Meng Huat Chau is Associate Professor at Universiti Malaya (UM), where he teaches and mentors Masters and PhD students conducting research in applied linguistics and language education. He holds/has held Adjunct and Visiting Scholar or Professor positions at Jeonbuk National University, the University of Cambridge, and Yogyakarta State University. Before joining UM in 2010, he spent over ten happy years working with students and teachers from primary and secondary schools, and from other institutions of higher education. He has served as External Advisor (Curriculum Development and Review) and Assessor for the Ministry of Education teacher training programme, and as a national committee member of curriculum reform for MARA secondary education in the country.

Internationally Meng Huat gratefully enjoys extensive good collaboration relationships. Together with colleagues who share similar interests and values from universities across the world, he pursues such questions as how the study, teaching and use of language and communication can help to make this world a better, more inclusive and sustainable place for humans and fellow animals, and how students, teachers and researchers can play a more powerful role in creating and promoting an ecologically just, respectful and compassionate community, from the neighbourhood to our planet. Much of his current work focuses on these important considerations, spanning such research areas as academic and multilingual writing development, applied corpus linguistics, ecolinguistics, Global Englishes, language education (including technology based language education), multilingualism (in particular, translanguaging), and the study of language development.

*Meng Huat is joining the International Advisory Board this July 2024 of the e-FLT journal based at the National University of Singapore. 

*He is a Featured Speaker at the GLoCALL International Conference 2024 to be held in Vietnam this August. Come and say hi to him if you are there!

Of interest

Seeking the common good: On the question of merit, education and language use 

In 2020, Michael Sandel, an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, asked: How has [the meaning of merit] been recast in recent decades, in ways that erode the dignity of work and leave many people feeling that elites look down on them? Are the winners of globalization justified in the belief that they have earned and therefore deserve their success, or is this a matter of meritocratic hubris?

This issue of meritocracy has also become a topic increasingly discussed (again) in recent years in countries such as China (see, e.g., this link).

Together with a team of brilliant colleagues from Indonesia and Singapore and an outstanding PhD student from China, I explore this issue in two papers. The 2024 paper considered the role of meritocracy in education in general while the 2022 paper examined the issue from the perspective of language use and language learning, drawing insights from the scholarship of Global Englishes and translanguaging. I welcome your comments and feedback.

2024. Measuring meritocracy: A study of Indonesian English teachers’ views on the role of effort in their own and their students’ success

2022. Exploring the role of English in meritocracy in multilingual Indonesia: Teacher beliefs, language use, and Global Englishes

*Free book on sustainability (a collaborative project with team members from China, Japan and Singapore)

Cooperative learning and the Sustainable Development Goals

Special issue on promoting diversity and inclusion in language education

Perspectives from research and practice in Global Englishes and translanguaging (with contributions from Ofelia García, Paul Nation and Henry Widdowson, among others)

Special issue on ecolinguistics

Practical applications of ecolinguistics

Special issue on computer assisted language learning and teaching

Selected papers from the GLoCALL 2021 Conference

Teaching

Over the years Meng Huat has taught various subject areas on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes, including Corpus Linguistics, Discourse Studies, Global Englishes, Interculcural Communication and Second Language Acquisition.  

His teaching experiences span many different institutional and international contexts. These include short applied linguistics courses and invited lectures given at a number of universities in Brunei, China, Indonesia, Korea and the Philippines as well as in Malaysia.

Supervision

Meng Huat enjoys working with research students. He has supervised to completion both PhD and Masters students, with several being awarded a distinction for their work.

He has recently received the Best Supervisor Award, presented in recognition of outstanding achievement in postgraduate supervision in the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics. 

Meng Huat welcomes PhD applications from researchers interested in the following areas:

(1) Longitudinal research on language development based on learner corpora;

(2) Global Englishes/Chineses;

(3) Academic and multilingual writing development;

(4) Multilingualism and intercultural communication (particularly, translanguaging/languaculturing);

(5) Teacher and student agency;

(6) Teacher feedback practices and student engagement;

(7) Use of technology in and/or for language learning and teaching;

(8) Ecolinguistics; and

(9) Applied Linguistics and a sustainable world.

Research

Meng Huat's main areas of research are academic and multilingual writing development, applied corpus linguistics, ecolinguistics, Global Englishes, language education (including technology based language education), multilingualism (in particular, translanguaging), and the study of language development. All these areas have recently been explored in relation to his interest in and commitment to how applied linguistics and education can contribute to a better, more sustainable world.

Meng Huat is a member of a number of international research teams, with grants and awards received from a range of funders including the Australian Government through the Australia-ASEAN Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and administrated by the University of Tasmania, the Bilingual Cognition and Development Lab of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China, and Universiti Teknologi Brunei in Brunei Darussalam. 

One recent research effort with several colleagues from the US has won him an Outstanding Paper Award by the Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (https://www.aace.org/about/).

