November 30, 2021

Vietnamese–Australian children’s language proficiency and use

Congratulations Van on the publication of this important paper from your PhD:

Tran, V. H., Wang, C., McLeod, S., & Verdon, S. (2021). Vietnamese–Australian children’s language proficiency and use. International Journal of Bilingualism, 25(6), 1735-1763. https://doi.org/10.1177/13670069211034587

The data from this paper were collected as part of our Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (VietSpeech). 


November 29, 2021

VietSpeech writing retreat #3 for 2021

We are so close to the end of our Australian Research Council Discovery Grant (VietSPeech). We have set aside another week to work on finishing 8 journal articles and putting our VietSpeech workbook online so that people can access it. We are excited about another busy week.

November 26, 2021

Gold standard validation of the Intelligibility in Context Scale

This week an important paper has been published by authors in the US who have validated the Intelligibility in Context Scale (McLeod, Harrison & McCormack, 2012) with the gold standard measure of transcription intelligibility scores. Here is the article and abstract: https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/11/1540

Soriano, J. U., Olivieri, A., & Hustad, K. C. (2021). Utility of the Intelligibility in Context Scale for predicting speech intelligibility of children with cerebral palsy. Brain Sciences, 11(11), 1540. https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3425/11/11/1540 

The Intelligibility in Context Scale (ICS) is a widely used, efficient tool for describing a child’s speech intelligibility. Few studies have explored the relationship between ICS scores and transcription intelligibility scores, which are the gold standard for clinical measurement. This study examined how well ICS composite scores predicted transcription intelligibility scores among children with cerebral palsy (CP), how well individual questions from the ICS differentially predicted transcription intelligibility scores, and how well the ICS composite scores differentiated between children with and without speech motor impairment. Parents of 48 children with CP, who were approximately 13 years of age, completed the ICS. Ninety-six adult naïve listeners provided orthographic transcriptions of children’s speech. Transcription intelligibility scores were regressed on ICS composite scores and individual item scores. Dysarthria status was regressed on ICS composite scores. Results indicated that ICS composite scores were moderately strong predictors of transcription intelligibility scores. One individual ICS item differentially predicted transcription intelligibility scores, and dysarthria severity influenced how well ICS composite scores differentiated between children with and without speech motor impairment. Findings suggest that the ICS has potential clinical utility for children with CP, especially when used with other objective measures of speech intelligibility.

November 25, 2021

Prime 7 television interview

Today I was interviewed by Chris Tan from Prime 7 television regarding my ASHA Honors Award. The interview and footage from my work was presented within the 6pm news bulletin.

CSU Research Productivity Index (RPI) points

Charles Sturt University has a new system to calculate Research Productivity Index (RPI). https://research.csu.edu.au/performance/institutional/charles-sturt-university-research-productivity-index-rpi. Today the Associate Dean Research contacted me to let me know that I had been nominated for a Faculty Research Award because:

Your RPI Category A points accumulated from 2018-2020 was 1,117 points: • 39 included publications • 990 category A RPI publications points • 127 HERDC income category A RPI points from $353,193 generated • +997 above minimum Level E category A RPI points expectation

Collaborations with Dr. Karla Washington

I met with Dr. Karla Washington today. We celebrated her recent ASHA Fellow award.

We are currently working on a few book chapters together. 

  1. a chapter about Jamaican children's drawings of talking in a Springer book on children's voices
  2. a chapter on Jamaican creole speech development for the Oxford University Press book I am editing.

November 24, 2021

First chapters for The [Oxford] Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World

I am the editor of The [Oxford] Handbook of Speech Development in Languages of the World. Here are the languages that will be the focus of the first group chapters where the authors have agreed to participate. I love the range of languages!

  1. Cantonese
  2. Danish
  3. German
  4. Jamaican Creole
  5. Maltese
  6. Setswana
  7. Slovak
  8. Slovene
  9. Vietnamese
  10. Fiji English
  11. Korean English
  12. Scottish English
  13. Canadian English

Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia New Fellows' Presentations

This evening I attended the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia New Fellows' Presentations https://events.humanitix.com/2021-new-fellows-presentations

I really enjoyed presentations from my education colleagues Professor Susan Danby (QUT) and Professor Marilyn Fleer (Monash).

