This week Oksana Afitska, Departmental director of international relationships, is visiting Malaysia on a business trip to two partner universities – Sunway University and National University of Malaysia. Oksana is meeting with Senior Leadership Teams to discuss existing and future teaching and research collaborations between the universities.

On the photo, left to right: Deputy-Deans for the Faculty of Education, UKM; Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Academic and International Affairs, UKM; Director of International Relationships, LU; Head of TESOL Programme, UKM; Director of Global Experiences, UKM; Dean of the Faculty of Education, UKM.

During the visit, Dr. Afitska, also acted as an external advisor for the Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL) Programme and delivered two capacity building sessions to undergraduate and postgraduate students and staff at the Faculty of Education, entitled ‘Researching language classrooms and conducting intervention research’ and ‘Effective measuring of impact in interdisciplinary research and publishing in highly ranked academic journals’.

On 21^st May she gave a keynote speech about use of educational translanguaging in multilingual classrooms at the International Partnership Conference. This conference marked first event of the Series organised by the National University of Malaysia in recognition of the joint partnership between Lancaster, UKM and Sunway universities.

On 19^th May Dr. Afitska visited state secondary school, SMK Taman Pelangi Indah, Ulu Tiram, in Johor region. During the visit Oksana met with the school’s Headteacher, Ms. Lua Bee Yuen, discussed second language teaching practices with TESOL teachers and observed a TESOL lesson.

On 18^th May Dr. Afitska and Dr. Nur Ehsan Mohd Said visited Sunway University and met with Professor Abhi Veerakumarasivam, Provost of Sunway University, Professor Andrew Abbott, Academic Dean for Lancaster University at Sunway, Ms. Jeanette Lim, Deputy Head for Centre for English Language Studies, and Dr. Eliza Berezina, Associate Professor at Psychology Department to discuss future research collaboration between the three institutions. This event resulted in an invitation for Dr. Berezina to visit Lancaster university in 2022-23 academic year as a visiting scholar to pursue work on a collaborative cross-disciplinary research grant application.

In terms of academic and teaching collaboration, Dr. Afitska’s visit to partner universities resulted in a proposal for setting up articulation agreements for double degree programmes at undergraduate and postgraduate levels between UKM and Lancaster Universities. These study routes would be suitable for UKM students studying TESOL courses at the Faculty of Education. Last but not least, opportunities for EAP (English for academic purposes) support and for enhanced global experiences via attendance of summer school programmes and completion of internship placements have been discussed for Lancaster and UKM undergraduate students.

Dr Afitska with the Head of TESOL Programme, Dr. Nur Ehsan Mohd Said, academic and administrative staff from Faculty of Education, UKM.

Dr Afitska with the Deputy Vice Chancellor for Industrial, Alumni and Community Networking, Professor Dato’ Dr. Norazah Mohd Nordin, Head of TESOL Programme, Dr. Nur Ehsan Mohd Said, and Dean for Research and Innovation, Professor Dr. Melor Binti Md Yunus, Faculty of Education, UKM.

Dr Afitska with the Headteacher, Ms. Lua Bee Yuen, and teaching staff at state secondary school SMK Taman Pelangi Indah, Johor region.

Dr Afitska meeting with TESOL teachers at state secondary school SMK Taman Pelangi Indah, Johor region.