Public scholarship

Meng Huat is increasingly into promoting public scholarship. He has published his collaborative work on language use with fellow animals in Singapore Psychologist, a quarterly flagship magazine of the Singapore Psychological Association, with the aim to make research and ideas more accessible to the general public. He also speaks to the local media in Malaysia as an expert on issues of multilingualism, English language use, inclusive practices and language education in the country, and on how technology shapes the way people communicate.

Other professional activities

Meng Huat founded the Corpus Linguistics Special Interest Group at UM. He helped to organize the Corpus Linguistics in Asia Colloquium as part of the Free Linguistics Conference 2018, the UM Corpus Linguistics International Conference 2020, and the Corpus Linguistics Symposium as part of the MAAL International Conference 2021.

Meng Huat was Program Co-chair of the Australia-ASEAN Academics Forum 2023 Webinar Series which involved educators from universities of 10 ASEAN countries and from the University of Tasmania sharing research findings and good practice initiatives on online education from five disciplines (education, humanities, health, ICT and economics).

He has been an invited or plenary speaker at the following conferences:

1. Keynote speaker at the International Conference on Applied Linguistics 2023, Pakistan (March, 2023) 
2. Keynote speaker at the 3rd International Conference on Education 2023, Thailand (February, 2023) 
3. Panel speaker on multilingual education at the 27th NELTA International Conference 2023, Nepal (February, 2023)
4. Guest speaker at the International Colloquium on ELT and Sustainability 2022 (ICELTS '22), Philippines (November, 2022)
5. Keynote speaker at the Symposium on the Frontiers of Ecolinguistics, China, with George M. Jacobs (October, 2022)
6. Featured speaker at the 29th Korea TESOL International Conference 2022, the Republic of Korea (April & May, 2022)
7. Keynote speaker at the International Conference on Ecolinguistics and Ecological Narratives 2022, Pakistan (March, 2022)
8. Keynote speaker at the 1st Riphah International Conference on Language, Literature and Culture, Pakistan (November, 2021)
9. Plenary speaker at the Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics International Conference 2021, Malaysia (September, 2021)
10. Workshop resource speaker at the Linguistic Society of the Philippines International Conference 2021, Philippines (March, 2021)
11. Panel speaker at the Malaysian Corpus Research Symposium 2020, UiTM, Malaysia (December, 2020)
12. Joint plenary at the UM Corpus Linguistics International Conference 2020, Malaysia (January, 2020)
13. Panel speaker at the ‘Way Forward: Beyond 21st Century Skills’ Forum, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Malaysia (October, 2019)
14. Special guest lecture at China University of Mining and Technology, China (April, 2019)
15. Keynote speaker at the 12th Malaysian International Conference on English Language Teaching (MICELT) 2018, Malaysia (October, 2018)
16. Featured speaker at  the  24th  International  Symposium  on  English  Teaching,  English Teacher Association-Republic of China (ETA-ROC), Taiwan (November, 2015)
17. Featured speaker at the 2nd Malaysia Corpus Research Colloquium, Malaysia (June, 2015)

Meng Huat has served as External Examiner for a number of PhD candidates from De La Salle University-Dasmarinas in the Philippines and the University of Auckland in New Zealand.

Publications

His articles have appeared in some of the leading journals in his field, including Computer Assisted Language Learning, International Journal of Applied Linguistics, Journal of English for Academic Purposes, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, and System; at the same time, he contributes to and supports relatively new and regional journals.

Selected publications

Books

To, V., Baker, W., Shahrill, M., Chau, M. H., & Carrington, V. (Eds). (under contract). Online education in Australia and Southeast Asia: An interdisciplinary perspective. Springer.

Zainal, A. Z., Chau, M. H., & Rummy, J. (under contract). Language and literacy education of asylum seekers and refugees pre-resettlement. Routledge.

Lim, S., Reidak, J., Chau, M. H., Zhu, C., Guo, Q., Brooks, T. A., Roe, J., & Jacobs, G. M. (2023). Cooperative learning and the Sustainable Development Goals. PeacheyPublications Ltd.

Hyland, K., Chau, M. H., & Handford, M. (Eds). (2012). Corpus applications in applied linguistics. Bloomsbury.

Chau, M. H., & Kerry, T. (Eds). (2008). International perspectives on education. Bloomsbury.

Guest edited journal special issues

Chau, M. H., & Jacobs, G. M. (Guest Eds.). (2022). Practical applications of ecolinguistics. Special Issue of the Journal of World Languages [ISSN: 2169-8260] Scopus indexed.

Chau, M. H., Lie, A., Jacobs, G. M., & Renandya, W. A. (Guest Eds.). (2022). Promoting diversity and inclusion in language education: Perspectives from research and practice in Global Englishes and translanguaging. Special Issue of TESL-EJ [ISSN: 1072-4303] Scopus indexed.

