Ming-Hsuan Wu | Faculty Profiles

Diplomas/Degrees

Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania (2013)

M.S.Ed. in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, University of Pennsylvania (2009)

M.S.Ed. in Educational Policy Studies , University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL (2006)

B.A. in Foreign Languages & Literature, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan (2002)

Licenses and Certifications

Certificate of Eligibility (CE) in Mandarin, New Jersey Department of Education

Personal Statement

Ming-Hsuan Wu has a Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics from the University of Pennsylvania. Her research and teaching focus on critically engaging educators to recognize and build upon English language learners’ multilingual abilities and lived experiences. She has specialized in the following substantive areas: bilingual/biliteracy education, ESL/EFL teacher education, culturally relevant pedagogy, urban education, language policy and planning, and heritage language education.

Dr. Wu has extensive experience of working with immigrant students, their families, and their teachers in public schools. Her approach to TESOL has always been about highlighting students’ and educators’ agentive roles in advancing their educational surroundings. She has published on topics ranging from material development, language maintenance to critical language pedagogy. Before joining Adelphi, she was Assistant Professor in the TESOL/Bilingual Programs at Touro College where she also directed the NYSED grant program, Clinically Rich Intensive Teacher Institute (CR-ITI) for TESOL and Bilingual Education. She currently directs two CR-ITI oprograms at Adelphi University.

Recent Courses

Sociolinguistic Perspectives In Adolescence Education

Tesol II: Developing Literacy & Tech Skills In Content Area

Theories Of Second Language Acquisition; Socio Cultural Considerations

Courses Previously Taught

Applied Experience In TESOL
Master's Seminar In TESOL: Action Research
Student Teaching In TESOL: Pre-Certification
TESOL I: Developing Literacy Skills In The ESL Classroom
Foundations of Bilingual and Multilingual Education

Research Interests

Trained as an educational linguist, I am interested in how issues of social class, gender, race/ethnicity, and language are manifested in educational (in)equality and how emancipatory educational practices can be initiated and maintained in urban schools. Broadly speaking, my work examines how both students and teachers from diverse backgrounds navigate the official and hidden curricular spaces of urban schools. I draw on educational research from a critical pedagogy perspective, which situates the historical struggles of people of color in the context of social justice and aims to create social change by engaging minority students in critiquing the current social and linguistic realities in which they are living (Alim, 2007; Luke, 2009). In particular, I seek to understand teachers’ agentive roles in positively impacting immigrant students’ academic and social lives as well as young people’s agentive roles in contesting dominant discourses on diversity.

I have published on topics related to culturally responsive pedagogy (CRP) in urban schooling, “Chinese” heritage language maintenance, and interracial/interethnic friendships among diverse students.

I continue to examine how the intersections of race, culture, class, and language play out in urban students’ educational experiences in the NYC context, focusing on Chinese American students’ transnational experiences. Immigrant families living in large cities in North America often send their young children back to their country of origin and bring them back when the children reach school age. This practice may transpire for various reasons, including lack of childcare in the host country, low wages among immigrant parents, or intergenerational childcare as a norm back home. Media coverage and current research on these children have highlighted their difficult emotional, linguistic and social adjustment upon returning to North America. Some social psychologists argue that the decision to send young children back to the parents’ country of origin cannot be understood in the traditional Western understanding of parenting and urge more research on this population’s experiences.

I am currently conducting a qualitative research project with Dr. Sonna Opstad from Touro College at an elementary school in Brooklyn to better understand how teachers understand their transnational children's bicultural, bilingual, and transnational experiences. The project seeks not only to reveal the challenges these students face in the classroom, but also their resilience and the linguistic and social resources that they bring to the classroom.

International Experience

Asian American Teachers in the English Language Teaching Field

In a broader context where English is marketed as a desirable product of consumption, hiring English speakers as language teachers and de facto cultural ambassadors is a common practice in some East Asian countries. Our research project investigates how 20 self-identified Asian American teachers in Taiwan teaching English in local schools wrestle with the positionality of their racialized selves and idealized “nativeness.” Using an informal interview approach, a grounded theory framework, and narrative analysis, we investigated how participants made sense of their Asian American-ness in the ELT profession in Taiwan. Findings include complex feelings involving the image of Asian Americans, strategic language use to construct Asian-American-in-Taiwan identities, and unique interpretations of teaching U.S. culture. We discuss the emotional labor and strategic discourses these teachers undertook to convert their cultural and linguistic capital and offer suggestions for professional and curriculum development.