Here is the description of the event 

Each year, the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia elects the most distinguished social scientists in Australia as Fellows. These New Fellows will join the ranks of over 700 of Australia’s leading researchers and professionals across the social science disciplines. This event will provide an opportunity to welcome the 2021 New Fellows and to recognise their outstanding contributions to the social sciences. Each New Fellow will have three minutes to discuss their research in an engaging and informative presentation.

2021 ASSA Fellow, Prof Susan Danby

2021 ASSA Fellow, Prof Marilyn Fleer

November 23, 2021

Recognising Excellence Daily: Thanks from the Provost

CSU has a process called RED: Recognising Excellence Daily. Today I recieved a RED award from the Provost thanking me for my work on the Professorial Promotions Committee. It was a privilege to serve on the committee. CSU employs some fantastic people.

On behalf of the University and Academic Portfolio, and as Chair of the Academic Promotions Professorial Committee, I wanted to personally thank you for the valuable contributions you made to this year’s Academic Promotions process. As you are well aware, Academic Promotions provide an important means of encouraging and recognising staff development and rewarding those who have demonstrated and sustained excellence. The significant time and support you have committed to this process not only benefits our academics and their careers, it also strengthens our University, the reputation of our University, and our ability to continue achieving our mission and changing the lives of our students and communities for the better. This year we had a terrific outcome, with 78 per cent of applications successful. This is an impressive 15 per cent increase on last year and could not have been achieved without the hard work and dedication of our Promotions Committees. 

I trust you enjoyed the process and I hope you will continue to contribute to our Promotions Committees in the years to come. 

Kind regards John Germov, Provost


 

November 22, 2021

VietSpeech team - happy, busy and tired

We are nearing the end of our VietSpeech grant and the 2021 academic year. We have achieved so much - and still have more to write up and publish. Today, we decided we are happy, busy, and tired.

Kate, Sharynne, Audrey, Van and Sarah

ABC radio interview

Today I was interviewed by Sally Bryant for ABC Radio (Riverina) regarding my ASHA Honors as a result of the CSU news item: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/unique-international-honour-for-speech-and-language-acquisition-expert. We mostly spoke about the impact of wearing masks and other aspects of COVID-19 restrictions on communication - important topics.

November 19, 2021

ASHA Awards Ceremony

The online American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Awards Ceremony was held in Washington D.C. Friday 19th November. https://convention.asha.org/networking/awards-ceremony/
The Awards Ceremony celebrates the highest achievements and excellence in the professions. Awards presented this evening include the Honors of the Association—ASHA's most prestigious award, which recognizes lifetime achievement—and ASHA Fellows, whose recipients' contributions are the cornerstones of the communication sciences and disorders (CSD) professions. ASHA will present additional awards to honor other members who have also contributed to the professions and to ASHA. The 2020 awardees will also receive a special recognition from 2020 ASHA President Theresa H. Rodgers.

ASHA has 218,000 members and awardees are nominated then voted on by a committee. The list of 2021 awards recipients is here: https://www.asha.org/about/awards/2021-awards-recipients/

I was one of 11  colleagues receiving ASHA Honors in 2021 and was the first ASHA International Affiliate to receive the award since it began in 1944.  

The CSU News story about my award is here: https://news.csu.edu.au/latest-news/unique-international-honour-for-speech-and-language-acquisition-expert

Here is the video that ASHA created to announce my award at the ceremony: https://vimeo.com/644073807

Here is the Awards Ceremony booklet: https://asha-convention.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-and-2021-Convention-Awards-Booklet.pdf 

My colleagues Elise Baker, Marie Ireland, and Karla Washington and other colleagues from the US were awarded ASHA Fellows at the ceremony. 

