Yongcan Liu

Position/Status

University Lecturer in Second Language Education

E-mail Address

yl258@cam.ac.uk

Phone

+44 (0)1223 767692

Qualifications
Membership of Professional Bodies/Associations

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Profile

Yongcan Liu is University Lecturer in Second Language Education at the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge. His main responsibility in the faculty lies in coordinating the MPhil in Research in Second Language Education programme and supervising research students. Before coming to Cambridge, he was Lecturer in Language Education at the Graduate School of Education, University of Exeter.

Yongcan studied his BA and MA in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics in China and completed his MPhil and PhD in Education at Cambridge. Broadly speaking, his research is based on two theoretical frameworks: (1) Community of Practice theory, from a sociological/situational perspective, focuses on issues of identity, participation and social practice; and (2) Cultural Historical Activity Theory takes a socio-cognitive view and mainly deals with issues such as mediation, scaffolding and potential development. He brings together these two theoretical perspectives to understand key issues in second language teaching, learning and teacher professional development.

Yongcan particularly welcomes expression of interest from prospective students working on any of the topics mentioned below.

Academic Area/Links

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Research Topics

Current Research Projects

‘Talk at work’ in teacher communities of practice Internationalisation of higher education, language policy and language use Narrative inquiry of language teachers’ knowledge and practice of classroom-based assessment.

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Course Involvement

Teaching Topics

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Recent Publications

Liu, Y. and Xu, Y. (in press). The trajectory of learning in a teacher community of practice: A narrative inquiry. Research Papers in Education.

Liu, Y. and Xu, Y. (2011). Inclusion or exclusion?: A narrative inquiry of a language teacher’s identity experience in the ‘new work order’ of competing pedagogies. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), 589-597.

Liu, Y., and Fisher, L. (2010). ‘What have we learnt after we had fun’: An activity theory perspective on the cultures of learning in pedagogical reforms. In V. Ellis, A. Edwards, and P. Smagorinsky (Eds.), Cultural-historical perspectives on teacher education and development: Learning teaching (pp. 180-195). Oxon: Routledge/Taylor and Francis.

Xu, Y., and Liu, Y. (2009). Teacher assessment knowledge and practice: A narrative inquiry of a Chinese EFL teachers’ experience. TESOL Quarterly, 43(3), 493-513.

Liu, Y. (2008). Learning as boundary-crossing between the global and the local in a community of practice. Journal of Cambridge Studies, 13(1), 13-18.

Liu, Y. (2007). From teacher group to learning community: Towards an integrated framework for college English teachers’ professional development. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 30(5), 75-85.

Liu, Y., and Fisher, L. (2006). The development patterns of modern foreign language student teachers’ conceptions about self: Three cases. Teacher Development: An International Journal of Teachers’ Professional Development, 10(3), 339-355.

Liu, Y., and Fisher, L. (2006). Induction teachers as legitimate peripheral participants. Research in Education, 75, 88-100.

Liu, Y. (2005). Situated teacher learning in a community of practice. In M. Cooper (Ed.), Teacher education: Local and global (pp. 280-296). Queensland, Australia: Australian Catholic University.

Liu, Y. (2003). A cognitive psycholinguistic study of the functions of note-taking. Journal of Modern Languages, 26(2), 191-199.

Liu, Y. (2001). The role of schema in English listening comprehension. Journal of English Education, 3, 4-12.