Dr Gail Forey has been teaching at PolyU for 19 years. She is the Progamme Leader for the Doctorate in Applied Language Sciences and specializes in teaching discourse analysis and professional communication to undergraduate students. She is held with great respect by students and colleagues as an inspirational teacher and also as a role model for life. She was the recipient of the UGC Award for Teaching 2015, the President’s Award for Excellent Performance Achievement in Teaching 2014, and an Honorary Professorship by the Linguistic Society of the Philippines in 2013.
Dr Forey’s believes that teachers 'make a difference’, and in her presentation, she reviews how teachers can make a difference. Based on her teaching experience with undergraduate, postgraduate students and professional practitioners, she outlines how students are apprenticed in to the world of research and with equipped tools that can be applied to their daily practice. Her students have to become researchers. Her students have to identify, plan, collect, observe, analyse data and then justify and report their findings. Dr Forey incorporates evidence-based research in all of her classes.
In addition to classroom teaching, she highlights her role in the Department of English in sharing good practice with colleagues, leading professional development workshops for local teachers, and conducting research into teaching and learning. By reflecting on teaching, collecting evidence of what happens in the classroom, teachers can examine, challenge and improve how they teach. The teaching-research nexus can be influential in informing how a teacher makes a difference.
A Personal Philosophy/Reflection about Teaching
Dr Forey is whole-heartedly committed to the importance of making a difference through teaching. She challenges students to reach their potential through a range of interactive resources, and in particular energizes her students by apprenticing them into the world of independent research and inquiry learning. She has led large-scale consultancy projects which focus on the professional development of teachers across primary, secondary and tertiary contexts. These projects support many teachers, both locally and internationally, to become active and reflective practitioners. The effort she has invested into advancing her own and other teachers’ teaching practice is tremendous and the impact she has had on students, teachers and education across different sectors is phenomenal.
