Dr. Zhang has over decade of experience in cross-cultural teaching, learning and working in the U.S., China and Nigeria through a variety of settings including K-12 schools, universities, and education groups. As a culturally and linguistically educator, she is committed to making teaching and learning more culturally responsive.
Her research interests include arts-based research in education, linguistic anthropology and intercultural discourse studies. She aims to create artful classrooms for CLD students by embracing the aesthetics of students' first language and culture abilities, exploring the creative value of students' "failure" and revisioning, and training TESOL & CLD educators as creative teaching artists.
Dr. Zhang is also a poetry lover. Her poem, “One Child Policy” was awarded second place in the 2012 Society for Humanistic Anthropology Poetry Competition held by the American Anthropological Association. She has a bilingual book of poetry (Chinese and English), Broadleaves (Shenyang Press) and numerous poems that appeared in literary magazines such as The Roadrunner Review, Lily Poetry Review, Bone Bouquet, K’in, DoveTales, North Dakota Quarterly, Literary Mama, Mom Egg Review, Adanna Literary Journal, Raising Mothers, and MUTHA Magazine.
