Yaoyao is a DPhil student in Education at Oxford.
Her research interest lies in Aptitude-Instruction-Interaction (ATI) in second language acquisition (SLA).
Yaoyao’s research investigates the mediating effects of individual differences in learners’ domain-general perceptual-cognitive abilities in instructed foreign language pronunciation acquisition in adulthood. She aims to further explore how aptitude hinders instructional effectiveness and help all students make the most of instruction regardless of aptitude profiles.
Yaoyao started her BA in the Japanese Language and Literature at Sun Yat-Sen University (中山大学) in China. She then moved to the University of Queensland to finish her BA with double majors in Japanese and Translation. After her BA, she worked as an English teacher in China for three years. Prior to her DPhil studies at Oxford, Yaoyao completed her Master’s degree in TESOL at Institute of Education, University College London. Her Master’s dissertation was supervised by Dr Kazuya Saito.