PHD Year One – Done!
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
3M ago
My first year as a doctoral researcher is now behind me and it is time to look back on what I achieved in 2023. If you want to read more about my first semester, check out my review of Spring 2023 here. My Ph.D. courses I applied to university pedagogy courses, but they are very popular and I was not chosen this time, therefore I didn’t have any courses this semester. In hindsight, that was probably for the best as I was very busy with both work and my research. My research Autumn 2023 was a very important semester for my research, as I finished data collection for both substudy 1 and su ..read more
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Analyzing my own Chinese language learning motivation
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
4M ago
As I am conducting my Ph.D. research on Chinese language learning motivation, I am also looking back on my journey of learning the language. I believe that being an L2 speaker of Chinese myself, I can have a unique lens into learning, teaching, and researching Mandarin. I feel that with the cooperation of both native and non-native teachers and researchers, we can together paint a comprehensive picture of what it is like to learn Chinese. My first memory of being interested in the Chinese language and culture is from primary school, when we had to do notebook presentations by designing a poste ..read more
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What makes a successful language learner?
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
5M ago
Me and my daughter during my Master’s graduation ceremony in 2016 What makes an exceptional language learner and how can we achieve native like fluency? Late 2022 a book was published on the topic of motivation, cognition and identity with a title “Lessons from Exceptional Language Learners Who Have Achieved Nativelike Proficiency” by Zoltán Dörnyei and Katarina Mentzelopoulos. They interviewed 30 participants that had achieved nativelike fluency in a foreign language as adults. Through analyzing the interview data, they categorized different variables explaining why these learners had achiev ..read more
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Should L2 Chinese learners learn how to write Chinese characters by hand?
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
6M ago
After listening to an interesting podcast episode by David Moser in a discussion with Matthew Coss about handwriting Chinese characters and whether students should be expected to learn handwriting, I’m interested in continuing this discussion as a Chinese language learner, teacher, and Ph.D. researcher. My own current research focuses on learning motivation, but learning characters is also an important element in the complex topic of motivation. Perceived difficulty in the Chinese language definitely affects learning motivation. Two of the most difficult aspects of the language that students ..read more
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The first semester of a new doctoral researcher
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
11M ago
My first semester as a doctoral researcher is almost finished, and it’s time to look back at what I have done and learned during this Spring. As I’m not really a student, the meaning of a semester isn’t as important as when I did my Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees, but nevertheless, I enjoy doing some reflection every six months or so. My year started with an online meeting with my two supervisors, followed by my supervisor’s seminar where I introduced my plans. My goal was to finish three courses, get started with my systematic review, and plan for data gathering to begin in September. In thi ..read more
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Why research language learning motivation?
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
1y ago
As a Mandarin Chinese language teacher, I always strive to help my students reach their goals and succeed in their studies. There are countless variables that contribute to their success, or sometimes failure, in learning the language. According to research, and my personal observation as a teacher for the past 8 years, motivation is an essential key in unlocking mastery of a foreign language. When a student stops learning Chinese, and I’m talking about adult learners outside of the university context, they often can find a list of reasons for doing so: not having enough time, the language b ..read more
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New video: Old house in the village
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
1y ago
New video is published on my YouTube Channel! This time I shoot a video of our home, and an old Chinese house in the village. Most foreigners I know in the city live in rather fancy apartments in the city center or at least comfortable places along the Pearl River. Our family home is something totally different! The Ling Clan has lived in this village for the past 700 years, that time they fled the war in the Fujian district and decided to settle on an island where it was safe, just 20 kilometers from the Guangzhou city center. Back in 2013, I wrote on the blog how we planned to start the cl ..read more
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Before starting my PhD
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
1y ago
I’m officially starting my Ph.D. studies in January, but before that and at the beginning of my studies, there is quite a lot of paperwork and administration to be done. As I have mentioned before, I always enjoy writing about my studies and I wish to document these first steps of my Ph.D. as well. I have also seen blog writing being used in research writing courses as one tool to improve your writing skills, the more you write, the better you can get! And being a non-native English speaker doing my research in English, I definitely hope to improve my language skills as well. Verification of ..read more
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Welcome to my Youtube channel
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
1y ago
I have started to build my own professional Youtube channel about learning and teaching, researching study motivation, and living in China. So far I have uploaded a couple of older interviews, how I prepared for the HSK Advanced exam, a tour to my roots in Beijing, and sharing my language learning journey. I will be publishing new videos irregularly, so subscribe to get notifications when new videos are up. In 2020 I experimented with a Youtube channel but didn’t take into account that the videos we were doing all took half a day to shoot and full two days to edit. When work got busier again ..read more
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My Ph.D. Journey Begins!
Sara Jaaksola
by admin
1y ago
It’s quite incredible to be able to share this news that I’ve dreamed about and prepared for over a year now. At the same time, I’ve been utterly scared that it would never become a reality, but here we are! I will be starting my doctoral studies this coming January! In October 2021 I shared on the blog that I had decided to apply for a doctoral program and in March 2022 I shared how I actually applied. What I didn’t share is that I was denied once last Spring when I applied for the first time. It was devastating news to hear, but at the same time, I got advice and encouragement to continue ..read more
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