Dr Elise Baker (ASHA Fellow) and Prof Sharynne McLeod (ASHA Honoree)
We celebrated in Bathurst with our family and friends (restricted due to COVID-19)
 

Unfortunately Elise and I were unable to travel from Australia for the ceremony, so watched online and celebrated with our families and friends. We were pleased that Lynn Williams (ASHA President) and Rebecca McCauley  accepted our awards on our behalf.

ASHA President Lynn Williams accepted my award on my behalf (and I was surprised she had a cutout of my head!)

ASHA Honors recipients

Elise Baker's ASHA Fellow Award was accepted by Rebecca McCauley

After the ceremony, Elise and I had an online Zoom celebration with friends and colleagues from Vietnam, Iceland, UK, US and Australia

Marie Ireland was backstage with the other ASHA awardees.

Tommie Robinson (ASHA Honors), Marie Ireland (ASHA Fellow) with cutouts of Karla Washington and myself!

Stephen Camarata (ASHA Honors) with my head!

Here is the recording of the ASHA Awards ceremony: https://stream.asha.org/2021-convention-awards# Log on ID: 12070449. My award was accepted by the ASHA President, Professor Lynn Williams and occurred between 0:43 – 0:47 minutes and 1:21 – 1:23.  Captain Chesley B. Sullenberger’s award was introduced 1:23 ff, then at 1:27ff

It has been a busy few days with all of our ASHA presentations going on (https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/11/american-speech-language-hearing.html) as well as responding to all of the lovely emails, tweets, texts and phonecalls.



CSU Professors’ Forum

Today I attended the CSU Professors’ Forum. In addition to the conversation amongst the professors we heard from Rick Wilmot (Chief Operations Officer), Brad Booth (Executive Director of Division of Strategy, Marketing and Analysis) and Jason White (Director, Research Services and Dean of Graduate Studies) who provided an update on the University strategy. 

Prof Riley Dionigi encouraged us to join the Australian Association of University Professors http://www.professoriate.org/

CSU Executive Dean's Teaching Award for online Master of Speech Pathology course

Congratulations to Dr Suzanne Hopf, Dr Sarah Verdon, Dr Lisa Brown and the team for winning the CSU Executive Dean's Teaching Award for our work “Inspiring, motivating and supporting learning for students from diverse backgrounds through Australia’s first blended online Master of Speech Pathology”

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention 2021

The American Speech-Language-Hearing Association Convention is on this week in Washington, DC. I am disappointed that I am unable to be in Washington to catch up with my colleagues from across the world. I really miss the networking and face-to-face interactions. There are over 10,000 attendees (5,200 onsite and 5,200 virtual). There are over 660 sessions and 1000 posters across 31 topic areas.

I stayed up until 12:30am to watch Lynn Williams, President of ASHA open the convention. 

 During the convention, my colleagues and I are presenting the following papers and posters virtually. 

  1. McLeod, S. (2021). Evidence-based resources for working with children with speech sound disorders [Invited 1-hour oral presentation]. 
  2. McLeod, S., Williams, A. L., McCauley, R. J., Baker, E., Ballard, K., Bernhardt, B. M., Camarata, S., Cleland, J., Hayden, D., Morrisette, M., Pennington, L., Leece, M., Pezas, R., Scherer, N., Strand, E., Tyler, A., Williams, P., Wren, Y., Preston, J. (2021). Twenty interventions for speech sound disorders: A guide for selection and implementation [1-hour oral presentation]. 
  3. Wren, Y., Davies, A., Seifert, M., Harding, S. & McLeod, S. (2021). Intelligibility in 3-year-olds with cleft lip and/or palate: findings from the cleft collective study [Oral presentation]. 
  4. McLeod, S., Verdon, S., Margetson, K., Wang, C., Tran, V. H., White, K,, Pham, B. (2021). Children’s speech acquisition in a 3-generation Vietnamese-English bilingual family [Virtual poster presentation]. 
  5. Hopf, S. C., Crowe, K., Verdon, S., Blake, H. L. & McLeod, S. (2021). Culturally Responsive Teamwork: A framework to advance workplace diversity [Virtual poster presentation]. ***Awarded Meritorious Poster Submission (from over 1200+ posters) https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/10/award-2021-asha-convention-meritorious.html

There have been a lot of people who have already viewed our presentations via the Virtual Library platform and many people have sent emails indicating that they have learned from the presentations and have asked for copies of the slides. This is great - but it is not the same as having conversations with these people. I hope I can attend next year.

