Dr Phoebe Siu is a lecturer at College of Professional and Continuing Education, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Siu is a doctoral graduand (English Language Education) at The University of Hong Kong. Her doctoral thesis investigates the potentials and challenges in promoting a heterglossic approach to content and language integrated learning (CLIL) for Public Relations Writing in EMI higher education. Phoebe's thesis is currently accessible at HKU Scholars Hub: https://hub.hku.hk/handle/10722/355493 

Prior to her doctoral study in English language education, Siu has completed her M. Phil. thesis on Histories and Fictions in post-colonial Hong Kong contexts, her M.S.Sc. training in Corporate Communication, School of Journalism and Communication, along with her MEd. thesis on Language across the Curriculum for EMI higher education, focusing on the curricular and pedagogical connects and disconnects in EAP classrooms designed for Healthcare and Nursing tertiary students in Hong Kong.

Since 2015 till now, Siu has been contributing to multiple research projects, focusing on dynamic assessment and learning with artificial intelligence, multimodalities, translanguaging, trans-semiotizing, critical semiotic awareness, critical English for Academic Purposes (EAP), language across the curriculum (LAC), content and language integrated learning (CLIL), and English-as-the-medium of instructions (EMI) higher education. Her conference papers were accepted at international academic conferences, e.g., ISFC44, ISFC45, ISFC49, SS23, HKCPD2021, EAC2021, AAAL2021, AERA2021, AERA2025, AILA2021, AsiaTEFL2024, Asia TEFL 2025 and J-CLIL 2024. 

In 2016-18, Siu contributed as a co-investigator (Co-I) for a 2-year SCOLAR-funded research project led by Dr Esther Ka-man Tong, supporting an adjunct model of programme-based language across the curriculum research and pedagogical designs for EMI higher education.  

Since 2019 till now, Siu has been a postgraduate researcher in the Translanguaging-Trans-semiotizing Research Group developed by Prof. Angel M. Y. Lin. The research group has launched an online social media platform for connecting international researchers and scholars to co-develop a cross-disciplinary research community of practice among emergent researchers and established scholars through various forms of virtual and physical academic interviews and seminar sessions in applied linguistics and educational linguistics.

Siu is also a regular registered member in some international and local research/ special interest groups, ranging from AERA-SIG G (Semiotics in Education), ESERA-SIG 6 (Science Literacy and Eduation), CPCE-RIG for Multimdoalities and Pedagogies, to CPCE-RIG for Education and Sustainability Development. She is also an active member of J-CLIL and ELINET global network, contributing to professioanl teacher development in Asia and other connected regions. 

For international academic publications, Siu has single-authored and co-authored refereed conference proceedings, special issue journal publications and academic book chapters for supporting scholarship in systemic functional linguistics, translanguaging, trans-semiotizing, creativity, Integrating Content and Language in Higher Education (ICLHE), EMI higher education and CLIL in Hong Kong and Asian contexts. In addition, Siu has been appointed as invited reviewers for international academic conferences and international journals, including Linguistics and the Human Sciences, Cogent Education, International Journal of Bilingualism and Education, The Australian Review of Applied Linguistics and Critical Inquiry of Language Studies. 

Regional and International Conference Presentations (blind reviewed and competitively selected) in 2021-2025

1. Siu, P. (2021, August). Symposium on Language Inequality. 

   World Congress of Applied Linguistics 2021 [AILA2021] – Virtual Mode – livestream presentation hosting city: Groningen, the Netherlands

2. Siu, P. (2021, May). Crossing boundaries through multimodal EAC/ CLIL: Critical semiotic awareness in Chemistry laboratory report composition. [Individual Paper] The 3^rd International Conference on English across the Curriculum. [Virtual modes]
3. Siu, P. (2021, May). An EAC Perspective to Raise Social Semiotic Awareness among Teachers and Students in Social Sciences. [Colloquium Panel Paper 4] – Tong, E., Xuan, W., Tao, K., & Siu, P. Collaborative Praxis in a Language-across-the-curriculum Course: Impactful Dialogues about Multimodal Social Science Discourses. The 3rd International Conference on English across the Curriculum. [Virtual modes]
4. Siu, P., Chen, Q. & Lin, A.M.Y., (2021, June). [Paper 5] "Unsettling issues in language assessment 5. Heteroglossic Approaches to Connecting Assessment and Learning: Breaking the Monoglossic norms in a Public Relations Writing Course in Hong Kong.” Symposium Panel at Sociolinguistics Symposium (SS23) on "Unsettling issues in language assessment". [Virtual modes]
5. Siu, P. (2021, June). Co-developing Critical/ Semiotic/ Language Awareness in LSP: A MEC Approach for Multimodal Design Board Composition. [Individual Paper] The 6th Asia-Pacific Languages for Specific Purposes & Professional Communication Association (the LSPPC6) - Online Conference on Multimodality and Beyond: Addressing complexity and emerging needs in LSP.
6. Siu, P. (2021, April). [Paper 4] Challenges and Potentials in CLIL Curriculum Genre Design and Assessment Alignment: A Teacher-researcher Perspective. Equipping teachers with educational responsibility awareness for a heteroglossic approach to CLIL [Symposium Panel Session for Division K] – Teaching and Teacher Education]. Virtual American Educational Research [AERA] Annual Meeting. 
7. Siu, P. (2021, April). [Paper 1] A Social Semiotic Awareness Raising Approach: Co-designing EAP Assessment, Teaching and Learning Activities during Covid-19. [Symposium Panel Session for SIG G Semiotics in Education: Social Semiotics, New Materiality and Multimodal Composing]. Virtual American Educational Research Association [AERA] Annual Meeting. 
8. Siu, P. (2021, March). Reframing Languaging and Social Interaction in CLIL: The Multimodalities-Entextualisation Cycle in Public Relations Writing. [Individual Paper] American Association for Applied Linguistics [AAAL] Annual Conference. [Virtual modes]
9. Siu, P. (2021, January). Emotion Labour in group project-based academic essay writing. [Individual Paper] HKCPD Hub Virtual International Conference 2021: "Innovative teaching and research in English language education"

Academic Publications Featured for 2021-2025

(invited special issue journal publication and academic book chapters)

Research Book Chapter Project 1:  

Current trends in EMI and Multimodality in Higher Education 

Published in Routledge Series in Language and Content Integrated Teaching & Plurilingual Education.

Authors: Phoebe Siu (the first-author), Esther Tong and Winfred Xuan (co-authors)

Research Book Chapter Project 2: 

English-Medium Instruction Practices in Higher Education: International Perspectives

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Authors: Phoebe Siu (College of Professional and Continuing Education, Hong Kong) and Angel M. Y. Lin (Simon Fraser University, Canada)

Abstract

This chapter reports a study engaged by the first author to try out the translanguaging (TL) and trans-semiotizing (TS) approach in facilitating the flow of creativity and ideas in an EMI course in a college in Hong Kong. Special attention is paid to how some plurilingual teachers and students in Hong Kong readily exercise their creative, trans-semiotic agency through mobilizing and orchestrating their multiple semiotic resources. The chapter concludes with the proposal of a socioculturally transformative pedagogical framework for EMI higher education with an integrated focus on creativity, multimodality, and linguistic agency. 

Research Book Chapter Project 3 

Book Chapter Title: 

"Reclaiming a plurilingual voice in EMI classrooms A ‘MEC’ approach to CLIL in Hong Kong higher education"