Design and Development and Assessment for Learning. After completing my MA, I continue to conduct PhD learning at IOE.

Main themes of investigation

My PhD thesis concerns the knowledge-power relationship represented in textbook design and content by taking four sets of secondary English textbooks used in China as cases, and the knowledge-power relationship in textbook usage by considering how textbook users with different backgrounds (e.g. private school, rural school, state school etc.) perceive and use textbooks in different ways. The whole research involves cross-disciplinary discussions such as education (curriculum, pedagogy and assessment), applied linguistics (the role of English as lingua franca, English learning materials design and development, TESOL), semiotics and multimodality, and sociology (social class, gender, urban & rural, power issues etc.). I mainly apply qualitative research methods (critical discourse analysis, text/document analysis, content analysis, thematic analysis, and case study etc.) with quantitative methods (Excel and SPSS) as the supplementary.

Paper intended to write

I am very interested in writing a paper focusing on the comparative studies in textbook policy (the compilation/production, examination/approval, evaluation, usage, management etc.), textbook pedagogy and the role of textbooks in educational curriculum between European countries and/or China. China just set up the National Teaching Materials Committee in 2017, aiming at improving the teaching materials management system. I believe the textbook policy, usage and its relationship with curriculum in European countries have referential significance for China’s textbook reform.

(I don’t want to restrict the ideas to this one. I have very broad interests in many other fields)

The starting knowledge-base

I have written a short piece introducing textbook policy in England and Finland as part of my PhD thesis, so I have some ideas about the role of textbooks in English and Finnish education system.

The knowledge needed to complete the paper

Since the mother tongue of many European countries is not English, I believe a lot more relevant research written in languages other than English can be referred to. I can only read English and Chinese which obstacles me to study European countries’ textbook policy. I’m looking for team members who are interested in educational policy in textbooks in European countries.

[Daria Mottareale CalvaneseParticipant]

I am very interested in your ideas. I hope to deepen with you on the paper work, see you tomorrow 😀

[Author]

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