Wu, M.-H., Leung, G., Yang, J.-K., Hsieh, H. I. & Lin, K. (2020). “A Different Story to Share”: Asian American English teachers in Taiwan and idealized “nativeness” in ELT. Journal of Language, Identity & Education

Lin, S., Wu, M-H., & Leung, G. (2023). ‘What if I was not adopted’: transnational Chinese adoptee English teachers negotiating identities in Taiwan. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.

Lin, S., Wu, M.-H., & Leung, G. (2023). Life and work between home and “homeland”: A narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space. Applied Linguistics Review.

Chapters

Wu, M.-H., Lin, C.-C., Hsiung, M.-Y., & Min, P.-H.(2023). Flipping the script: A collaborative autoethnography of agency and voices in the weaponization of bilingual education in Taiwan. In K. C. Bryan & L. J. Pentón Herrera (Eds.), The Weaponizing of Language in the Classroom and Beyond. De Gruyter Mouton (pp. 35-62).

Wu, M.-H., Chik, C., & Simpson, A (2021). Chinese: Multiple varieties in a changing Greater Los Angeles. In C. H. Chik (Ed.) Multilingual La La Land: Language use in sixteen Greater Los Angeles communities (pp. 47-65).New York: Routledge

Articles

Lin, S., Wu, M-H., & Leung, G. (2023). ‘What if I was not adopted’: transnational Chinese adoptee English teachers negotiating identities in Taiwan. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.

Lin, S., Wu, M.-H., & Leung, G. (2023). Life and work between home and “homeland”: A narrative inquiry of transnational Chinese adoptees’ identity negotiations across time and space. Applied Linguistics Review.

Wu, M-H. and Opstad, S. L. (2021) "Changing Worlds, Changing Classrooms: Satellite Children and their Teachers in the Transnational Era," Journal of Multilingual Education Research: Vol. 11 , Article 4.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5422/jmer.2021.v11.35-57

Wu, M.-H., & Leung, G. (2020). “It’s not my Chinese”: A teacher and her students disrupting and dismantling conventional notions of “Chinese” through translanguaging in a heritage language classroom. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism.

Wu, M.-H., Leung, G., Yang, J.-K., Hsieh, H. I. & Lin, K. (2020). “A Different Story to Share”: Asian American English teachers in Taiwan and idealized “nativeness” in ELT. Journal of Language, Identity & Education

Wu, M-H.,& Opstad, S. (2019). Living in Two Worlds: Exploring US Teachers’ Perceptions of Satellite Children’s Transnational Experiences in China and the United States. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. DOI: 10.1080/13670050.2019.1677552

Wu, M.-H. (2017). A critical examination of Asian students’ interracial and interethnic friendships at a multiracial urban school. Urban Education. doi: 10.1177/0042085917690206

Wu, M.-H., Lee, K., & Leung, G. (2014). Heritage language education and investment among Asian American middle schoolers: Insights from a charter school. Language and Education, 28(1), 19-33.

Wu, M.-H. (2014). Innovative education for diverse students in a changing era: One U.S. urban school’s alternative teaching and learning. International Journal of Multicultural Education, 16(2), 36-55.

Leung, G., & Wu, M.-H. (2012). Linguistic landscape and heritage language literacy education: A case study of linguistic rescaling in Philadelphia Chinatown. Written Language and Literacy, 15(1), 114-140.

Invited Presentations

Wu, M.-H. et al. (November, 2021). On the Road to a Mandarin-English Bilingual Country: A Snapshot of English Education in Taiwan. Presented virtually at the NYS TESOL 51st Annual Conference, NY.

Grants

2019-2023 Clinically Rich Intensive Teacher Institute in TESOL & Bilingual Education.
New York State Education Department Grant.

2014-2017 Clinically Rich Intensive Teacher Institute in TESOL & Bilingual Education.
New York State Education Department Grant.