fulbright Taiwan online journal

fulbright Taiwan online journal

Tag: taiwan

David Herman and Alexandra Slayton : My year as ETA TEFL Advisor in Taiwan

David Herman and Alexandra Slayton work within the ETA advisory team which provides training and advice to the English Teaching Assistants (ETAs) and Taiwan local English teachers (LETs). Through weekly reports, bi-weekly workshops, class observations, online support, and annual ETA conference, the team provides agile response and thorough training to enhance teaching quality of ETAs and LETs. David Herman is a PhD student at Washington State University with a focus on Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). Alexandra Slayton hold an M.A. degree from the School for International Training (SIT) Graduate Institute in TESOL. They both are grantees of the “FSE English Teacher Training & Research Awards.”

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Chinese Martial Arts Cinema in the 21st Century: from Wong Fei-hung to Huang Fei-hong

( This manuscript is NOT a formally written paper and is NOT FOR CITATION in any form. )     The real Wong Fei-hung (WFH) was a celebrated martial artist, a physician, an herbalist, and a street performer. He belonged to the Hong Fist (洪拳) of the Southern Shaolin School (南少林) and was taught by his father, Wong Kei-ying (黃麒英). Wong Fei-hung’s legend was first popularized because of the serialized stories written by Zhu Yu-zhai in Hong Kong and published in newspapers in the 40s. In 1949, the first WFH film, True Story of Wong Fei-hung, (Huang feihong zhuan) was made, with 2 installments. This film ushered in a new era of martial arts films, and the directors trademarked it with Cantonese opera actor Kwan Tak-hing (關德興). These two films started the longest running series in world cinema. In my count, there are at least 107 films made featuring WFH from 1949 to 1997. And it is officially confirmed that Kwan Tak-hing appeared invariably as WFH in 77 films.      This specifically Cantonese series proclaimed to be kung fu, in the sense that it departed from a previous fantasy subgenre of martial arts, shenguai wuxia (神怪武俠). It rejected the

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A Rich and Fulfilling Fulbright Experience in Taiwan, China and Hong Kong

    This paper contains reflections on my stay in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China as a Fulbright Senior Scholar from May to July 2015.   Research-Wide Reflections      Because the Fulbright Scholar Award is prestigious in supporting activities and projects that promote educational exchange and international understanding, I have been able to identify and collect data and collaborate with researchers and business managers in Taiwan, China, and Hong Kong. Since my research topic focuses on mergers and acquisitions among companies in these three places, researchers and data in this area are scattered in multiple disciplines (e.g., business/management, political science, and sociology). It is challenging to conduct research in three different locations within three months, however, it is also extremely worthwhile to exchange ideas with people who are doing similar research or who are conducting business with real experience.      During my stay, I gave guest lectures to graduate students (approximately 60 students and 10 faculty members) where I shared my prior and ongoing research projects. I was also able to serve as a discussant and presenter giving an oral presentation in one international conference (Asia Academy of Management). Several comments and insights that people shared with me

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My Fulbright Journey in Taiwan: Language-Discordance as a Social Phenomenon

    Social worlds and social relationships are created, maintained, and resisted through human communication. The best of communication scholarship emerges through researchers’ willingness and ability to listen, by recognizing the perspectives of others, and learning through the nuances and complexities of communication practices. This is particularly important when working with marginalized and underserved populations, whose voices are often deprived and silenced, resulting in disparities in their everyday life. These are the values that have driven my research program for nearly two decades. Interests in and empathy for humans and the human phenomenon is fundamental to the scholarship of any social scientist.       I have dedicated my research to understanding how linguistic and cultural differences can create barriers to patients’ health experiences, including their access to and process of care. In particular, I am interested in how language-discordant patients, such as patients with English-limited proficiency (LEP), coordinate and negotiate healthcare services with their healthcare providers. As I presented my model of Bilingual Health Communication (Hsieh, 2016), a communicative model that aims to provide guidance for interpreter-mediated provider-patient interactions, to various groups in the United States, interpreters of American Sign Language often told me that their deaf patients are

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Fulbright Reflections: Forging New Connections in Taiwan

In many ways, Taiwan is very familiar to me: I have traveled through most of its cities, have many Taiwanese friends, and have worked here previously as a visiting researcher. I enjoy the sights, sounds, people, places, and most aspects of life here. Of course, there are everyday challenges: finding the best deals on cell phone plans, traveling to more remote areas without Chinese fluency, etc. Overall, however, my greatest challenge in utilizing my Fulbright grant concerns the research itself. During the course of my Fulbright fellowship, I have met hundreds of people from all walks of life, including Taiwanese faculty, students, museum curators, and many, many others. Part of the reason Fulbright is such a wonderful program is that an explicit part of your work here is the opportunity to truly connect with people here, both in a professional and personal capacity. Fulbright opens many doors that would otherwise be closed to you as a visitor or company employee here; so make the best use of this opportunity as possible for your sake, the sake of your Taiwanese colleagues, and the relationship between the USA and Taiwan! Unlike most other grantees, I specialize in bioengineering for making biofuels, biochemicals,

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Research & Reflections

fulbright taiwan online journal