UNews - Department of Asian Studies

Two students share this year’s Michael Chan prize

caroline.zentner — Wed, 11 Oct 2017 17:57:49 +0000

Two unique projects earned Rutika Gandhi (BA’14) and Fallan Curtis wins in this year’s Michael Chan Prize in Asian Studies.

The annual prize, named after Michael Wing-Cheung Chan (1952 – 2001), is given to continuing undergraduate or graduate students in any degree program with an interest in Asia-focused scholarship, research or projects. Chan was a Canadian Chinese scientist and humanitarian known for his brilliance in mathematics and his passion for promoting Canada-Asia understanding.

As this year’s winners, Gandhi and Curtis receive $500 each — Gandhi for her essay looking at Buddhism in the digital world, and Curtis for her photo essay comparing biomedicine (Western medicine) and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).

Curtis, an undergraduate student, participated in Dr. Bonnie Lee’s ‘Health and Culture in China’ field

study course. In the beginning, Curtis planned her project around comparing the health systems in Canada and China but first-hand experience with the Chinese system changed the focus.

While the field study group was in Hangzhou, Curtis started feeling unwell. The pain intensified, centering in the lower right quadrant of her abdomen and appendicitis was suspected. As her condition worsened, Curtis sought treatment at a hospital. Language proved to be a barrier despite the services of a translator. However, Curtis understood she needed to provide a deposit before treatment could begin. She made emergency calls to family members and secured the deposit. Tests confirmed the infection.

“Basically, over the course of five days, I received copious amounts of antibiotics intravenously and different tests,” she says. “Once they found out that those antibiotics were working and decreasing my white blood cell count, they decided not to operate. If I had presented with the same symptoms here they would have operated immediately. Now that I have had it once, the likelihood of it re-occurring is quite high.”

Students in the field study also visited a TCM hospital and one of the doctors there gave her an acupuncture treatment for appendicitis.

“I don’t think this would have exactly been a productive treatment when the appendicitis was acute, but it was interesting after to get the opportunity to be cared for in a different way,” she says.

Curtis refocused her project and decided to use her experiences and information on the types of health-care systems in a photo essay. She learned that the younger generation in China is more supportive of modern scientific medicine and some people are concerned that TCM will disappear as a result. Integrated medicine, which blends TCM with biomedicine, is also becoming more prevalent.

“There are positives to TCM that biomedicine cannot account for,” she says. “I think one of the most important things TCM has to offer is a better patient-practitioner relationship. So, integrated medicine is a combination of both treatments and studies have shown it to be extremely effective.”

Curtis can’t say enough about the value of her field study experience. The sights, sounds and smells of being in another culture can’t be learned in a book. Winning the Michael Chan prize is a bonus.

“I’m quite honoured. The prize will help me out financially because of this costly trip, so that’s nice,” she says. “I really wanted to share my experiences and I was inspired by the interactive learning experience.”

Gandhi, a master’s student under the supervision of Dr. John Harding, found her niche in religious studies while she was an undergraduate. During a course on Asian religions and the West, Gandhi learned about different manifestations of Buddhism, depending on the country, sect and school. She also learned about the ways Buddhism has been re-interpreted in modern times, including in the digital world.

Gandhi became intrigued by Second Life, an online three-dimensional virtual reality game. Some locales in the game are Buddhist in nature so Gandhi signed up, created an avatar and explored the virtual Buddhist world. Participants can visit temples, burn incense, pray, meditate, do yoga, make donations to a temple and chat with other participants.

“It made me think ‘What does this mean?’ Is it replacing religious activities or is it just another way for Buddhists to connect with each other? Is it just part of globalization?” she says. “I did a bit of research and concluded that it’s not a way for Buddhists to replace offline religious activity; it’s just an extension of it.”

Issues that occur in the real world can also be reflected in the online world. Gandhi turned her attention to a forum known as E-sangha, a popular website that claimed to be transnational and not associated with any particular form of Buddhism.

“Every forum has guidelines that people need to follow or their profiles can be suspended or terminated. E-sangha followed the eight-fold path, which ties their website to some form of authenticity, but their guidelines forbade certain schools of Buddhism from joining, which went against the site’s claim that it was universal,” Gandhi says.

