Meng Yi (Monica) Huang has worked as a teacher of English in Taipei in Taiwan for 10 years. She teaches primary children in language school as well as adults at university.

Monica decided to enrol in the CQUniversity Doctor of Professional Studies in 2008 because her father encouraged her to develop her career.

Associate Professor Alison Owens chats with Monica Huang about her doctoral research

In fact, her father had a unique approach to teaching Monica how to speak English as child: he bought a walkie-talkie set and practiced with his little daughter.

He encouraged Monica to listen on this system to English-speaking crews on ships in the harbour and got her to translate for him. Then he encouraged her to begin conversations with the sailors.

Monica developed links with a walkie-talkie pal from Greece who spoke with her in English and helped develop her speaking and listening skills.

This gave Monica the idea of deploying more up-to-date technology with her child learners of English in Taiwan, by linking them with Australian primary learners of Mandarin using Yahoo Messenger technology.

Monica is co-presenting a paper reporting preliminary findings from this doctoral research with her supervisor, Associate Professor Alison Owens, at the Asia-Pacific International Education Conference in March this year.  Monica expects to graduate with her Doctor of Professional Studies later this year.

Based at our Sydney Campus, Associate Professor Owens is Deputy Director for CQUniversity's International Education Research Centre.