Duke Kunshan professor Don Snow was recently honored with selection to TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) International Association’s 50 at 50 recognition, an award for 50 leading professionals who have made a significant contribution to the TESOL profession within the past 50 years.
Prof. Snow has taught English and directed language programs in China for over thirty years. Prior to his appointment at Duke Kunshan University, he directed the English program at Shantou University, and previous to that he taught courses in language, culture, and linguistics in universities such as Nanjing University, Zhongshan University, and Chinese University of Hong Kong. Along with Jun Liu, he is one of only two people who has been a invited speaker at each of the three TESOL Symposiums to be held in China to date. Currently he is Director of the Language and Culture Center at Duke Kunshan University and teaches academic writing.
Prof. Snow received his Ph.D. in East Asian Language and Culture from Indiana University, and has published extensively in English teaching and sociolinguistics throughout his teaching and research career. Among his most noteworthy works is More Than a Native Speaker: An Introduction to Teaching English Abroad, a best-seller for TESOL Publications ever since the publication of its first edition in 1996. This book and a later version, From Language Learner to Language Teacher, has been an important source material for TESOL’s online teacher training courses. Prof. Snow’s monograph Cantonese as Written Language: The Growth of a Written Chinese Vernacular is widely-cited on the written forms of Cantonese and other Chinese dialects.
As an active practitioner and researcher at the forefront of TESOL, Prof. Snow recently shared his insights on teaching academic writing at a symposium held at United International College, a joint venture university between Beijing Normal University and Hong Kong Baptist University. His focus was on the advantages of building multiple sections of an academic writing course around one common social issue, in this case, the issue of endangered languages.
Prof. Don Snow Speaking at the Symposium
Student from Prof. Snow’s Class Presenting Her Project on an Endangered Language