As modern Buddhism evolved from different places around the world, the dynamics between the monastics and laity changed. Traditionally, monks have been authority figures in Buddhism. Now lay people sometimes hold more sway in the online world and the current mindfulness movement in North America is led by mostly lay people and even some who are not Buddhists.

“Overall, what I’m trying to show is that the real world and the online world are not completely separate and that the online world does not replace the offline world. They sort of work in sync with each other and although the online world does not replace the offline world, it can extend some of the issues that are going on,” she says.

Winning the Michael Chan prize was unexpected but welcome news and the money will help her pay tuition fees.

“I always try to keep a positive outlook on things but I also don’t want to set myself up for disappointment,” Gandhi says. “I knew it was a good paper but when I actually saw the email that I won I was pleasantly surprised and really happy.”

U of L humanities researchers secure federal grants

caroline.zentner — Wed, 31 Aug 2016 16:31:45 +0000

Four ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professors have been awarded more than $300,000 in research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).

“This year’s SSHRC results reflect a high standard of excellence amongst our humanists and social scientists, of which we can be rightly proud,” says Dr. Claudia Malacrida, associate vice-president research. “These researchers’ projects touch on vital aspects of cultural, civil and social life and each of them richly deserves this recognition.”

Dr. Abdie Kazemipur, a U of L sociology professor, has been awarded more than $138,000 over four years for a research project called After the Ottawa Attack. Kazemipur will examine the integration of Muslims in Canada in the wake of recent terrorist attacks in Canada by Muslim converts. More details about his research project are available on the UNews website.

Dr. Fangfang Li, a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge psychology professor, has received a grant worth more than $28,000. She and several fellow researchers at the U of L want to ensure the public has access to correct information about child language learning and are organizing a conference that will bring the various academic disciplines involved in child language acquisition research and the public together. The conference, to be hosted on a rotating basis with the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Calgary, is planned to be an annual event. Check out the UNews website for more information.

Dr. Gloria Tian, an associate professor of finance at the U of L’s Calgary campus, and two fellow finance professors, will use their Insight Grant worth more than $94,000 to examine partnerships between corporations and the non-profit sector. Visit UNews to learn more about Tian’s project.

Dr. Hillary Rodrigues, a professor of Religious Studies, will investigate a growing component of the ‘spiritual but not religious’ group. The Modern Nondual Spirituality movement centres on the attainment of a key psychological realization where all conceptual dualities, especially those that distinguish the individual from the rest of reality, collapse. The movement hasn’t received much attention from religious scholars and Rodrigues plans to use his grant worth more than $43,000 to correct that situation. Further information on his study is outlined on UNews.

These grants will further knowledge in key areas of research that are of interest not only to ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ, but also to professionals and the public.

Rodrigues to investigate modern nondual spirituality

caroline.zentner — Tue, 30 Aug 2016 20:44:12 +0000

Sociological studies show the number of those who call themselves ‘spiritual but not religious’ (SBNR) has been outpacing those who identify with mainstream religious traditions in Canada.

A subset of SBNR groups is the Modern Nondual Spirituality (MNS) movement. Eckhart Tolle, the movement’s high profile teacher, lives in Canada. His books, including The Power of Now and A New Earth, have sold millions of copies. Even so, religious scholars have largely ignored MNS.

“The academic literature is anemic,” says Dr. Hillary Rodrigues, a professor of Religious Studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge. “MNS is often included in New Religious Movements or New Age religions but little effort has been made to distinguish it from other very different movements within those categories.”

Thanks to an Insight Development Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) worth more than $43,000, Rodrigues aims to rectify that situation.

“My goal is to focus on this fast-growing contemporary phenomenon at this crucial emergent stage using religious studies theories and methods,” says Rodrigues. “The MNS movement provides us with a rare opportunity to study what might be a growing and eventually significant religious movement.”

MNS centres on the attainment of a key psychological realization where all conceptual dualities, especially those that distinguish the individual from the rest of reality, collapse. This nondual spiritual liberation is seen as necessary to achieve inner peace, mental health, social tolerance and a host of other personal and communal needs.