November 17, 2021

Special issue of International Jounal of Speech-Language Pathology special issue on SDGs

A call has been extended throughout the world for expressions of interest for papers to be considered for a special issue of the International Jounal of Speech-Language Pathology (IJSLP) focussing on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 

https://speechpathologyaustralia.cld.bz/IJSLP-special-edition-EOI

Special issue title: Communication, Swallowing, and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

 Journal: International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology (http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/iasl20/current)

Guest Editors: Professor Sharynne McLeod, Charles Sturt University, Australia Professor Julie Marshall, Manchester Metropolitan University, UK 

Expressions of interest due Monday 13 December, 2021 to Sharynne McLeod (smcleod@csu.edu.au)

The United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (https://sdgs.un.org/goals) “provides a shared blueprint for peace and prosperity for people and the planet, now and into the future… In order to make the 2030 Agenda a reality, broad ownership of the SDGs must translate into a strong commitment by all stakeholders to implement the global goals.” (UN, 2015).

Each of the 17 SDGs impacts the world’s citizens, including people with speech, language and communication needs, people with dysphagia, and those who work with them (e.g., speech-language pathologists, audiologists, psychologists, teachers, doctors, lawyers). The International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology will join the world to work with the United Nations to implement the SDGs by publishing this special issue, acknowledging that communication and swallowing are important for “peace and prosperity for people and the planet (UN, 2015)”

This special issue of the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology will include 2,500-3,000 word commentary articles/ essays that address at least one SDG and its relationship to people who experience communication and swallowing disability. Commentaries must be supported by (a) new evidence and/or (b) evidence-based literature and will be peer-reviewed. Commentaries can be broad ranging, describing the relevance of the SDG to this field, or provide an overview of work with a specific intervention, country or population.

Expressions of interest are sought from authors across the world in a variety of disciplines. Commentaries are encouraged from people who live and work in Majority World countries (including low and middle-income countries and small island states) and people who have lived experience of communication and / or swallowing disability. The aim is to cover EVERY SDG – so be creative.

Expressions of interest are due Monday 13 December 2021 and should include: 
  1. Proposed title (the title should include the acronym “SDG”) 
  2. The SDG number(s) that will be the focus of the commentary (e.g., SDG8) (https://sdgs.un.org/goals). You may also like to include the relevant SDG target and indicator, but this is not essential (an example is provided below). 
  3. Contact author’s name, institution, country, email address 
  4. Additional author(s) names, institutions, countries, email addresses (if appropriate) 
  5. Proposed type of manuscript: commentary containing (a) new evidence and/or (b) evidence-based literature (2,500-3,000 words) 6
  6. Proposed abstract. The abstract should be approximately 200 words. State the primary objective of your commentary; your focus (broad ranging, or an overview of work with a specific intervention, country or population), your main outcomes and results; and conclusions that might be drawn, including their implications for further research or application/practice. 
  7. A statement to indicate that you will be able to submit the manuscript by April 30, 2022 and revisions to the manuscript (after peer review) by June 2022.

