Lydia CHAN[back]

Education:

University of Oxford, D.Phil. Candidate (2006 - present) 

University of Oxford, Jesus College, M.Sc. in Educational Research Methodology (2005 - 2006). Dissertation: An Exploration of Assessment of Early English Language Development for Kindergarten Children in Hong Kong (Distinction).

University of Cambridge, Queens' College, B.A. (Hons) in Land Economy (2002 - 2005). Dissertation: Hong Kong Land Titles Ordinance: the shape of things to come (Distinction). 

Academic Activities:

• Oxford Brookes University: Associate Tutor for Dissertations in Early Childhood Studies (2008-09)
• Editorial contribution to the International Journal of Early Years Education (2007)
• Joint referee for the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Journal (2007)

Within the past decade, a large body of research evidence has demonstrated that a range of skills developed by the preliterate child lays the foundation for later reading success (e.g. Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). This emergent literacy perspective departs from the traditional reading readiness approach, which creates a boundary between the ‘real' reading that children are taught at school and everything that comes before. Although emergent literacy represents a broad field with multiple perspectives and a wide range of research methodologies, the collective findings seem to indicate that oral language, phonological processing skills, and print awareness are strongly predictive of how well children will profit from formal reading instruction in early elementary school.

Although intuitively plausible, the extent to which these concepts and models of emergent literacy, based on native (L1) English-speaking children, could extend to a Second-Language (L2) population is unknown. The proposed research, therefore, attempts such an extension, while taking into account the additional influences of linguistic and environmental variables that could potentially affect children's L2 acquisition and attainment.

Two interrelated predictive studies on Hong Kong kindergarten children's L2 emergent literacy development are designed, one of which is longitudinal. The aim is to examine the contribution of the various code-related and oral language skills in predicting L2 reading ability (controlling for both school and home variables), and to validate appropriate early L2 assessment tools for such children.

Publication: 

CHAN, L. (2005) Hong Kong Land Titles Ordinance: the shape of things to come. Hong Kong Law Journal, 35(3).

Conference Presentations:

1. Conference on Bilingual Acquisition in Early Childhood, Hong Kong (2008)
2. British Educational Research Association Annual Conference, London (2007)
3. Pacific Early Childhood Education Research Association Annual Conference, Hong Kong (2007)
4. Research Students' Conference, University of Oxford Department of Education (2007)
5. Asia-Pacific Educational Research Association International Conference, Hong Kong (2006)