Nondual approaches to spirituality aren’t new; they’ve been a part of Hinduism and Buddhism for millennia. However, in the 21st century, adherents of MNS don’t identify as Hindu or Buddhist. Rodrigues’ project will help clarify the characteristics of the MNS movement and perhaps provide clues about why people are increasingly opting for spirituality over religion.

By attending gatherings held by non-duality teachers around the world, Rodrigues plans to conduct free-flowing interviews with seekers in the movement to gain understanding of their motivations and experiences. He hopes to discern shared key characteristics among members. While his hunch is that those in the SBNR movement, estimated to be 30 to 40 per cent of the population in Canada, find the term ‘religion’ too constricting, his research project will verify if that’s correct.

The results of Rodrigues’ study of MNS will also be of interest to other disciplines such as health sciences, psychology, art and education.

Asian Culture Week a chance to celebrate diversity on campus

trevor.kenney — Mon, 07 Mar 2016 19:17:57 +0000

From fashion and film to judo and jiu-jitsu, the inaugural Asian Culture Week at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge gives the campus community the chance to enjoy a number of performances and learn a little something about Asia in the process. The week culminates with the 23^rd Annual International Dinner, featuring guest speaker Kim Thúy sharing her stories about the Canadian Life of a Vietnamese boat person.

Asian Culture Week came about after a successful Japan Culture Day program held two years ago. But rather than focus on one country, organizers decided the program should include Asia as a whole.

“The decision to expand to an Asian Culture Week was consistent with how we designed our Asian Studies program at the U of L,” says Dr. John Harding, a religious studies professor and coordinator of Asian Studies. “We aimed for more comprehensive coverage of Asia, with courses, talks and study opportunities that continue the strong ties between southern Alberta and Japan, and expanded it to include China, India and Southeast Asia.”

Angela Lin, a U of L student, organized several activities and displays from Taiwan, including a qipao (Chinese traditional dress) fashion show display and a board that introduces Taiwan and its main highlights.

“We will also be teaching people how to play the game Wu-Zhe-Chi, or “connect five.” Taiwan is known for its use of traditional Chinese writing and we will be translating and writing peoples’ names on paper using traditional Chinese characters,” says Lin.

Opening remarks are scheduled for 1:45 p.m. Monday in the Atrium, followed by a performance by Global Drums in the Atrium of ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Centre for the Arts. Tuesday’s activities include karate, judo and jiu-jitsu demonstrations, a fashion show and minyo (Japanese folk dance and song) dancers. A lion dance starts off Wednesday’s activities at 10:45 a.m., followed by a kung fu demonstration, a performance by a Chinese flute player, a Bhutanese dance, and cricket from 2 to 3 p.m. in the gym. Films, including a Bollywood science-fiction comedy and a locally made documentary about Bhutanese refugees living in Lethbridge, will be shown Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. The online scheduleoffers more details. On Thursday from noon to 1 p.m., a panel will be available in the Atrium to answer any questions about studying in Asia.

“We hope people attend as many events as possible and simply enjoy themselves and the opportunity to see some of the diverse forms of Asian culture, as well as the talents of local students and community members,” says Harding.

Essay on Zen Buddhist art nets student Michael Chan prize

caroline.zentner — Fri, 11 Dec 2015 17:37:52 +0000

Kaelah Collins’ (BA ’15) keen interest in Asian culture has paid a dividend she never expected.

Collins learned she won the Michael Chan Prize in Asian Studies for an essay she wrote for Dr. John Harding’s Zen Buddhism 3000-level class last April.

“I was shocked. I know that I’m an English major and I’m used to writing, but I’m not a Religious Studies major,” she says. “I was floored, pleasantly, and definitely surprised.”

The Michael Chan prize is named after Michael Wing-Cheung Chan, a Chinese Canadian scientist and humanitarian known for his mathematical brilliance and passion for promoting Canada-Asia understanding. The $1,000 annual prize is given to a ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge student in any degree program who demonstrates an interest in Asia-related scholarship and shows outstanding achievement in a course project or paper on an Asian topic.

Collin’s essay — A World of Opposites: Manifestations of Nonduality in Zen Buddhist Art — explored contrasts in sumi-e paintings, architecture and garden design. And to write about nonduality, one must have a pretty good grasp of the subject.

“The idea of nondualism is that there’s no separation, that everything is an expression of one essential reality,” she says.

Duality permeates every aspect of life and mankind is constantly caught up discriminating between subject and object. For a Zen practitioner, dualism must be abolished to attain enlightenment.

“In a rock garden, you have a landscape in front of you. It might have a big boulder, which represents a mountain. When we look at it, at first we would see a boulder. But then, because you’re taking in everything around it, you see it represents a mountain. The rivers in the landscape are also made of pebbles. You realize the little pebbles are made up of the same materials as the boulder so therefore the rivers are the same as the mountain,” she says.

Collins became interested in Asian Studies after a two-week trip to Japan several years ago. Her interest remained throughout university and she completed a minor in Asian Studies at the U of L. In the months ahead, she hopes to live in Asia for a time before she pursues further post-secondary studies.

“There was a lot that I didn’t know about Zen Buddhism. We tend to think of Buddhism as a whole, but it’s quite vast and varied, the same way Christianity is,” she says.

Understanding the Asian roots of modern Buddhism

trevor.kenney — Mon, 23 Feb 2015 19:05:18 +0000

From its 2,500-year-old roots in eastern India, Buddhism has evolved into the fastest-growing philosophical religion in the West, one that has sparked diverse groups of practitioners — including many celebrities — spawned countless books, and is often glamourized in Hollywood films. Dr. John Harding wants to know why.

Dr. John Harding's interest in Buddhism goes back to his time as an undergraduate student.

More specifically, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Religious Studies associate professor would like to better understand the forces that have shaped Buddhism since it crossed continents from Asia into Europe and North America 150 years ago. He hopes to debunk the common misconception of modern Buddhism, particularly as it is practised in Canada, as primarily influenced by the West, and demonstrate that Asian reform movements prominently contributed to Buddhism’s global transformation.

“The more we looked into the history…the more clear it becomes that a lot of the characteristics of modern Buddhism that are viewed as Westernized actually started in Asia,” says Harding, who also chairs the Religious Studies department and coordinates the Asian Studies minor program. “We need to look at all of the global linkages, and introduce a little more theoretical sophistication to how we explore Buddhism in the West.”

It’s an area Harding has been investigating since 2013 with colleagues at McGill and St. Mary’s universities as part of a five-year research project funded by a $258,000 grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. He recently presented on the topic at a U of L PUBlic Professor Series lecture called Buddha’s World Tour: Global Buddhism in the Modern Era. As he explains, today’s version of Buddhism is viewed as being a reflection of Western social values: egalitarian, female friendly, based in meditation and socially engaged. At the same time, there is a perception of traditional Asian Buddhism as hierarchical, sexist, ritualistic and withdrawn from society.

In fact, he says, this shift to what many Westerners call the “new Buddhism” evolved organically in countries such as Sri Lanka, Japan, China, Taiwan and Vietnam. Typically, these changes occurred in response to pressures such as Western colonialism and aggressive Christian missionization. Monks travelling between the different Asian countries observed these changes and started their own Buddhist reform movements at home. What eventually emerged, Harding says, was a radically different form of Buddhism that, with the growth of population movement and global communication, began to spread worldwide.

Harding’s interest in the subject goes back to his time as an undergraduate student at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Puget Sound in Washington in the early 1990s, when he completed his thesis on changes in Buddhism in Japan in the late 1800s. At that time, he says, reformers were responding to domestic criticism that the religion wasn’t relevant in the modern world. From that point on, through his graduate studies at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Pennsylvania and since joining the U of L in 2003, he has studied extensively and published widely on the development of modern Buddhism worldwide.

“I find it quite fascinating that our culture and surroundings can be significantly shaped by forces and influences we know almost nothing about…I’m particularly interested in different perspectives that shape how people think about their own life and their world and how it’s unfolding,” says Harding, who often seeks to involve undergraduate and graduate students in this research.

Harding and his research colleagues are now one-third of the way through their latest research project with the support of the SSHRC grant. In the last five years, the three colleagues have published two books that analyze the dramatic growth of Buddhism in Canada in global and historical contexts, Wild Geese and Flowers on the Rock. Going forward, Harding says he hopes their research results help improve the scholarship in the nascent fields of Global Buddhism and of Buddhism in the West by setting the historical record straight on the hows and whys behind the new Buddhism. As well, he says, a clearer understanding of the origins of modern Buddhism will help us better understand Canada’s cultural mosaic. Finally, practitioners of Buddhism in Canada may be interested to learn about the cross-cultural exchange between Asia and the West that helped form Buddhism as we know it today

“There is an impression that Buddhism in the West has become a bit of a quick fix for a fast food culture, and many people’s understanding of it is quite shallow,” he says. “In fact, there are many variations of the tradition influencing culture at multiple levels, and if one of the concerns is authenticity, this study can reflect how Asia played a role in the modernization of Buddhism.”

Japan Culture Day celebrated at U of L

trevor.kenney — Mon, 24 Mar 2014 19:54:35 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge’s Asian Studies program and the Department of Modern Languages, in cooperation with the International Centre for Students, is hosting a number of events this week in celebration of Japan Culture Day.

The week begins with a pair of talks on Tuesday, March 25 in the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library, and continues Thursday, March 27 with a full day of activities that include tea ceremonies, judo and karate demonstrations as well as dance demos, lectures and Japanese food.

These events are open to everyone and media are invited to attend.

Tuesday, March 25
L1170

Meiji: Japan in Transition at Home (Part I) and Abroad (Part II)
4 p.m. - The Emperor and His Poetic Subjects: Ceremony of the Imperial New Year Poetry Reading in Meiji Japan
Gideon Fujiwara (History)

4:30 p.m. - Meiji Export of Japanese Culture: Modern Japan's Display of Traditional Culture at the 1893 World Expo
Dr. John Harding (Religious Studies)

Thursday, March 27
��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Hall Atrium

10 to 10:35 a.m. - Tea Ceremony
Rie Nagai

10:40 to 11:10 a.m. - Bon Dance demo and mini-lesson
Minyo Dancers

11:15 to 11:40 a.m. - The Second Coming of Shinzo Abe
Dr. Trevor Harrison

11:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. - Judo demo and mini-lesson
Lethbridge Kyodokan Judo Club

12:20 to 12:50 p.m. - Tea Ceremony
Masako Ohtomo

1 to 1:30 p.m. - Buddhism and Japanese Culture
Reverend Yasuo Izumi

1:35 to 2:05 p.m. - Karate demo and mini lesson
Taka Karate School

2:10 to 2:40 p.m. - The History of Japanese in Southern Alberta
Mac and Reyko Nishiyama

3:05 to 4 p.m. - Taiko demo and mini-lesson
Hibikiya

Japanese food available from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Grant allows Harding opportunity to study Buddhism in Canada

trevor.kenney — Tue, 08 Oct 2013 22:25:52 +0000

Dr. John Harding (Religious Studies, Principal Investigator) has received a five-year, $258,659 Social sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight grant – the largest-ever grant received by the Department of Religious Studies – to study Buddhism in Canada and around the world.

With colleagues Dr. Victor Hori (McGill ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ) and Dr. Alexander Soucy (Saint Mary’s ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ), Harding, the Principal Investigator and coordinator of the U of L’s new Asian Studies program, will develop a better understanding of how Buddhism, like many other religions, is modernizing itself worldwide. He will also look at how it is changing more rapidly as immigration influences the different forms of Buddhism being practiced in Canada.

With an estimated population of more than 365,000 and a strong presence in southern Alberta, Canadian Buddhists have more than a century of religious practice to their credit.

Raymond, Alta. housed the first Buddhist temple in Canada east of the Rocky Mountains (1929) and was in some ways the centre of Buddhism in Canada as significant numbers of Canadians of Japanese descent were relocated to the area during WWII.

Today, the southern Alberta region is still an important hub for members of the Jodo Shinshu Buddhist community as a new Buddhist Temple was recently built in Lethbridge, Alberta.

Rodrigues earns Teaching Chair position

trevor.kenney — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 17:09:08 +0000

Dr. Hillary Rodrigues, an internationally renowned religious studies scholar and a reseacher and professor of Religious Studies, has been awarded a Board of Governors Teaching Chair position.

