Challenges Encountered by Chinese ESL Learners

Mable Chan (Ph.D., Language and Linguistics, The University of Essex, UK) is currently a Senior Lecturer at the Language Centre, Hong Kong Baptist University. Before joining Hong Kong Baptist University, she taught in the Department of English of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University for close to 20 years. Her main research interests include second language acquisition (SLA) at the interface with language education, and professional/workplace communication. She has published widely in the areas of second language acquisition, professional communication, and language learning and teaching in international journals such as System, Journal of Educational Research, and Business and Professional Communication Quarterly. She received the Faculty Award for Outstanding Teaching twice (2004/2005; 2010/2011). She also secured key external grants from: University Grants Committee (GRF: $677,300), and Standing Committee of Language Education and Research ($882,286.9). She recently (January 2020) published an authored book entitled English for Business Communication with Routledge. There are two other books she is now working on: (a) an edited book entitled Perspectives on teaching workplace English in the 21st century with Routledge; and (b) an authored book entitled Teaching Business English with Routledge.

Professor Alessandro Benati is Director of CAES at Hong Kong University. He is known for his research on how L2 learners process information and what internal strategies they use in language processing across romance and non-romance languages. Most recently his ground-breaking research on the pedagogical framework called Processing Instruction has been driven by the use of new online measurements (e.g., eye tracking, self-paced reading, reaction times) to track what happens within language learners' brains in learning contexts. He is author and co-author of several research monographs and journals articles in this field. Alessandro has coordinated high-impact research projects funded by the EU, Leverhulme Trust, British Academy, and other research bodies around the world. He is co-editor of a new series for Cambridge University Press called Elements in Second Language Acquisition, a member of the UK-REF Panel 2021, and honorary professor in various institutions in Europe and the USA.