Xiaoyan Xu

  • Visiting Scholar, Xi'an Jiaotong University, China – 2016-2017

Ms. Xiaoyan Xu got her master’s degree in English Linguistics and Applied Linguistics in 2003 and has been an English teacher for more than ten years at the School of International Studies, Xi’an Jiaotong University. She has worked in the field of English pragmatic competence development of Chinese EFL learners, such as “Research on Intercultural Business Pragmatic Competence Development of College Students in Xi’an at Silk Road Economic Belt” (sponsored by Social Science Fund of Xi’an), and “Research on Influence of Pragmatic Teaching on Pragmatic Competence Development of Chinese English Learners” (sponsored by Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities). In addition, several papers have been published on language learning in peer-reviewed journals.

Ms. Xu’s study in the Institute for International Studies in Education (IISE) of University of Pittsburgh is to work under the guidance of Dr. Feifei Ye to develop a method to assess Chinese EFL learners’ pragmatic competence. The procedure may follow several steps: (1) exemplar generation to collect and categorize situations from the Chinese EFL learners; (2) metapragmatic assessment to elicit participants’ assessments of contextual variables involved in each scenario; and (3) pilot testing (both paper-and-pencil and think-aloud) to validate preliminarily the test papers.