Skip to main content
Yongcan Liu

Yongcan Liu

Professor of Applied Linguistics and Languages Education

Qualifications

  • PhD in Second Language Education (University of Cambridge)
  • MPhil Research in Second Language Education (University of Cambridge)
  • MA Linguistics and Applied Linguistics (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies China)
  • BA English Linguistics and Translation Studies (Guangdong University of Foreign Studies China)

Memberships/Professional Bodies

  • Home/Heritage/Community Languages Advisory Group (British Council and Association for Language Learning)
  • Convener of Cambridge Research in Community Language Education Network
  • Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement (School of Humanities and Social Sciences)

Personal profile

Yongcan's scholarship seeks to deepen the debate about multilingualism and education in migration contexts. He integrates three related fields, i.e. 'heritage language maintenance', 'language across the curriculum', and 'foreign language education', into a research programme aimed at identifying solutions to improve educational achievement, social integration and emotional wellbeing of migrant children and youth.

Yongcan's recent work examines the role of language(s) in schooling and assessment, and the requisite knowledge base for teaching, in contexts of diversity, mobility and geopolitical uncertainty. This includes the AHRC MEITS project and a series of linked research funded by the Bell Foundation which explores EAL learners' language development, social integration and educational achievement. He is co-author of the 'EAL Assessment Framework for Schools' which was recognised with a British Council ELTons award for innovation. He is also founder and convener of Cambridge Research in Community Language Education Network (CRiCLE) and the Language, Heritage, Migration Initiative. 

Academic Area/Links

  • Multilingualism and Language Education Group
  • Cambridge Language Sciences
  • Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement

 

Research Topics and Interests

  • Home/heritage/community/refugee language education
  • Bilingual and multilingual education
  • Language of schooling and the knowledge base of teaching in migration contexts
  • Development, validation and evaluation of language teacher knowledge/competence/assessment frameworks
  • Sociocultural theory and instructional designs of ZPD for second language development
  • Language teacher cognition and teacher learning in (digital) communities of practice
  • International Chinese language education

Current Projects

Selected Publications

Zhou Y. & Liu Y. (2022). Theorising the dynamics of heritage language identity development: A narrative inquiry of the life histories of three Chinese heritage speakers. Language and Education. DOI:10.1080/09500782.2022.2068351

Leung C. Evans M. & Liu. Y. (2020). English as an additional language assessment framework: Filling a void in policy and provision in school education in England. Language Assessment Quarterly 18(3) 296-315. DOI: 10.1080/15434303.2020.1869745

Liu Y. (2019). Situated teacher learning as externalising and mobilising teachers' tacit knowledge through talk in a language teacher professional community. Research Papers in Education 34(3) 330-351. DOI:10.1080/02671522.2018.1452956 

Fisher L. Evans M. Forbes K. Gayton A. & Liu Y. (2019). Participative multilingual identity construction in the languages classroom: A multi-theoretical conceptualisation. International Journal of Multilingualism 17(4) 448-466. DOI: 10.1080/14790718.2018.1524896

Evans M. & Liu Y. (2018). The unfamiliar and the indeterminate: Language identity and social integration in the school experience of newly-arrived migrant children in England. Journal of Language Identity and Education 17(3) 152-167. DOI: 10.1080/15348458.2018.1433043

Liu Y. Fisher L. Forbes K. & Evans M. (2017). The knowledge base of teaching in linguistically diverse contexts: 10 grounded principles of multilingual classroom pedagogy for EAL. Language and Intercultural Communication 17(4) 378-395. DOI:10.1080/14708477.2017.1368136

Duff P. Liu Y. & Li D. (2017). Chinese heritage language learning: Negotiating identities ideologies and institutionalisation. In O. Kagan M. Carreira & C. Chik (Eds.) Routledge Handbook of Heritage Language Education (pp. 409-422). London New York: Routledge.

Liu Y. & Evans M. (2016). Multilingualism as legitimate shared repertoires in school communities of practice: Students' and teachers' discursive construction of languages in two schools in England. Cambridge Journal of Education 46(4) 553-568.

Liu Y. (2016). The emotional geographies of language teaching. Teacher Development 20(4) 482-497. DOI:10.1080/13664530.2016.1161660

Evans M. Schneider C. Arnot M. Fisher L. Forbes K. Liu Y. & Welply O. (2020). Language development social integration and academic achievement of EAL students. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.