Anwei Feng is professor in language education. He joined The University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC) in September 2013. Professor Feng holds an MA degree in applied linguistics and a PhD in language education. He has had teaching and research experience in tertiary institutions in many countries/regions such as China, Qatar, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the UK. Before he joined UNNC, Professor Feng was Director of the Graduate School in College of Education and Lifelong Learning (CELL) of Bangor University, UK. He is guest professor at a number of universities in China, including Guangdong Foreign Studies University, SIAS International University, Yunnan Normal University, Qujing Normal University, Southwest Forestry University, and Qinghai University for Nationalities. Owing to high-impact research, Professor Feng has been awarded the Elsevier Certificates for the Most-Highly Cited Researcher in China twice since 2021. 

Professor Feng teaches, supervises and researches in bilingualism and bilingual education, intercultural studies in education, TESOL, international and comparative education, and minority language education. He has published many peer-reviewed articles and seven books on these knowledge areas and supervises more than two dozens of PhD and Education Doctorate students to completion. The thesis topics of these students range from 'trilingualism and trilingual education', 'transnational education (TNE)', 'bilingual education for pre-school children', 'intercultural team teaching', 'ethnographic studies of third-culture kids in international schools', 'intercultural education in multicultural societies', 'lexical approach to teaching Chinese as a second/foreign language', to 'mass media, intercultural competence and TESOL', for different contexts. Professor Feng welcomes queries and applications for doctorate studies related to these areas.

Major Research Area

Professor Feng’s major research interest is in the area of multilingualism and multilingual education related particularly to ethnic minority groups. As a key Founder and Vice President of the Chinese Society of Multilingualism and Multilingual Education (CSMME), he has devoted the last ten years to a nation-wide project on trilingualism and trilingual education which involves a national network of more than 50 researchers in 11 minority regions in China. This project was funded by various funding bodies including the Hong Kong Research Grants Council General Research Fund #840012 (HK$800,822) from 2012 to 2015 for extensive studies into models of trilingual education. It is now funded by the local or national funding bodies in most regions. So far, Prof Feng and his colleagues have organised nine international symposia on trilingualism and trilingual education in different minority dominated regions and published several books and numerous journal articles (the most representative is the edited book titled ‘trilingualism in education in China’ with Bob Adamson in 2015). Professor Feng welcomes queries from anyone who has genuine interest in this area of research. 

Recent Funded Research

• PI for project titled ‘Affective Dimensions of Minority Students in Multilingual Contexts in China - Towards an Integrated Model’ funded (40,000 RMB) by the Institute of Asian and Pacific Studies (IAPS), University of Nottingham.

• PI for project titled ‘Cultivating “Glocal Talents” through International/Transnational Higher Education’ funded (40,000RMB) by the Provost’s International Collaborative Grants, UNNC.

• Principal organiser for the International Conference on Language Standardization and Linguistic Variation in Asia from Sociolinguistic Perspectives on December 11-13, 2017, co-funded (30,000 RMB) by the Research and Knowledge Exchange Office, UNNC, and (£10,000) by MEITS (Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies), a major interdisciplinary research project funded under the AHRC Open World Research Initiative.

Past Research Projects

• Senior Research Fellow of the ESRC Centre for Research on Bilingualism in Theory & Practice, Bangor University. The centre was funded by ESRC (with funding worth £5,180,065).

Editorial Boards

• Member of Editorial Board for Language and Education, International Journal by Taylor and Francis
• Member of Editorial Board for the International journal Study Abroad Research in Second Language Acquisition and International Education byJohn Benjamin Publishing Company
• Member of the Editorial Board of Education Sciences, an international, open access journal published quarterly online by MDPI
• Member of the Editorial Board of the journal Mulltingual Education by Springer
• Member of the Editorial Board of the Mulltingual Education book series by Springer
• Member of the Editorial Board of the journal Foreign Language Learning: Theory and Practice, a Shanghai-based journal of educational linguistics by ECNU Press, Shanghai
• Member of the Editorial Board of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Language Teaching and Learning, by Routledge, UK

Current teaching

• EdD modules: Understanding Education Knowledge; Research Methodology and methods; Literature Review for Researching Education; Key Debates and Issues for Researching Education; Project Proposal 
• MA and EdD modules: Intercultural Studies in Education; Bilingualism and Bilingual Education 

Supervision areas

To get an idea of the areas and topics Prof Anwei Feng is interested in supervising, please see below a list of PhD and EdD students whom Prof Feng has supervised to completion and of those still under his supervision.

