Assistant Professor Victor Lim Fei publishes a book, a book chapter, a journal article and speaks at two international conferences and a webinar

Asst Prof Victor Lim Fei, from NIE’s English Language and Literature Academic Group (ELL AG), published a book titled “Designing Learning for Multimodal Literacy: Teaching Viewing and Representing”, where the book addresses the need to design learning for multimodal literacy in a world that is increasingly saturated with print and digital media. The book outlines how teachers can design learning for multimodal literacy. It is a result of a collaboration between an educational researcher and a curriculum developer, and offers practical resources for practitioners but also design principles and considerations based on practice with a range of students to inform and inspire academics and postgraduate students.

Asst Prof Victor also wrote a book chapter titled “Raising Science Teachers’ Language Awareness: A Functional Literacy Approach to Teaching Science”, which was published in “The role of language in content pedagogy: A framework for teachers’ knowledge”, co-edited by Assoc Prof Rita Elaine Silver, Associate Dean of Research Design & Integrity at the Office of Education Research (OER), and Associate Professor at NIE’s English Language & Literature Academic Group (ELL SG), alongside Dr Seah Lay Hoon from the National University of Singapore and Assoc Prof Mark C. Baildon from United Arab Emirates University. This chapter reports on a project in a Singapore secondary school, where researchers worked with five science teachers at different stages over two years to trial a functional literacy approach to the teaching of lower secondary science. The functional literacy approach was informed by systemic functional theory and drew on the work of Rose Martin for language learning in the science context. This chapter focuses on the shifts in language awareness for teaching science from the teacher reflections collected during the process of implementing ideas from the functional literacy approach to address students’ needs. The reflections indicated a shift from initial reservations to an eventual recognition of the value of how awareness and attention to language can support students’ learning of scientific concepts, develop communicative classrooms and make the knowledge process visible.

He also published a journal article titled “Design in Gunther Kress’s social semiotics”, which was published in the journal of London Review of Education. The article brought together authors’ insights in relation to a concept from Gunther Kress’s design theory, and reflected on his conceptualisation of design in social semiotics. The article also discussed how this idea has inspired the authors to advance research across the domains of formal learning in schools, informal learning and communication in museums, and in everyday communication and social interaction.

Asst Prof Victor was invited as a keynote speaker for the 19^th Asia Association of Computer Assisted Language Learning (AsiaCALL) International Conference on 26 November 2022, organised by the Van Lang University in Hanoi, Vietnam, where gave a presentation titled “The Future of Reading in a Digital Age”. Prior to that, He was also invited as a keynote speaker at the 10^th International Conference on English Language and Teaching (IOCELT) on 26 October 2022, organised by the FNS Universitas Negeri Padang, Indonesia, where he gave a presentation titled “Literacy in the Digital Age”.

On 18 November 2022, Asst Prof Victor was invited as a plenary speaker at the 4^th International Webinar on Multimodal Discourse Analysis, organised by the Group for Research on Academic and Professional English (GRAPE) on 18 November 2022, where he gave a presentation titled “Multimodal Research to Inform Policy and Practice in Education”.