Meet The Team
The partners of the project are Gazi University from Türkiye, Newcastle University from the UK, and Ankara Provincial Directorate of National Education.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Asuman Aşık
COORDINATOR OF THE PROJECT
Department of English Language Teaching, Gazi University Ankara Türkiye. Her main research topics include teacher training, technology and language teaching, teaching English to young learners and curriculum and materials development, corpora and language teaching, CALL and e-learning. She has worked as a researcher dealing with the technology-related outputs in two Erasmus+ projects called SBATEYL (A Web and School-based Professional Development Project for Foreign Language Teachers of Young Learners) and ILTERG (International Language Teacher Education Research Group). She published several research articles nationally and internationally refereed journals which are indexed in the field and international books. She has organized and participated three VE projects with a variety of international contexts. Her academic website is https://avesis.gazi.edu.tr/asuman.asik
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Müge Satar
Dr Müge Satar is Reader in Applied Linguistics at Newcastle University, UK. Her research focuses on the communicative and pedagogical aspects of multimodal interaction for online language learning and teaching, particularly investigating social presence, meaning-making, instruction-giving, and translanguaging. She is the co-editor of the Journal of Virtual Exchange. She has numerous publications in leading journals in the field such as Language Learning and Technology, ReCALL, and System. Her most recent books are an edited volume Virtual Exchange: Towards Digital Equity in Internationalisation (2021), a co-authored manuscript Instruction Giving in Online Language Lessons: A Multimodal (Inter)action Analysis (2023), and a co-edited volume Cultural Tasks For Digital Language Learning (forthcoming). She was the Principal Investigator (coordinator) of the ENACT project https://enacteuropa.com/ co-funded by the European Union.
Prof. Dr. Gonca Yangın Ekşi
Department of English Language Education, Gazi University Ankara Türkiye. She teaches several undergraduate and graduate courses and supervises MA and PhD dissertations. She received her MA in ELT at Hacettepe University, Department of ELT and she holds her PhD in ELT at Gazi University. She has worked on several projects including the national project for the development of the national English curriculum for Primary and Secondary schools. She managed an Erasmus KA2 Project with distinguished universities in Turkey and abroad. She has published various research articles nationally and internationally focusing on teaching and learning English as a foreign language. Her research interests include computer-assisted language learning, pre-and in-service teacher education, curriculum and materials development, teaching skills, and language components, young learners, use of corpus in language teaching.
Gamze Emir
Gamze Emir is a research assistant at the Department of English Language Teaching at Gazi University Ankara, Turkey. She earned her MA in ELT from Gazi University and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in the same department. Her primary research interests include teacher training, technology and language teaching, corpora and language teaching, and Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK). She is currently pursuing her Ph.D. thesis, which focuses on a telecollaboration project aimed at enhancing technology integration into foreign language teacher training. She has published several international articles with a specific focus on data-driven learning, teacher burnout, and virtual exchange. Her most recent publication explores the defining role of telecollaboration in English language teacher training.
Dr. Yao Wang
Lecturer in Applied Linguistics and Communication, School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University. She is an interdisciplinary researcher with a background that spans philosophy, literature, education, and cross-cultural communication. Her search interests encompass various facets of Higher Education, including the internationalisation of higher education (particularly the adjustment, adaptation, and employability of international students), decolonisation efforts, and promoting equality, diversity, and inclusion within higher education contexts. Additionally, her work extends to the sociology of education, with a specific focus on rural-to-urban migrant children and their families in China. She explores the challenges and opportunities faced by this demographic group to inform policies and interventions that support their educational journey. Her research also centres on the impact of digital play on children’s well-being. She has committed to exploring the intricate dynamics of this phenomenon and understanding its implications for the holistic development and overall wellbeing of young individuals. She recently completed a research project in this area collaborating with Lego, UNICEF, and universities across four countries.
Dr. Derya Selçuk Köse
Dr. Derya Selçuk Köse has been working at Ankara Directorate of National Education (ADNE) as the coordinator of the national projects at the Research and Development office. She has several conference presentations on music education. She has led and organized several TÜBİTAK and Development Agency projects. She has worked as a researcher on several Erasmus projects. Some of the projects she was involved in the project team were Advanced Technology Teacher Training (3D & Drone), Başkent Teacher Workshops and Inspiring People for Students. She has experience in project development and management and arranging several trainings and workshops for teachers.
Wenwen Zhang
She is a final year Ph.D. student in applied linguistics at the School of Education, Communication, and Language Science at Newcastle University. My research interest lies in social media and intercultural communication, international students’ acculturation, and ICC training. My research is on WeChat and Chinese international students’ study abroad experiences, especially how WeChat affects their daily life and their sense making of intercultural encounters through WeChat, as well as how WeChat affects their intercultural communication. My empirical research is qualitative, but I am also trained in conducting quantitative research and using SPSS for quantitative data analysis thus I have relevant knowledge and skills. In addition to researching, I am also a Mandarin teacher with more than ten years of experience in four countries (China, Thailand, Italy, and the UK). Other than teaching, I have been promoting intercultural exchange by organizing various cultural events and promoting study exchange programs.