Duncan Lees is a lecturer in the Faculty of English Language and Culture at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS) in Guangzhou, China. He joined GDUFS in 2004, after completing his BA in Film and Literature and MA for Research in Film at the University of Warwick, the latter as the recipient of a scholarship from the Arts and Humanities Research Board (now the Arts and Humanities Research Council). His areas of interest include cross-cultural studies, film, literature, journalism and linguistics.

TEACHING ACTIVITIES

Mr. Lees has taught extensively in the field of literature and the arts, having offered undergraduate and postgraduate courses in subjects such as British Literature, Modern Western Drama and Literary Theory. He has also developed an experimental drama workshop, and is one of the organizers of his faculty’s popular annual Drama Night, which sees Chinese students with no previous stage experience adapting and then performing English-Language plays in front of an audience of hundreds. Other courses Mr. Lees has taught include various language and culture classes, and for the last five years he has made use of his decade of experience as a freelance editor and writer by teaching journalism undergraduates at GDUFS who are preparing to complete the final year of their degrees in the UK.

AWARDS AND RESEARCH

Mr. Lees has received multiple awards for teaching from his faculty and university, and in 2012 became one of the first international staff members at GDUFS to receive a full funding award for academic research. In this capacity he is currently undertaking an Applied Linguistics project involving a study of Chinese students’ uses of English names in a university context, which is due for completion at the end of 2013.

Mr. Lees’s interest in Social Psychology stems from his teaching and research work, and in particular a focus on how to improve motivation and teacher-student interaction in a cross-cultural environment. He hopes to make use of Social Psychology findings to further strengthen his teaching, and to empower his students to be more confident and effective communicators, whether in an academic or professional setting, or on stage.

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Originally from the UK, Mr. Lees lives in Guangzhou, Guangdong Province with his wife and two cats. In addition to his love of the arts, he is interested in travel, cooking (particularly spicy Sichuan cuisine), yoga and studying Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese.