People

Founder & President

Hello, I am Sik Lee Dennig or Jēung Sehk-leih (張錫莉) in Cantonese. I was born in Hong Kong to parents from Eastern China. I grew up in a multilingual environment in which Cantonese mingled with different varieties of the Wu language (吳語). I hold a master’s degree in Psycholinguistics from the University of Alberta, Canada and a Ph.D. in Educational Linguistics from Stanford University, USA. I supervised student teachers in Stanford's teacher education program (STEP) from 1990 to 1991 and coordinated the TESOL program at East Carolina University from 1991 to 1994. I have taught language and linguistics courses in Hong Kong, Japan, Canada, and the U.S. for over 30 years. The one that I'm most passionate about is Cantonese, which I taught for 20+ years at Stanford. Preserving Cantonese has become my lifelong mission.

Graduate Education:

• PhD Dissertation: Cheung, Sik Lee. (1991). The Acquisition of Locative Constructions by Cantonese Children. Stanford University, CA, USA.
• Master Thesis: Cheung, Sik Lee. (1986). Anaphora Production in Cantonese Narration. University of Alberta, Alberta, Canada.

Professional Certification:

• Certified ILR Cantonese Oral Proficiency Interview Tester
• Certified ACTFL Chinese and Cantonese Writing Proficiency Tester
• Certified ACTFL Cantonese Oral Proficiency Interview by Computer Tester

Research and Conference Presentations

Advisor

We're very honored to have Professor Marjorie Chan of Ohio State University as our advisor. A pioneer in so many ways, she is also a Cantonese heritage speaker. Born in Jūngsāan 中山 in the Pearl River Delta, Professor Chan grew up in Vancouver, Canada. She studied the Jūngsāan variety of Cantonese in her master’s thesis in 1980, co-founded the Cantonese Language Association in 1994, hosted the inaugural Workshop on Innovations in Cantonese Linguistics in 2012, and created a Cantonese course for Mandarin speakers at Ohio State University in 2015. For a partial list of her accomplishments, please visit her website. I’ll be interviewing her about her experience growing up in Vancouver’s Chinatown in the summer. Stay tuned!

Volunteers

Website Manager

• Dennig, Paul Jr.
• The Alliance wants to express our most sincere appreciation of our inargural website manager, Dr. Ruohan Zhan, for setting up and supporting this website. We wish her all the best on her new career in the academia.

Teams

Cantonese Instructors

• Dennig, Sik Lee
• Fung, Gwyneth; Alliance Certified
• Lau, Alexandra; Alliance Certified
• Lau, Cindy
• Lum, Zack; Alliance Certified
• Miller, Tim
• Tse, Keith
• Wong, Christine TN

Cantonese Community School Liaison

• Francisca Hom, Director of Cantonese Program, South Shore Chinese School

Cantonese Language Teachers Association

• Coordinator: Wong, Kristy
• Planning Committee
• Cong, David
• Dennig, Sik Lee
• Hom, Francisca
• Miller, Tim
• Wong, Kai Yan
• Wong, Kristy
• Yu, Eveline
• Zhao, Sandra

Chinatowns Project

• Boston: Hsu, Kevin
• Chicago: Chap; Stefanie
• Los Angeles: Cong, David; Lau, Mingfei, Ng, Laura, Tran, Helen; Zhao, Shao
• New York: Lo, Tim; Rachel; Touji
• Oakland: pending
• San Francisco: Fong, Ken; Gou, Michael; Lou, Willie; Sit, Jonathan
• Toronto: Chan, Brittany; Lum, Zack
• Vancourver: Wong, Christina TN

Content Development

• Cantonese Culture: Dennig, Sik Lee; Lau, Alexandra; Wong, Christine; Lum, Zack
• Cantonese Movies: Dennig, Sik Lee; Lo, Kevin
• CantoTalk Music Podcast: Chung, Edgar
• Social Justice: Dennig, Paul; Lo, Kevin; Tran, Helen; Wong, Casey

Content Development Support

• Audios and Videos:Zhan, James
• CantoTalk vocabulary files: Fung, Xian
• Recording: Lo, Kevin; Lum, Zack
• Subtitling: Chan, Andrea; Cong, David
• Translation: Waye, Agnes; Chen, Yan

Curriculum Development

• Chan, Brittany
• Dennig, Sik Lee
• Hui, Kini
• Quan, Alex
• Planning Committee of the Cantonese Language Teachers Association

Fundraising & Strategic Planning

• Chan, Andrea
• Diu, Michael
• Lou, Willie
• Lui, Elliott
• Mass, Lev
• Shum, Jared

Graphic Design

• Chung, Edgar
• Kurzynski, Maciej
• Lau, Alexandra
• Ma, Jessika

Map project

• Diu, Michael
• Lau, Mingfei
• Lin, Jessey

Movie Night Cantonese Practice Tutors

• Cheng, Janice
• Lee, Kitty

Newsletter

• Chan, Andrea
• Diu, Michael
• Lau, Cindy
• Nesbitt, Chrissy

Outreach & Membership

• Chan, Brittany
• Diu, Michael

Parent Groups Liaison

• Wong, Kai Yan

Publicist

• Chan, Brittany

Teacher Training

• Dennig, Sik Lee

Technology Support

• Benson, Andrew
• Dennig, Paul Jr.
• Lau, Mingfei
• Lin, Jessey

If you're interested in any of the above roles, please contact Sik Lee Dennig at dennig@gmail.com!