Lee, K. W., Chau, M. H., & Muthukrishnan, P. (Guest Eds.). (2022). Selected papers from GLoCALL 2021 Virtual Conference. Special Issue of the International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching [ISSN: 2155-7101] Scopus indexed.

Papers

Dillon, D., Jacobs, G. M., & Chau, M. H. (2024). Towards more inclusive practices in Applied Linguistics: A study of journal editors’ views on using ‘who’ with nonhuman animals with implications for language education. Journal of English and Applied Linguistics, 3(1), 101-113. https://doi.org/10.59588/2961-3094.1098

Jacobs, M. G., & Chau, M. H. (2024). Preface. In M. Mliless, M. Larouz, M. Moubtassime, S. Mentak, & L. Forte (Eds), Environmental awareness in preschool children’s drawings: A global perspective (pp. xi-xii). Springer.

Lie, A., Jacobs, G. M., Chau, M. H., Zhu, C., & Winarlim, H. S. (2024). Measuring meritocracy: A study of Indonesian English teachers’ views on the role of effort in their own and their students’ success. Educational Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2024.2351823 (WoS & Scopus publication)

Cho, Y., & Chau, M. H. (2023). My experience as a teacher of speaking and writing with the 5Ws & 1H. In A. Asmawi, G. M. Jacobs, Q. Guo, & W. A. Renandya (Eds.), Stories of teacher authenticity (pp. 46-48). PeacheyPublications Ltd. (coauthored with a proud undergraduate student of mine from the Republic of Korea)

Jacobs, G. M., Chau, M. H., Hamzah, N. H., & Zhu, C. (2023). A celebration of hope. In N. B. K. Lee & J. L. Burkhardt (Eds.), English: Critical lessons for teachers by teachers. Festschrift in honour of Stephen J. Hall (pp. 79-91). Sunway University Press.

Jacobs, G. M., Zhu, C., Chau, M. H., Guo, Q., & Roe, J. (2023). Using cooperative learning to teach the Sustainable Development Goals. Autonomy and Responsibility: Journal of Educational Sciences, 8(1), 39-52.

Roe, J., Zhu, C., Chau, M. H., Guo, Q., & Jacobs, G. M. (2023). Ecolinguistics and the education of young people. LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching, 26(2), 454-468. https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.v26i2.6800 (Scopus publication)

Chau, M. H., Lie, A., Jacobs, G. M., & Renandya W. A. (2022). Introduction: Promoting diversity and inclusion in language education through research and practice in Global Englishes and translanguaging. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESL-EJ), 26(3). https://doi.org/10.55593/ej.26103a0 (Scopus Q1)

Chau, M. H., Lie, A., Zhu, C., & Jacobs, G. M. (2022). On Global Englishes, translanguaging, and the educational challenge of celebrating students’ capacity for communication. Teaching English as a Second Language Electronic Journal (TESL-EJ), 26(3). https://doi.org/10.55593/ej.26103a20 (Scopus Q1)

Chau, M. H., Smidt, E., Gardner, P., & Mohd Tahir, M. (2022). Developing a sustainable community of inquiry: Reflections and lessons learned. CALL-EJ, 23(4), 46-55 (Scopus Q1)

Chau, M. H., Zhu, C., Jacobs, G. M., Delante, N., Asmi, A., Ng, S., John, S. S., Guo, Q., & Shunmugam, K. (2022). Ecolinguistics for and beyond the Sustainable Development Goals. Journal of World Languages, 8(2), 323-345. https://doi.org/10.1515/jwl-2021-0027 (Scopus)

Jacobs, G. M., Chau, M. H., & Hamzah, N. H. (2022). Students and teachers as changemakers. rEFLections, 29(1), 112-129. (Scopus Q2)

Lie, A., Chau, M. H., Jacobs, G. M., Zhu, C., & Winarlim, H. S. (2022). Exploring the role of English in meritocracy in multilingual Indonesia: Teacher beliefs, language use, and Global Englishes. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development. https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2022.2151601 (WoS: AHCI)

Man, D., Chau, M. H., Shunmugam, K., & Hamzah, N. H. (2022). Assessment feedback and emotional support: Insights from a case study of teacher beliefs and practices in remote teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic. CALL-EJ, 23(4), 7-25. (Scopus Q1)

Man, D., Kong, B., & Chau, M. H. (2022). Developing student feedback literacy through peer review training. RELC Journal, https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882221078380 (WoS: SSCI Q2)

Man, D., Zhu, C., Chau, M. H., & Maruthai, E. (2022). Contextualizing assessment feedback in translation education: A corpus-assisted ecological approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 13(1057018). https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1057018 (WoS: SSCI Q1)

Marutai, E. & Chau, M. H. (2022). மொழியியல் ஆய்வுகளும் தரவகமும் (Language research and corpora). Journal of Tamil Peraivu (தமிழ்ப் பேராய்வு ஆய்விதழ்), 11(1), 130-142.