The Board of Governors Teaching Chairs program reaffirms the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ's commitment to provide inspirational teaching.

Dr. Hillary Rodrigues

Established in 2007, the teaching chair is awarded to a faculty member who demonstrates an ongoing commitment to teaching excellence and scholarship within the U of L community.

Rodrigues' publications include several books and articles on Indian Culture and Philosophy and the Social Scientific Study of Religion.

Aside from his distinguished career as an Religions studies scholar, Rodrigues' experience as a teacher has spanned the world. Prior to his career at post secondary, Dr. Rodrigues' taught grades 6-12 mathematics, science, and English in Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Japan.

Recognized as a distinguished teaching award winner in 2000, Rodrigues has become an exemplar of teaching excellence at the U of L. Students often comment on his ability to inspire them through his informative, comprehensive, and thought-provoking classes.

He encourages students to understand different points of views and appreciate the the diversity of cultures they are studying. His classes demand the of highest standards while maintaining a positive and encouraging learning environment.

Outside of his own classroom, Rodrigues' commitment to teaching excellence is evident through his many years of service on numerous ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ teaching committees and involvement in ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ teaching related activities.

As co-chair of the Centre for the Advancement of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CAETL) advisory council, Rodrigues has brought experience, leadership and a passion for teaching that has greatly contributed to the success of CAETL this past year.

Language lessons

trevor.kenney — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:10:56 +0000

Learning a second language is never easy. It's doubly difficult when there are three separate writing systems and a set of alphabetical characters that are completely foreign to you. Add to that the cultural aspects of language usage and learning Japanese becomes a seemingly daunting task.

Dr. Abby McMeekin (modern languages) is hoping to make this process a whole lot easier for her students, as she strives to determine the best ways to learn Japanese by integrating a variety of learning strategies in the classroom.

Dr. Abby McMeekin of the Department of Modern Languages.

McMeekin joined the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge in 2007 as an assistant professor of Japanese in the modern languages department, after spending 13 years teaching at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Hawaii. She is the only faculty member in her department conducting classroom-based research, which focuses on several key topics related to learning Japanese, such as Kanji learning strategies.

"Kanji are Chinese characters used in the Japanese writing system," explains McMeekin. "This past semester, I studied the effectiveness of different strategies for learning Kanji in the classroom."

Kanji characters contain three elements: orthographic (shape), phonetic (sound) and semantic (meaning). Students are frequently taught the orthographic and phonetic elements of a Kanji character, but they aren't always taught the details of semantic elements.

For example, the Kanji character for the word "spring" is comprised of three symbols: the symbol for "three," the symbol for "people," and the symbol for "sun." Put together, you can think of it as "three people under the sun," which in turn means "spring."

These ortho-semantic elements can be exceptionally useful in the understanding of Kanji characters. McMeekin decided to introduce semantic elements in her classes when she noticed that some of her students were struggling with Kanji.

"Students who incorporated all three types of elements into their learning strategies scored best on the post-test," she says.

A new area of interest for McMeekin is computer-assisted language learning. In a classroom environment, students might use web-based exercises, YouTube videos, or computer programs to help them learn the language.

"What tools are available? How effective are they? Do they really help with things like reading comprehension and sociolinguistic competence? These are the types of questions I'd like to answer," she explains.

Ultimately, McMeekin aims to determine what tools work best for students who use computer-assisted learning to learn a second language.

McMeekin's research has significant applications in the classroom.

"As a teacher, it's important to know what the most effective teaching methods are. It's beneficial to try different strategies in order to see how students learn best."

UNews - Department of Asian Studies

Two students share this year’s Michael Chan prize

Related Topics

U of L humanities researchers secure federal grants

Related Topics

Rodrigues to investigate modern nondual spirituality

Related Topics

Asian Culture Week a chance to celebrate diversity on campus

Related Topics

Essay on Zen Buddhist art nets student Michael Chan prize

Related Topics

Understanding the Asian roots of modern Buddhism

Related Topics

Japan Culture Day celebrated at U of L

Related Topics

Grant allows Harding opportunity to study Buddhism in Canada

Related Topics

Rodrigues earns Teaching Chair position

Related Topics

Language lessons

Related Topics