We are a research team that is interested in bilingual development in children and young adults whose L1 or L2 is Mandain Chinese and who actively use two languages on a daily basis. Our current focuses include the following:

• Language and cognitive development in bilingual children whose L1 or L2 is Mandarin Chinese
• Chinese language acquisition as a first or a second language
• Language modeling
• Development of e-learning tools and databases for Chinese language learning

We raise the following questions and take them as our guidelines in our research:

• How are conceptual meanings that are developing in pre-school children identified and categorized?
• What approaches can we take to identify consciousness as part of the process of language development in children?
• Which are the particular features of Chinese that impact cognitive development in children and young adults?
• Does embodied semantics in physical action verbs reflect a cognitive base for language acquisition?
• What factors play a major role in bilingual development in preschool children in Singapore?
• How does bilingual development continue in young adults when they start to actively use two languages in daily life?
• How can we develop a scientific measurement for assessing bilingual development in a multilingual society?

Our research team consists of both senior and junior researchers. The NTU faculty members in the team conduct research, teaching, as well as supervision of graduate and undergraduate students. The collaborators from local and overseas institutions visit us at NTU regularly. Our research students include Ph.D. , Master, and Bachelar thesis students. Our visiting researchers and gradaute students are from other universities abroad. Our lab is also open to volunteer students who are interested in gaining expereince in conducting research.

We regularly organize workshops and seminars to share and discuss our current research findings with colleagues and researchers from other institutions in Singapore and overseas.

We receive constant support from local government funding agencies, schools, and kindergartens for our current research on child language acquisition.
One of our goals is to make our contributions through research to the bilingual education in Singapore so that our children can benefit from the unique multilingual environment.