Ngee Derk Tiong

Contact

• workRoom B1B29 Block B1
  Malaysia Campus
  Jalan Broga
  43500 Semenyih
  Selangor Darul Ehsan
  Malaysia
• NgeeDerk.Tiong@nottingham.edu.my
• https://pedagogeekthinking.wordpress.com/

Biography

Dr Tiong Ngee Derk is Assistant Professor in TESOL at the School of Education, University of Nottingham Malaysia. A former school teacher and Head of Department for English, he holds an MPhil in Educational Leadership and School Improvement at the University of Cambridge, where he then completed a PhD in Education under Riikka Hofmann, Professor of the Learning Sciences. His thesis on teachers' collaborative discourse in Malaysian secondary school earned a Grade 1 Pass (no corrections) in 2021.

Since his transition into academia, Tiong has held various full- and part-time roles at Universiti Malaya, University of Cambridge, and Sunway University. He has also contributed to consultative sessions with the Malaysian Ministry of Education, and consulted for EdTech firms. His research lies at the intersection of teachers' professional development, educational leadership and policy, and TESOL. He sometimes blogs at https://pedagogeekthinking.wordpress.com, which has had thought pieces reproduced by local news portals. In more than a decade in Education, he has won individual awards for teaching and research and secured grants to fund empirical research projects.

Expertise Summary

Tiong enjoys working both within his immediate field of expertise and in adjacent fields, believing in the benefits of interdisciplinary work and the cross-fertilization of ideas and concepts.

His areas of expertise include the following:

• Teachers' Professional Learning and Development
• Teaching of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)
• Educational Leadership and Policy
• Educational Dialogue
• Teacher Education

He has also has interest/done work in the following fields:

• Intercultural communication
• Language learning materials
• Comparative Education
• Higher Education Policy

Teaching Summary

My teaching responsibilities are as follows:

• EDUC4251: Assessment in Language Education [Module Convenor]
• EDUC3028: Educational Inquiry (Extended Project) [Module Convenor
• EDUC3026: Educational Research Methods [Module Convenor]
• Undergraduate FYP supervision
• MA dissertation supervision
• Doctoral supervision (Active candidates: Kieu Huyen Tram, Chen Jiajing)

Research Summary

Networking for success? An exploratory multi-method study of the relationship between network centrality and academic and professional success among undergraduate pre-service teachers, and the… read more

Recent Publications

• TAN, CLAIRE YI ZHI and TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2023. Ethnic Representation in Malaysian Year Five English Language Textbooks from 1968-2016: From Erasure, to Proliferation, towards a “Malaysian” Narrative? Malaysian Journal of ELT Research. 20(1), 55-76
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2023. Negotiating frame disputes in teacher discourse: Vignettes of accountability and opportunities for learning Professional Development in Education. 49(4), 765-780
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2023. Dire Straits - Education Reforms: Ideology, vested interests and evidence: by Montserrat Gomendio and Jose Ignacio Wert, Cambridge UK, OpenBook Publishers, 2023, 362 pp., Open Access, PDF, £20.95, Paperback, ISBN: 9781800649309 Educational Review.
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2022. Becoming a Scholar: cross-cultural reflections on identity and agency in an education doctorate: edited by Maria Savva and Lynn P. Nygaard, 2021, London, UCL Press, 178 pp., Open Access, PDF, £20.00 (Paperback), ISBN: 9781787357662 Educational Review. 75(7), 1527-1529

• View all publications

Current Research

1. Networking for success? An exploratory multi-method study of the relationship between network centrality and academic and professional success among undergraduate pre-service teachers, and the institutional features that support network ties (Grant-funded study from 2024-2025; Principal Investigator) - [FASS Pump Priming Grant - F0016.53.04] - RM29,890
2. Designing and evaluating a book study programme to support English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in low-income settings (Grant-funded study from 2023-24; Principal Investigator) - [SU-GRTIN-KSGS-CELS-03-2023] - RM 19,850

Past Research

1. Teacher Dialogue in Professional Learning Communities in National Secondary Schools in Malaysia (Doctoral Project at University of Cambridge, PhD Researcher from 2017-21).
2. Uncovering the Lifeworld of a School -- A Multi-Method Ethnographic Study (Principal Investigator, 2015-16).
3. Malaysia-Hungary Intercultural Video Project (2022-2024; Quantitative Methods Lead)

Future Research

1. Children's Storybooks in the Era of Generative AI (FOSE Interdisciplinary Grant, led by Dr Chong Shue Ling).
2. Scaling school-based reading groups for teachers as a sustainable professional development programme in low-income settings (Proposal stage, projected for 2024-26).
3. Improving conditions for professional learning (Projected for 2025-27)

• TAN, CLAIRE YI ZHI and TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2023. Ethnic Representation in Malaysian Year Five English Language Textbooks from 1968-2016: From Erasure, to Proliferation, towards a “Malaysian” Narrative? Malaysian Journal of ELT Research. 20(1), 55-76
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2023. Negotiating frame disputes in teacher discourse: Vignettes of accountability and opportunities for learning Professional Development in Education. 49(4), 765-780
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2023. Dire Straits - Education Reforms: Ideology, vested interests and evidence: by Montserrat Gomendio and Jose Ignacio Wert, Cambridge UK, OpenBook Publishers, 2023, 362 pp., Open Access, PDF, £20.95, Paperback, ISBN: 9781800649309 Educational Review.
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2022. Becoming a Scholar: cross-cultural reflections on identity and agency in an education doctorate: edited by Maria Savva and Lynn P. Nygaard, 2021, London, UCL Press, 178 pp., Open Access, PDF, £20.00 (Paperback), ISBN: 9781787357662 Educational Review. 75(7), 1527-1529
• HOFMANN, RIIKKA, HOFMANN, RIIKKA, ARENGE, GABRIELLE, DICKENS, SIOBHAN, MARFAN, JAVIERA, RYAN, MAIREAD, TIONG, NGEE DERK, RADIA, BHAV and JANIK BLASKOVA, LENKA, 2021. The Covid-19 Learning Crisis as a Challenge and an Opportunity for Schools: An Evidence Review and Conceptual Synthesis of Research-Based Tools for Sustainable Change Center for Educational Policy Studies Journal. 11(Special), 39-66
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2021. The Weight of Our Words: Language and Teacher Agency from the Perspective of Gee’s ‘Cultural Models' The English Teacher. 50(2), 116-129
• TIONG, NGEE DERK, 2019. Appraising “professional learning communities” (PLCs) for Malaysian schools through the lens of sociocultural theory: A critical review of literature with implications for research and practice Malaysian Journal of ELT Research. 16(2), 1-17