Tzu-Hua Chen 陳紫樺 

Welcome to Tzu-Hua Chen's website! 

I recently received my PhD in Education (specialization: Applied Linguistics) from the Department of Education at Concordia University in Montréal, Canada. My advisor is Prof. Kim McDonough. Prior to this, I was a PhD student at the Department of Second Language Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, USA. I received my master's degree in English Teaching from National Taiwan Normal University and my bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from Fu Jen Catholic University. I have more than 10 years of experience teaching English at elementary, secondary, and tertiary levels in Taiwan, the United States, and Canada. During my master's and doctoral studies, I also worked as a graduate research and administrative assistant for NSC (Taiwan) and SSHRC (Canada) funded research projects, as well as at the Center for Language & Technology (CLT) and the National Foreign Language Resource Center (NFLRC) at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.

I specialize in second language acquisition (SLA) and second language pedagogy, with particular interests in task-based language teaching and interaction in face-to-face, technology-mediated, and out-of-class learning contexts, pragmatics and second language teaching and learning, individual learner differences in SLA (especially positive psychology and affective factors), speech learning and teaching speaking, and research methods. My multi- and interdisciplinary research, drawing on a variety of theoretical perspectives from the fields of SLA, linguistics, and educational psychology, has appeared in several top-tier and reputable academic journals, including Studies in Second Language Learning and Teaching, Applied Linguistics Review, System, English Teaching & Learning, and The Journal of Asia TEFL. 

My doctoral dissertation, funded by Quebec government through an FRQSC (Quebec Research Fund) research scholarship, focuses on linguistically and culturally diverse international students' oral task engagement. My doctoral studies in Canada were fully funded by the Study Abroad Scholarship offered by Ministry of Education in Taiwan, the Faculty of Arts and Science PhD Fellowship and the Concordia International Tuition Award of Excellence at Concordia University. Since my master's studies, I have been a frequent presenter at top-notch academic conferences in North America and Taiwan, such as AAAL, SLRF, TESOL, ETRA, and ETA-ROC, and I received conference travel grants from Concordia, the Foundation for the Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship, and the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan. 

As of January 2016, I created a Facebook fan page and blog devoted to second language (L2) English teaching, learning, and research. Many teaching/learning resources I shared pertain to online learning materials and platforms, and have been used in my teaching. I believe the opportunities afforded by the advancement of computer technologies can transform the way second languages are learned and taught. Therefore, I hope to invite those interested in this teaching trend to consider the integration of the online resources introduced and shared in my webpages into their teaching. Moreover, considering that the majority of second language (English) teachers and the general public worldwide do not have access to most academic research publications, I am committed to communicating my research findings to a broad audience through video abstracts and/or blog posts in English and Chinese, please check out the 'Outrearch' section for my endeavor!   

Feel free to reach me at  tzuhuachen2017@gmail.com or tzu-hua.chen@mail.concordia.ca for  discussions and inquiries related to my research or potential collaboration opportunities.

Education 

Ph.D. Student in Applied Linguistics,  Concordia University, Canada  

Sep. 2019–Oct. 2024 

Committee: Kim McDonough (chair), Pavel Trofimovich, Teresa Hernandez-Gonzalez, and others   

Courses: Pragmatics and L2 Task Research (PhD tutorial), Individual Differences in SLA, Language Awareness, Advanced Statistics, Qualitative Research Methods, and Advanced Issues in Education.

Ph.D. Student in Second Language Studies,  University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UH-M), USA   

Aug. 2018 – May. 2019  

Courses: Task-Based Language Teaching, Applied Psycholinguistics and SLA, Motivation and Emotion in Second Language Learning, Sociolinguistics and Second Language Learning, ESL Teaching Practicum, and Quantitative Research Methods. 

M.A. in English Teaching,  National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), Taiwan, 2017

B.A. in English Language and Literature, Fu Jen Catholic University (FJU), Taiwan, 2012