Confucius Institute Programs - ICCIP Conference Bios of the Keynote Speaker

This is keynote speaker information for the conference we held in 2020.

Guofang Li

Dr. Guofang Li is a Professor and Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Transnational/Global Perspectives of Language and Literacy Education of Children and Youth in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia, Canada. Li is a leading researcher in immigrant children's language and literacy education internationally. Her program of research aims to improve the life success of immigrant and minority students by addressing the cultural, linguistic, instructional, and structural barriers in their literacy learning and academic achievement both in school and at home. Her recent research interests span longitudinal studies of immigrant children's bicultural and bi-literacy development through school, children and youth's new literacies practices in and out of school, technology enhanced language teaching in primary and secondary schools, pre- and in-service TESOL teacher education, and current language and educational policy and practice in globalized contexts. Li has published 13 books and over 100 journal articles and book chapters in English and Chinese, and presented over 200 papers worldwide. Her work and contribution has been recognized by numerous national and international awards including the 2016 Mid-Career Award from the Second Language Research Special Interest Group (SIG), American Educational Research Association (AERA), the 2016 Carol Weinstein Outstanding Research Award, Classroom Management SIG, AERA, the 2013 and 2006 Ed Fry Book Award of the Literary Research Association (LRA), the 2011 Publication Award from ACPSS, the 2010 AERA Early Career Award, and the 2008 Social Context of Education Division Early Career Award of AERA. Her most recent books include Educating Chinese-heritage Students in the Global-Local Nexus: Achievement, Challenges, and Opportunities (Routledge, 2017) and Chinese-heritage Students in North American Schools: Understanding the Hearts and Minds beyond Test Scores. (Routledge, 2016).

Juefei Wang

Dr. Juefei Wang is the Program Director of the Freeman Foundation and Professor of Education Emeritus of the University of Vermont, U.S.A. He is the founder of the Asian Studies Outreach Program of the University of Vermont and served as its director for 14 years. In that role he created a statewide program for Asian studies in schools in Vermont, organized more than 1,000 teachers, school administrators, and high school and college students to visit China, Japan, and Thailand, and assisted Vermont schools in offering content on Asia. In 2003, the program received the inaugural Prize for Excellence in International Education from Goldman Sachs Foundation and the Asia Society. His research interest includes international education and comparative education.

Chan Lü

Dr. Chan Lü received her Ph.D. from the Department of Modern Languages at Carnegie Mellon University, under the guidance of Dr. Keiko Koda. She was a tenured associate professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. In 2016, she transitioned to my new position at University of Washington, where she served as the Chinese language program coordinator and offer a variety of courses to both undergraduate and graduate students. Her selected research included Chinese Literacy Learning in an Immersion Program (Palgrave Mcmillan, 2019), Chinese reading development among young learners in a Chinese immersion program and a Chinese heritage language school (Teaching Chinese in the World 2016), The roles of pinyin skill in English-Chinese biliteracy learning: Evidence from Chinese immersion learners (Foreign Language Annals 2017) , and The roles of phonological awareness and oral vocabulary knowledge in English-Chinese biliteracy acquisition among Chinese heritage language learners (Heritage Language Journal 2017).

Wenying Zhou

Dr. Wenying Zhou is an Assistant Professor of Chinese in the Department of Linguistics and Germanic, Slavic, Asian, and African Languages at Michigan State University. She has extensive experiences with online and face-to-face Chinese language instruction, expertise in Chinese language teacher training, knowledge of Chinese curriculum development, and an exceptional record of published journal articles and book chapters in the area of teaching Chinese as a second language. Her past research has focused mainly on training Chinese language teachers in the U.S., exploring effective ways in Chinese language instruction, and examining the effectiveness of technology in Chinese language learning. Her recent research interests include the use of target language and authentic materials in Chinese instruction as well as the development of American students' Chinese literacy.