Seminar by Professor Dongbo Zhang (University of Exeter) Cross-linguistic Perspectives on Reading Development

I argue cross-linguistic perspectives not only contribute to the advancement of our understanding about reading science, which used to be formed largely on the basis of English, but also have strong instructional implications in that millions of students in today’s world learn to read either for the first time in a language other than their home language or concurrently in two languages. To illustrate the benefits of cross-linguistic perspectives, I will draw upon the current literature on reading development in different languages, primarily English and Chinese, including my own research on young children in China, Singapore, and the United States. 

Biogrpahical note:
Dongbo Zhang is Professor of Language Education in the Graduate School of Education at University of Exeter. He holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University, and previously worked in China, Singapore, and the United States where he was engaged in teaching and researching second language / bilingual learners and language teachers. His research interests include reading and vocabulary knowledge development, bilingualism and biliteracy, and language teacher education.

Recording available via this link.  Unfortunately, there has been a technical hitch and only the first hour of Dongbo's talk has been recorded.