Dr Min Jung Jee
Researcher biography
I have a PhD in Applied Linguistics, specialising in Foreign Language Education, from the University of Texas at Austin. Previously, I designed/coordinated and taught English to all levels of students in various contexts in South Korea for about 10 years. After moving to the US, I designed/coordinated and taught Korean courses at the University of Texas at Austin for 5 years. After joining the Korean Program at UQ, I have coordinated and taught all levels of Korean language courses and I was awarded Fellow rank from the Higher Education Academy in 2019.
My research work and outputs (e.g., publications, presentations, and grants) can be placed within the umbrella-branch of Applied Linguistics called Language Pedagogy. Within this interdisciplinary and practical field, I have mainly focused on Learner Affect (e.g., motivation, anxiety, beliefs and attitudes), Heritage Language Learners (in the US and in Australia), and Technology-Assisted Language Learning (esp. synchronous online communication for developing intercultural communication) from a pedagogical perspective. Recently, I have worked on issues related to Korean heritage speakers as well as Korean immigrants such as Korean heritage speakers’ language anxiety, heritage language maintenance and ethnic identity, and Korean immigrants’ acculturation in Australia. I am very keen to expand my research areas to include immigrant and ethnic groups in Australia, specifically examining their heritage language maintenance, shift, and loss. I also want to investigate the causes and effects of language anxiety in their daily life contexts, as well as their acculturation process.