It is our pleasure to offer a free workshop on Empowering School Students through Questioning and Critical Thinking Skills in the English Classroom, facilitated by Assoc. Prof. Barry Bai from The Chinese University of Hong Kong at HCMC University of Technology and Education. Details are as below.
📅 Date: 26 August 2025
🕒 Time: 9:00am – 11:00am
📍 Venue: F1-608, HCMC University of Technology and Education
🔗 Registration: here by August 18, 2025
Description
Are your students passive recipients of knowledge or active thinkers who ask powerful questions? This interactive workshop equips K–12 English teachers with practical strategies to nurture questioning and critical thinking skills in their classrooms. The participants will:
- Explore Question–Response–Feedback and Bloom’s Taxonomy to scaffold higher-order thinking.
- Learn ways to encourage student-generated questions before, during, and after reading.
- Experience interactive, low teacher-talk activities to boost engagement.
- Discover feedback approaches that motivate deeper thinking and foster independent inquiry.
Through hands-on activities and actionable methods, the participants will leave the workshop with practical tools to transform their English classroom into a vibrant space of active, critical learning.
Who Should Attend?
- University lecturers in English education or teacher training
- High school and primary school English teachers
- Teacher trainers and education leaders
Don’t miss this chance to learn from one of Asia’s most respected voices in English language education and take away ready-to-use strategies to empower your students.
Facilitator
Barry Bai is an associate professor at the Department of Curriculum and the director of Centre for Language Education and Multiliteracies Research at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. In 2023 and 2024, he was recognized as a top 2% most cited researcher in languages and linguistics worldwide by Stanford University. Additionally, he was named a Highly Ranked Scholar (Lifetime - top 0.05%, #20 and Prior 5 Years – top 0.05%, #3) in the specialty of primary school in 2024 by ScholarGPS. Currently, he serves as the president of Hong Kong Association for Applied Linguistics (HAAL) and is an associate editor of European Journal of Education and Asia Pacific Journal of Education. He is a recipient of 2014/2015 Faculty Exemplary Teaching Award and has secured highly competitive research funds, Hong Kong Research Grants Council (RGC) Competitive Research Funding Schemes (GRF/ECS) for 2018/2019 and 2022/2023. He has conducted multiple projects on English teachers’ continuing professional development funded by Quality Education Fund (QEF) and Standing Committee on Language Education and Research (SCOLAR) of the Hong Kong Education Bureau and the Chinese University of Hong Kong with a total funding amount of over HK$ 35 million. Professor Barry has provided training and professional development support to approximately 646 primary and secondary schools, 4,300 English teachers and 50,000 students (alongside 12,880 parents). Through his projects (e.g., GRF, QEF, and SCOLAR), the participants developed and adopted school-based teaching and learning materials. His work appears in leading education journals, including Computers & Education, Teaching and Teacher Education, Social Psychology of Education, Research Papers in Education, Cambridge Journal of Education, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Studies in Educational Evaluation, Computer Assisted Language Learning, Language Teaching Research, Applied Linguistics Review, TESOL Quarterly and System.
On August 26, 2025, the Faculty of Foreign Languages, Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology and Education, hosted a workshop titled Empowering School Students through Questioning and Critical Thinking Skills in the English Classroom in collaboration with Associate Professor Barry Bai from The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Recognized by Stanford University as among the top 2% most-cited scholars in linguistics worldwide (2023–2024), Assoc. Prof. Barry Bai shared practical strategies to help English teachers foster questioning and critical thinking in an English classroom. Participants explored techniques such as Question–Response–Feedback and Bloom’s Taxonomy, as well as approaches to encourage students to ask questions before, during and after reading, and provide constructive feedback to nurture creativity and higher-order thinking skills.
The interactive activities and inspiring insights created a lively academic atmosphere. Looking ahead, the Faculty of Foreign Languages will continue to collaborate with leading experts to organize more engaging workshops, offering valuable opportunities for professional growth and innovation in English language teaching and learning.
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