Stephen's Page

I was born in New Hampshire, but grew up mostly in Seattle. Other roosts have included San Francisco, CA; Middlebury, VT; and Beijing, China. I've lived in Honolulu for almost 30 years now. I love music. In recent years I have attended summer camps for folk/world music enthusiasts in Macedonia and Bulgaria to learn songs and dances... and to eat a lot. This year the plan is to stay put.

I have taught various Chinese courses here at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, including Chinese for Business Professionals, and I've also taught Chinese online and on interactive television and have done some textbook authoring and filmmaking.

One thing that you should know about me is that sometimes I tend to finish other people's sentences for them when I get excited about an idea. (It's a very bad habit, and you should definitely call me out on it!)

Stephen

A key idea that has significantly influenced my philosophy of teaching and learning is the importance of comprehensible input, which is a real challenge to implement for novice learners. I'm also very interested in the development of intercultural competence, which was the focus of last year's NFLRC PBLL Intensive Summer Institute, which I co-directed with Sabine Levet from MIT.