Oliver Yi Kuo Li

 

College: College of Social Sciences and International Studies
Discipline: Education
Department: EdD TESOL

From Taiwan, I am currently a first year EdD TESOL student. Serving as the head examination commissioner for identification of gifted students in my county and the chief of a gifted education program in a junior high school, I am interested in developing English EFL courses and teaching methodologies for gifted EFL (English as a foreign language) learners. In Taiwan, we have special education programs for “gifted English learners”. Most of the teachers serving in such programs are experienced English teachers. However, according to my initial research, there are considerable needs to develop courses and teaching approaches specifically for the gifted English learners in order to fulfil these students’ special learning needs.

With both TESOL and gifted education backgrounds, I am investigating how to bridge the gap between these two areas. Conducting such a research topic is interesting to me because it allow me to explore the possibilities to develop different teaching approaches and English courses in the Taiwanese EFL context. Hopefully the results of my thesis study can benefit teachers in both gifted education and mainstream EFL education so that their students can benefit accordingly.