People who submit an expression of interest will hear the outcome by the end of January 2022. If accepted to write a full paper, the requirements are: 1. Commentary papers should be 2,500-3,000 words. Word lengths include the title, abstract, references, tables, figures, appendices and references. 2. The manuscript should use IJSLP formatting and American Psychological Association referencing (http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/authors/healthcare/iasl.pdf) 3. The manuscript should be submitted to https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/tasl

 

CSU and the SDGs

Charles Sturt University has just released their 2020 report on their aligment with the SUstainable Development Goals. It is exciting to see the work of our team included: https://researchoutput.csu.edu.au/ws/portalfiles/portal/175209220/Charles_Sturt_University_2020_SDG_report.pdf 

  • Early Childhood Voices Conference on pages 4, 14
  • VietSpeech Research on page 27 



 

Promotion congratulations for Sarah Verdon and Suzanne Hopf

Today, the CSU Vice Chancellor announced the 2021 promotions. Congratulations to Sarah Verdon who has been promoted to Associate Professor and Suzanne Hopf who has been promoted to Senior Lecturer. I am so proud of these stellar researchers. Here is the Vice Chancellor's announcement:
It is my great pleasure to announce the successful academic promotion applicants for 2021 are now available to view on RED. Academic promotion is a significant achievement, recognising the outstanding contribution and leadership of an academic employee to our University, their discipline and the wider community.
The 2021 promotees thoroughly demonstrated the impactful work being undertaken by our academic staff. This year, 78% of applications were successful, (up on last year’s 63%) reflecting exceptional candidates and an improved application process. Importantly and in line with our goal to ensure equal employment opportunity in academic promotion, 85% of female applicants were successful this year. In particular, the female promotion success rate within the Faculty of Science improved from 33% in 2020 to 79%. I
n a two-year period like no other, impacts from COVID-19, lock downs, home schooling and remote work have impacted academic work, particularly for our female academic staff. Applicants were afforded greater opportunity to define equity-related circumstances and resulting impacts on their academic achievements to enable promotion committees to better understand their achievements relative to opportunity.
Please join me in congratulating our academic employees who have been successful in their academic promotion and I encourage you to celebrate the success of your academic colleagues by sending an eCard via RED.
Thank you to the Academic Promotion Committee and Professorial Promotion Committee, led by the Provost, Professor John Germov and Pro Vice-Chancellor, Janelle Wheat for the oversight of the process and sponsorship to improve outcomes. Congratulations to our Academic community. Renée Leon Professor Renée Leon PSM Vice-Chancellor and President Charles Sturt University

https://csu.rewardgateway.com.au/SmartPage/2021_Academic_Promotions_List

November 11, 2021

Hard-working PhD students

As the year is moving towards the end, my PhD students still are working hard. I am really pleased with the progress that has been made in learning, writing, and milestones for Anniek Van Doornik (The Netherlands), Marie Ireland (USA), Kate Margetson and Belinda Downey (Australia). Van Tran is still awaiting her examiners' reports from her PhD submitted a while ago.

Anniek Van Doornik and supervisors meeting 11/11/21

Consistent and Persistent: Key to success of lone fighters on the home language maintenance front

This week (11-13 November) Dr Van Tran is presenting a paper online on our behalf of our VietSpeech team at the International Conference on Community/Heritage Languages Education coordinated by The University of Sydney within the Symposium: Home language and multilingual support to preschoolers in early childhood education settings and community language schools  http://icchle.org/2021-sicle-conference-event-program/

Our paper (12 November) is titled "Consistent and Persistent: Key to success of lone fighters on the home language maintenance front" by Van Tran, Sarah Verdon & Sharynne McLeod

November 10, 2021

NSW Health presentation to 58 sites across NSW

 Yesterday we presented our third presentation to NSW Health.




Presentation 1: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/08/nsw-health-allied-health-telehealth.html

Feedback after Presentation 1: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/10/feedback-and-impact-re-nsw-health.html

Presentation 2: https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/2021/08/nsw-health-presentation-communicating.html

The Australian's Top 250 Researchers for 2021

 The Australian's Top 250 Researchers for 2021 have been announced today.

