Ping Yang

Dr Ping Yang is a Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and was an Academic Program Advisor for the Master of Arts in TESOL from Feb 2012 to Feb 2024 in the School of Humanities and Communication Arts at Western Sydney University (WSU). Currently researching in several areas of applied linguistics (e.g., intercultural communication, nonverbal communication, translation studies, and TESOL (Teaching English to speakers of other languages) teacher education, Dr Yang has actively published peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and books, and supervised HDR candidates in these areas.  Up to 2024, he supervised seven PhD and two Master of Research candidates to completion as principal supervisor.

Dr Yang played a lead role in developing and shaping the current three postgraduate TESOL courses in compliance with the Australian Qualifications Framework 2013. Partnering with MTC Australia, Navitas English, the College, TAFE colleges and many other English language centres through the TESOL Internship, Dr Yang provided TESOL students with ample opportunities to gain work-integrated learning experience, use their skills to serve the communities and prepare for their careers. Many TESOL graduates are working with these and other English language colleges, and some of them have been promoted to management positions. Dr Yang also played a lead role in designing the TESOL component of International English as a new BA course in 2015 in a bid to meet the emerging learning needs of international students. The TESOL component includes TESOL Teaching Methodology, TESOL Curriculum Design, Language Assessment and Testing, and TESOL Placement. Along with other units, this undergraduate course is characterized by subject diversity, program sustainability, and student employability.  

Dr Yang started teaching Business Academic Skills at the School of Marketing, academic literacy programs, including UniStep, AcaPrep, and academic essay writing skills at the Student Learning Unit, and linguistics and TESOL units at the School of Humanities and Languages at the University of Western Sydney (UWS) in early 2009. After completing a doctoral research project in linguistics at Macquarie University, thanks to a competitive Overseas Postgraduate Research Scholarship (OPRS) awarded by the Australian Government, Dr Yang taught inter and intra-cultural communication, academic writing, research, and learning skills at the postgraduate level in the Department of Linguistics and Centre for International Communication at the same university. Before joining WSU, he worked in the NSW public sector.

Dr Yang was an Associate Professor at the Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Academia Sinica) in Beijing and had extensive experience teaching postgraduate students English for academic purposes (EAP), including listening, speaking, reading, writing, and bi-directional English-Chinese translation skills for nine years. He also had as many years of experience teaching and managing various English language training programs and test-taking courses. The benefits of teaching the five macro skills simultaneously have been great for his teaching career and current wide-range research interests. It was in the same graduate school that he completed a two-year postgraduate program. Finally, he taught English as a foreign language (EFL) at a selective high school for three years after completing a four-year BA in English Language Education at a teachers' university in China.