Doctorate students completed

• Jacob Finifrock (PhD) – Thesis title: Trilingual Education in the Kam-Speaking Region of Guizhou: Policy, Praxis, and Perceptions. (Completed: 04/18)
• Murphy Ma (EdD) – Thesis title:  Low Achievement in English Language Learning: A Case Study of a Chinese Tier-3 University under the Lens of Complex System Theory. (Completed: 03/18)
• Ping Wang (EdD) – Thesis title: An Evaluative Study of the Effectiveness of Content-Based Instruction as an EFL Approach in China’s Tertiary Education. (Completed: 01/18)
• Yang Feng (PhD) – Thesis title: Early Parent-Child Reading: An Experimental Study for Developing Chinese Children’s Bilingual Competence (Completed: 02/17)
• Candy, Ping Zhang (EdD) – Thesis title: Evaluating Trilingual Language Teacher Training Programmes for Minority Dominated Regions in Xinjiang: Current practice and Challenges (Completed: 01/17)
• Xenia Xiao Xu (PhD) – Thesis title: Exploring the educational ideas and practices of UK transnational education from the perspective of citizenship. (Completed: 03/14)
• Torka Joyce Abu (EdD) – Thesis title: Montessorian Education in Nurseries in England: Two Case Studies. (Completed: 03/13).
• Jonathan Wong (EdD) – Thesis title: Use of Formulaic Sequences in Task-based Oral Production of Chinese: A Comparative Study of Native and Non-native Speaker’s Outputs. (Completed: 10/12).
• Kwan Yi Wong (EdD) – Thesis title: Study Tours Taken by Hong Kong Secondary Students to Mainland China: Effects on their Identity and Motivation to learn Putonghua. (Completed: 05/12)
• Linda Yang Hui (PhD) – Thesis Title: Using films to develop intercultural competence in English language teaching. (Completed: 05/11)
• Lihong Wang (PhD) – Thesis Title: Chinese Postgraduate Students in a British University: Their Learning Experiences and Learning Beliefs (Completed: 03/10)
• Chu Chu Kan, Ivory (EdD) Cross-cultural adjustment of native English teachers in Hong Kong: an investigative study (Completed: 07/09)
• Shu Hsin Chen (PhD) – Thesis Title: Intercultural team teaching: A study of local and foreign EFL teachers in Taiwan (Completed: 05/09)
• Abdul Talib Mohamed Hashim (PhD) – Thesis Title: Intercultural education for a multicultural society: A case study of perceptions and responses to cultural diversity in a national primary school in Malaysia (Completed: 03/09)
• Kurt Wai On LAW (EdD) – Thesis Title: Translation students’ use of dictionaries: A Hong Kong case study of Chinese to English translation (Completed: 12/08)
• Maggie Koong (EdD) – Thesis Title: Bilingual preschool education: A comparative study between Hong Kong and Shanghai (Competed: 03/08)
• Thomas Harrington (EdD) – Thesis Title: An ethnographic investigation of students’ and parents’ perceptions of their international school experience (Completed: 10/07)
• Julia Hsu (EdD) – Thesis Title: A cooperative task-based learning approach to motivating low achieving readers of English in a Taiwanese University (Completed: 08/07)
• Ruth Ming Wong (EdD) – Thesis Title: Factors affecting motivation to learn English: The perspectives of newly-arrived Hong Kong students (Completed: 02/07)
• Marshall Yin (EdD) – Thesis Title: Initiating competence in intercultural communication – New approaches for Chinese learners in a University English language course (Completed: 09/2006)

Doctorate students under supervision

• Lily Zhang (EdD) – Thesis on developing ICC at secondary schools
• Peter Wenbi Wang (EdD) – Thesis on third language acquisition
• Trancy Xiaofang Li (EdD) – Thesis on using simple readers to enhance students’ motivation in learning English and to raise their cultural awareness
• Angela Xiaofeng Jiang (EdD) – Thesis on parent-teacher partnership
• Catherine Lin Li (EdD) – Thesis on complex and dynamic nature of L2 motivation
• Annie Qian Xia (EdD) – Thesis on ICC development in MTI courses
• Tingting Zhang (EdD) – Thesis on Washback Effect of English on English Language Teaching in High School Classrooms in Zhejiang
• David Cibo Zhou (EdD) – Thesis on effectiveness of CLIL at Chinese universities
• Julie Ying Zhu (EdD) – Thesis on needs analysis of hotel English course of higher vocational colleges in Nanjing
• Susie Yonghua Chen – Thesis on internationalizing English teaching in cooperative 5-year vocational education in China
• Lisa Sa LI – Thesis on EFL Teachers’ Emotions and Identities.

Doctorate theses examined

Professor Feng has examined about two dozens of PhD and EdD theses mainly in the UK, China, Hong Kong and Malaysia.