Congratulations to CSU researchers Hamid Jamali and Geoff Gurr

Congratulations to The University of Sydney who were announced as global leaders in the field of Audiology, Speech and Language Pathology and Prof Louise Hickson who was Australia's leader in this field

Congratulations to Marleen Westerveld who was Australia's leader in Child & Adolescent Psychology.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/special-reports/the-australians-research-magazine-takes-a-deep-dive-into-research/news-story/6bde9f53e5846a150a25abe7758adedd

November 9, 2021

IJSLP editorial board meeting

Last night was the annual IJSLP Editorial Board meeting with editors Anne Whitworth and Elizabeth Cardell, and board members across Australia and the world: Chris Code, Mark Onslow, Kirrie Ballard, Lyndsey Nickels, Suze Leitao (Edwin Yui, Holly Storkel and Liz Ward unable to attend).

We will write a special editorial commemorating the life of James Law who was on the board at the time he passed away.

We celebrated the current impact factor - 2.484 and our ranking compared with other key journals in our field (see below).

November 8, 2021

Conversations about Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children

Prof Linda Harrison and I have now met with the H:EAR Director, Professor Catherine McMahon at Macquarie University a few times. We have been discussing analysis of the valuable data from Footprints in Time: The Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children (LSIC). 

Prof Catherine McMahon, Sharynne and Prof Linda Harrison

Here are details about the H:EAR research: https://www.mq.edu.au/research/research-centres-groups-and-facilities/healthy-people/centres/hear/news-and-events/news/news-items/new-funding-for-indigenous-hearing-health

November 7, 2021

Viet Nam now officially has the first 14 speech and language therapists with Masters' degrees (MSALTs)

Email received today from Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thủy celebrating a huge milestone in Vietnam

Dear Prof Lindy, Dr. Ben and all the Australian supervisors, 

As you know, the MSALT [Masters in Speech and Language Therapy] thesis defense on the 3rd and 5th Nov was fruitful and finished with good results that all the 14 MSALT students passed and will be awarded with MSALT degrees. On behalf of MCNV and UMP [University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City], I would like to express my sincere thanks to you for your intensive support for the past two years with the students' theses and for your attendance and support for the students in their defense sessions. Your attendance valued a lot to them and was meaningful to MCNV as a partner of TFA [Trinh Foundation Australia] in this ST [speech therapy] education project. VN now officially has the first 14 MSALTs. We hope that this group can contribute to the development of the ST profession in VN [Viet Nam]. 

With best regards, Thanh Thuy from MCNV https://mcnv.org/

Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thủy

It has been an honour to play a small part over the past two years in this big milestone:  https://speakingmylanguages.blogspot.com/search/label/MSALTs

November 6, 2021

A special gift

Dr Ben Pham and I received special gift this evening - an email and this photo:

"I have [attached] a photo when Prof. Sharynne talked after I defend[ed my thesis]. I want to send it to you as a souvenir so that you always remember there is a Vietnamese practitioner who is me."

Thank you to our masters' students - we are very proud of all you have learned and achieved over the past two years and wish you all the best for your future careers as you change the lives of people in Vietnam.

Royal Society of NSW Annual Forum: “Power and Peril of the Digital Age”

This year, the Royal Society of NSW in partnership with the Learned Academies has chosen “Power and Peril of the Digital Age” as the theme for the Annual Forum held on 4 and 5 November 2021. 

Here is their description of the event: 

Our goal is to have an informed and mature discussion about digitisation and the use of data, framed around the future life of a child born, on the first day of the Forum, into a world of increasing digital complexity that brings both power and peril. Unlocking the power of the digital age brings not only opportunity but also peril, with concerns about data security, privacy, crime, terrorism, defence, social disconnection and disadvantage, manipulation of the truth, and the outstripping of regulatory frameworks. Starting with a technological framing, the Forum will explore several major aspects which will impact the journey of that child as we approach 2030 and beyond. We will explore aspects of technology, health, defence, and security in a digital age, and the changing nature of industry as the world and society evolves.

https://event.publicsectornetwork.co/royal-society-nsw/registration/Site/Register

November 5, 2021

Congratulations to Phạm Thị Vấn and Nguyễn Thị Hằng

Congratulations to our two masters students who presented their theses today at the University of Medicine and Pharmacy in Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam. Their presentations and answers to reviewers' were excellent. I was very proud of them.

