Speaker
Description
Developing students’ ability to ask questions and think critically is key to fostering engagement, autonomy and deeper learning. This interactive workshop provides English teachers with practical strategies to hone these skills in students. Participants will explore teaching techniques to move students beyond basic comprehension and encourage their critical thinking. The workshop includes techniques to enable students to generate questions before, during and after reading activities for more students’ autonomy and higher motivation in English learning. Instructional models like Question-Response-Feedback and Bloom’s Taxonomy to scaffold higher-order thinking are introduced as well. The workshop also covers suggestions for teachers to handle students’ questions, provide feedback and reduce traditional teachers’ dominance. A variety of other useful strategies (e.g., phone a friend and hot seat) for students to ask questions and think critically are also shared in the workshop. Participants will leave with effective teaching strategies, feedback tips and hands-on activities. Ideal for English teachers in K-12 education, this workshop blends theory with actionable methods to cultivate independent, critical thinkers.
Biography
Barry Bai is an associate professor at the Department of Curriculum and the director of Centre for Language Education and Multiliteracies Research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2023 and 2024, he was recognized as a top 2% most cited researcher in languages and linguistics worldwide by Stanford University. Additionally, he was named a Highly Ranked Scholar (Lifetime - top 0.05%, #20 and Prior 5 Years – top 0.05%, #3) in the specialty of primary school in 2024 by ScholarGPS. Currently, he serves as the president of Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics (HAAL) and is an associate editor of European Journal of Education and Asia Pacific Journal of Education. He is a recipient of 2014/2015 Faculty Exemplary Teaching Award and has secured highly competitive research funds, Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) Competitive Research Funding Schemes (GRF/ECS) for 2018/2019 and 2022/2023. He has conducted multiple projects on English teachers’ continuing professional development funded by Quality Education Fund (QEF) and Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) of the Hong Kong Education Bureau and the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a total funding amount of over HK$ 35 million. His work appears in leading education journals, including Computers & Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, Social Psychology of Education, Research Papers in Education, Cambridge Journal of Education, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Studies in Educational Evaluation, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, Applied Linguistics Review, TESOL Quarterly and System.
