Applied Linguistics and TESOL at Massey University

Congratulations to Suwit Tikham for successfully passing your PhD confirmation today 🎉 We look forward to seeing how your research on 'The Role of L1: Exploring Students’ and Teachers Beliefs about the Use of Thai in a Thai Tertiary Occupational Health and Safety Context' progresses!

Graduation is always such a lovely time to celebrate student success. Yesterday, we celebrated the achievements of Dr Kwan (Kanokphan) Tongpong in obtaining her PhD and Ela and Huiwen in obtaining their Masters in Applied Linguistics (TESOL). What a special day 😍🤩 ❤️🎓🍾🌻🎊🎉

Lots of fun delivering a talk to Univeristy of Phayao (Thailand) postgraduate students and lecturers on task-based language teaching (TBLT) last night. Thank you for the invitation! 😍 🗣️

Well done to Mengxuan Zhang for successfully passing your PhD confirmation today 🎉 We look forward to seeing how your research on 'AI-generated written corrective feedback: Employing ChatGPT-generated written corrective feedback on ESL students’ academic writing development' progresses!

Many congratulations to Massey PhD student Nat (Phakhawadee Chaisiri) who recently had her lead authored article entitled 'Promoting Growth Language Mindsets and Willingness to Communicate: A Six-Step Instructional Model in a Thai EFL Course' published in Journal of Studies in the English Language.

https://so04.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/jsel/article/view/282207

Happy reading everyone!
🎉🎈📖🤩

Promoting Growth Language Mindsets and Willingness to Communicate: A Six-Step Instructional Model in a Thai EFL Course | Journal of Studies in the English Language Promoting Growth Language Mindsets and Willingness to Communicate: A Six-Step Instructional Model in a Thai EFL Course Article Sidebar PDF Published: Dec 30, 2025 DOI: https://doi.org/10.64731/jsel.v20i3.282207 Keywords: language mindset instructional design Thai higher education psychological const...

Massey’s Arianna Berardi-Wiltshire, Celina Maria Bortolotto and Hone Morris were invited to participate in the Plurilingual Perspectives conference held in Tahiti on 29–30 January 2026, which brought together indigenous language educators and researchers from across Oceania. The invitation followed the team’s contribution to an upcoming Routledge volume on plurilingual language education in the Pacific, where they present research on Te Hā o te Reo, Assoc Prof Morris’s programme for normalising te reo Māori among Massey staff.

As part of the visit, the team was also invited to meet with Philippe Machenaud, Secretary-General of French Polynesia, to learn about a national initiative to translate all French Polynesian legislation into the indigenous Tahitian language. This exchange highlighted strong alignment between Massey’s Tiriti-led work and international efforts to advance Indigenous language equity, governance, and access, and further strengthened high-level connections across the Pacific.

Awesome work team 🤩 🎉🎈🙌 😍

Fabulous to see this new publication out from Massey's Arianna Berardi-Wiltshire 🤩 'Heritage Language Education Policies in New Zealand'
📖 https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/the-cambridge-handbook-of-multilingual-education/DDADD8C82BC5668F061A92D83C0507AD

I am absolutely thrilled to share with you all that Enya (Jingwen Gu) has had a successful PhD oral examination today 🙂

Examiners commented that the thesis 'makes a clear and significant original contribution to knowledge on multiple fronts', and 'convincingly establishes its place within and its advancement of the international field of technology-enhanced language learning'.

Enya's thesis is titled 'Exploring Primary School Teacher Perceptions and Practices Integrating Technology in a Chinese EFL Context' and was supervised by Karen Ashton, Grace Qi and Eleanor Ridge.

Congratulations Enya!! We are so happy for you!! 🎊🎉💐

This week Te Reo: the journal of the Linguistic Society of New Zealand has published three Special Issues on Vanuatu Languages (check out the link in the comments!). Massey’s Eleanor Ridge was one of the co-guest editors, along with Tihomir Rangelov, Lana Takau and Victoria Chen. Though it was originally intended as a single Special Issue celebrating the 45th anniversary of Vanuatu’s Independence, the huge response from researchers resulted in three separate issues: Vanuatu languages in context, Vanuatu languages in action and Vanuatu language structures. The issues contain 25 research articles, one book review, and introductory articles in both English and Bislama. In total 43 authors contributed to the special issues, and more than 50 reviewers gave their time and expertise. The issues are dedicated to the memory of two linguists who made a huge contribution to the study of Vanuatu languages: Terry Crowley and John Lynch.

Eleanor also has two articles published in the Special Issue on Vanuatu languages in context (check out the links in the comments!). One is a co-authored article with Tihomir Rangelov and Lana Takau exploring progress in linguistic research on Vanuatu languages, “Linguistics in Vanuatu 45 years after Independence”. Her sole-authored article, “What does lanwis mean?”, draws on surveys and interviews with young people in Vatlongos-speaking communities to explore the meaning of the Bislama word for ‘language’, and how young people in Mele Maat, a peri-urban settlement near Port Vila, draw on this shared meaning and their experiences with other language communities in Vanuatu to understand and challenge language endangerment in their own community.

I am absolutely thrilled to share with you all that Kwan (Kanokphan) has just successfully passed her PhD oral examination :)

Examiners commented that the thesis 'makes a very relevant contribution to academic and professional understanding of the affordances and constraints that impact EMP teachers’ agency in the Thai tertiary education context'; 'It provides novel insights into the reciprocal relationship between agency and professional identity in a specialized context, showing that existing identity can drive agentic actions' and 'The findings offer a subtle re-evaluation of face-saving and hierarchy in practice, demonstrating that while these cultural norms constrain agency in interactions with colleagues, they can act as an affordance in the classroom, enabling teachers to adopt a collaborative, student-centred role without compromising their professional identity as language experts'.

Kwan's thesis is titled 'Language Teacher Agency in English for Medical Purposes in the Thai Tertiary Context' and was supervised by Cynthia White, Gillian Skyrme and Karen Ashton.

Congratulations Kwan!! We are delighted for you! Happy celebrations!!! 🌻🎊🎉