Phạm Thị Vấn's thesis was titled "Đặc điểm âm lời nói của trẻ có rối loạn âm lời nói ở miền Bắc Việt Nam"[Speech sound characteristics of children with speech sound disorders in Northern Viet Nam] Her three supervisors were 1. TS. Võ Nguyên Trung 2. TS. Phạm Thị Bền 3. GS. TS. Sharynne McLeod 

Nguyễn Thị Hằng's thesis was titled "TÍNH DỄ HIỂU LỜI NÓI CỦA TRẺ CÓ RỐI LOẠN ÂM LỜI NÓI Ở MIỀN BẮC VIỆT NAM" [SPEECH INTELLIGIBILITY OF CHILDREN WITH SPEECH SOUND DISORDERS IN NORTHERN VIETNAM] Her three supervisors were 1. PGS. TS. Đỗ Văn Dũng 2. TS. Phạm Thị Bền 3. GS. TS. Sharynne McLeod.


Both students have published their literature reviews as journal articles in Vietnam and we plan to publish their results in English-language journals in the future. 

Thank you to Dr Ben Phạm who simultaneously translated the session from Vietnamese to English so that I could understand. She provided excellent information throughout the process went for over 4 hours during the session where three students presented.

November 4, 2021

SBS Radio Program "Let's Maintain Vietnamese Together"

Dr Van Tran from our VietSpeech team is hosting a weekly radio program on SBS titled "Maintaining Vietnamese together". It is broadcast on SBS Vietnamese for 15 minutes every Sunday evening (7-9pm). The first show was titled: "Why do you want to maintain Vietnamese for your children?" 

The aims of the program include: 

  • Providing the Vietnamese community in Australia and overseas with information and guidance related to the maintenance of mother tongue when living abroad 
  • Raising awareness of the importance of Vietnamese maintenance among the Vietnamese community in Australia and enhancing understanding of and raising interest in Vietnamese language and culture
  • Promoting Australia’s multilingualism and multiculturalism 

These aims will be addressed through interviews and focus-group discussions on topics including: 

  • Reasons for maintaining home language
  • Challenges in maintaining home language
  • Strategies and Support in maintaining home language
  • Recommendations for support
  • Features of Vietnamese language in relation to culture (dialects, grammar, expressions, folk language and culture) 
  • Models of successful Vietnamese maintenance

Here is the URL link to one of the programs:

https://www.sbs.com.au/language/vietnamese/audio/ha-y-cu-ng-giu-tie-ng-vie-t-cho-con?cid=lang:socialshare:facebook&fbclid=IwAR16ViKCWHNmpaoA2c-whIoNDohb5zaeq9MvRcnk08Yxp4q46Vjat24gib0

 

Here is another program: https://www.sbs.com.au/language/vietnamese/audio/cu-ng-giu-tie-ng-vie-t-bo-me-co-don-thuong-doc-ma-khi-giu-tieng-viet-cho-con?fbclid=IwAR1X1GpbnleCCJIUVX6KPnD2oATWKeFeFJg3x2T_OzqacGka_77z-njP9cY


 

November 2, 2021

VietSpeech Writing Retreat

This week our VietSpeech team are on a writing retreat to write and finalise papers for our ARC Discovery Grant that finishes at the end of this year. It is going to be a productive week.

We had planned to be together at a beach - but with the inconsistency of COVID rules and regulations - we have ended up working at home with beach Zoom backgrounds! Travel restrictions did end up lifting on 1 November (our first day of writing) so we actually could have been together.

Dr Audrey Wang, Prof Sharynne McLeod, Kate Margetson, Dr Van Tran, Dr Sarah Verdon

November 1, 2021

Mentoring milestones

I have wonderful mentoring conversations with colleagues and my previous PhD students. It is exciting to share in their milestones. Some of the people I have been talking with recently include Jess Sears, Brian Moore, Nicole McGill, Anna Cronin, Helen Blake, and Suzanne Hopf. Today I got to celebrate Jess Sears good news about her PhD.

Congratulations Jess on the great news about your PhD