SKU-PH KA research cooperation – Ms Phetsavanh Somsivilay reports
Research Project Team Meeting SKU – 10th May 2019
Dear readers,
My name is Phetsavanh Somsivilay, an English teacher and International Relations Staff at Savannakhet University (SKU). I am proud and happy to be involved in joint research between Savannakhet University and the University of Education Karlsruhe.
This is my first blog post, which I would like to write about our joint research project. On 19 May 2019, we resumed meetings after Prof. Martin’s Erasmus+ visit and held our first meeting of researchers from Savannakhet University led by Dr. Phetsamone Khattiyavong, Acting Dean of Linguistics and Humanities Faculty. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss and update the Symposium plans and individual research. At the same time, the bibliography which will be used on our research was handed to all participants.
Three main fields of our studies are English, economics, and biology. Currently, most researchers are on literature review section but some are on gathering data from participants. As a new researcher, I consider working at the national level, in particular with the professor from the University of Education Karlsruhe is such a great opportunity to gain both theoretical and practical knowledge from our partners while they can gain a lot of data and insights here. This is only the beginning of our long journey, which I am sure there will be lots of challenges waiting ahead, and I am ready to learn from them.
During the meeting, all participants had brought interesting issues regarding the methodology to the discussion. As young and inexperienced researchers, training on a particular area such as literature review, citation, applied statistics and draft on preliminary research report is required.
As far as I am concerned, experiencing new methods of conducting researchers in linguistics and humanities with our university partner, University of Education Karlsruhe, in particular, Prof. Dr. Isabel Martin, is valuable. It is an opportunity for me to learn about my specific topic area. So far, I have leaned proper technique to do literature review and be able to approach the information resources.
During the meeting, Mr Sitsanou Phouthavong, one of our research team members (Physics Department) presented the progress of his research on “Investigating of Lao Preservice Science Teachers’ perception toward using computer Simulation in Science Education of Savannakhet University, Lao PDR”.
Mr Sitsanou was collecting data from freshman students of physic and mathematics instructions. As he is familiar with the method of data collection used, the evidence he gained was pretty consistent.
Presently, everyone at SKU are getting their own tasks ready for our university’s 10 years anniversary and we look forward to our German partners Dr Isabel and Dr Martin’s next mobilities in September/October and doing the International Symposium at SKU together on 11 October!
We Erasmus+ nominees are even more excited about going to Karlsruhe next year on our first mobilities. As for myself, I am going to share my experience on pragmatics and cross-culture which will be useful for both inbound and outbound students in the following years.
Good-bye for now – I’ll keep you posted about SKU developments in the future!
Text by P. Somsivilay
Photos by C. Thummalungsy, V. Xaythavanh, P. Chansena & S. Phoutavong
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