Su, H., Zhang, Y., & Chau, M. H. (2022). Exemplification in Chinese English-major MA students' and expert writers’ academic writing: A local grammar based investigation. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 58, 101120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2022.101120 (WoS: SSCI Q1)

Chau, M. H., & Jacobs, G. M. (2021). Applied Linguistics, language guidelines, and inclusive practices: The case for the use of who with nonhuman animals. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 31(2), 301-303.  https://doi.org/10.1111/ijal.12357 (WoS: AHCI)

Chau, M. H., & Jacobs, G. M. (2021). Cooperative learning: A foundation for project work. Beyond Words, 9(2), 123-132. https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i2.3426

​​Chau, M. H., & Shunmugam, K. (2021). Every teacher a changemaker: Reflections on teacher agency and empowerment. The English Teacher (50th Anniversary Issue), 50(2), 85-101. https://doi.org/10.52696/FWYM7144

Jacobs, G. M., & Chau, M. H. (2021). Two approaches for promoting student centered language learning: Cooperative learning and positive psychology. Beyond Words, 9(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.33508/bw.v9i1.3042

Jacobs, G. M., & Chau, M. H. (2021). Changing perspectives on advocating for moving toward plant-based foods: Reflections from two applied linguists. Ecolinguistica: Revista Brasileira de Ecologia e Linguagem (ECO-REBEL), 6(4), 62-72. 

Jacobs, G. M., & Chau, M. H. (2021). Strengthening the social element of reading: Facilitating conjunctions of readers. Modern Journal of Studies in English Language Teaching and Literature, 3(1), 1-17.

Man, D., Chau, M. H., & Kong, B. (2021). Promoting student engagement with teacher feedback through rebuttal writing. Educational Psychology, ​41(7), 883-901. DOI: 10.1080/01443410.2020.1746238 (WoS: SSCI Q2)

Man, D., Lee, K. Y., Chau, M. H., & Smidt, E. (2021). Learning to evaluate through that-clauses: Insights from a longitudinal study of Bruneian student writing. International Journal of Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching, 11(2), 84-97. DOI: 10.4018/IJCALLT.2021040106 (Scopus)

Pillai, S., Kaur, S., & Chau, M. H. (2021). The ideological stance of multilingualism in education in Malaysia in the press 2000-2020. Austrian Journal of South-East Asian Studies, 14(2), 173-193. https://doi.org/10.14764/10.ASEAS-0058 (Scopus)

Smidt, E., Chau, M. H., Rinehimer, E., & Leever, P. (2021). Exploring engagement of users of Global Englishes in a community of inquiry. System, 98. ​https://doi.org/10.1016/j.system.2021.102477 (WoS: SSCI Q1)

Jacobs, G. M., & Chau, M. H. (2020). Pandemic possibilities for applied linguists' actions. Ecolingu stica: Revista Brasileira de Ecologia e Linguagem (ECO-REBEL), 6(4), 62-72. https://periodicos.unb.br/index.php/erbel/article/view/35674/28331 

Man, D., Mo, A., Chau, M. H., O’Toole, J. M., & Lee, C. (2020). Translation technology adoption: evidence from a postgraduate programme for student translators in China. Perspectives, 28(2), 253-270, DOI: 10.1080/0907676X.2019.1677730 (WoS: AHCI)

Man, D., Xu, Y., Chau, M. H., O'Toole, J. M., & Shunmugam, K. (2020). Assessment feedback in examiner reports on master’s dissertations in translation studies. Studies in Educational Evaluation, 64. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.stueduc.2019.100823 (WoS: SSCI Q2)

Tham, I., Chau, M. H., & Thang, S. M. (2020). Bilinguals’ processing of lexical cues in L1 and L2: An eye-tracking study. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 33(7), 665-687 DOI: 10.1080/09588221.2019.1588329 (WoS: SSCI Q1)

Man, D., & Chau, M. H. (2019). Learning to evaluate through that-clauses: Evidence from a longitudinal learner corpus. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 37, 22-33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2018.11.007  (WoS: SSCI Q1)

Chau, M. H. (2012). Learner corpora and second language acquisition. In K. Hyland, M. H. Chau, & Handford (Eds.), Corpus applications in applied linguistics (pp. 191-207). Bloomsbury.

Chau, M. H. (2004). Developing and exploiting topic- and genre-specific pedagogic corpora. In S. Rafik-Galea (Ed.), ELT materials: Theory and practice (pp. 169-189). Sasbadi-MELTA

Chau, M. H. (2003). Contextualizing language learning: The role of a topic- and genre- specific pedagogic corpus. TESL Reporter, 36(2), 42-54