Icy Lee
National Institute of Education in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Main research interests are second language writing and second language teacher education.
About
Icy Lee is Professor of Education (TESOL and Language Education) at the National Institute of Education in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her main research interests are second language writing and second language teacher education. Her publications have appeared in numerous international journals, such as TESOL Quarterly, Journal of Second Language Writing, Language Teaching, and System. She is former Co-editor of the Journal of Second Language Writing and currently Principal Associate Editor of The Asia-Pacific Education Researcher and Co-editor of the International Journal of Christianity & English Language Teaching.
Re-thinking Second Language Writing Teacher Development: An Expertise Perspective
As a second language writing (SLW) teacher educator-researcher, I have consistently been interested in assisting both pre-service and in-service teachers in enhancing their instructional, assessment and feedback practices. My research pursuits have led me to trace the development of several school teachers in Hong Kong (Lee, 2010, 2013; Lee & Yuan, 2021), deepening my curiosity about how SLW teachers develop, as well as what constitutes SLW teacher expertise. This has coincided with the rise of interest in this significant concept in the field of SLW, initially explored at the 2016 Symposium on Second Language Writing, followed by Hirvela’s works on expertise in SLW teacher education (Hirvela, 2000) and in the teaching of argumentative writing (Hirvela, 2021), and more recently, the Disciplinary Dialogues section of the Journal of Second Language Writing (Hirvela & Belcher, 2022). My recent work (Lee & Yuan, 2021) on “Understanding L2 writing teacher expertise”, referred to as the “first substantial published study of L2 writing teacher expertise” (Hirvela & Belcher, 2022, p.2), is one of the first, though limited attempts, to conceptualize SLW teacher expertise. In this presentation, I share my recent thoughts on the topic and present an evolving framework on SLW teacher expertise. I also discuss the implications of the framework for teacher education and professional development, and suggest areas for further research.