Event Details
Join us for a conversation with Dr. Yiwen Liu and Tin Yuet (Tiffany) Tam where they will discuss their work.
📅Date: Friday, January 16, 2026
🕒Time: 11:45 AM to 2:00 PM
🍪 Light refreshments will be provided.
📩 Please RSVP by emailing chk.library@utoronto.ca by noon on Thursday, January 15, 2026.
Speakers
🎓 Dr. Yiwen Liu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Language Studies, University of Toronto Scarborough, will discuss her work:
Teaching Hong Kong Culture in Canadian Classrooms
Abstract:
How can Hong Kong be taught as both “content” and “context” in general humanities classrooms where it is not the sole focus? How can Hong Kong’s specific historical and cultural experiences be connected to shared global concerns today? These pedagogical questions guided my teaching of Hong Kong cultural productions across two English departments and a Global Asia program in Vancouver over the past two years.
The materials I taught represent and discuss war, migration, refugee experiences, and political turmoil in both Hong Kong’s past and present. Because none of the materials rely on cultural references more familiar in the West, such as Wong Kar-wai or Jacky Chan, I encouraged student engagement by inviting students to make personal connections to these “unfamiliar” non-Western cultural productions. In this talk, I will share both the risks and successes of this approach. Part of the talk is based on my forthcoming article in a Canadian Literature special issue commemorating the late scholar Y-Dang Troeung, who taught in Hong Kong from 2012 to 2017.
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🎓 Tin Yuet (Tiffany) Tam, MA Student, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, will discuss her work:
Exploring the Role of Race and Language in Teacher Education: A Raciolinguistics Framework for Multilingual and Professional Identities of Ontario’s K–12 Teacher Candidates
Abstract:
While there is a growing body of research on preparing K–12 teacher candidates to teach racially and linguistically diverse classrooms, less attention has been paid to how teacher candidates’ multilingual identities intersect with their professional identities in relation to race, racialization, and language.
My master’s research is a qualitative case study that puts the framework of raciolinguicized teacher subjectivities (Daniels and Varghese 2020) into empirical practice, bridging disciplinary divides among race and racialization studies, applied linguistics, and teacher education. I will begin by contextualizing my research and outlining how this framework informed data collection and analysis. I will then present findings from in-depth semi-structured interviews with six Ontario K–12 teacher candidates, focusing on how they understand their hybrid multilingual and professional identities through coursework and practicum experiences. The talk will conclude with suggestions for teacher educators on better recognizing and supporting multilingual identities in teacher education.