Rate My Professor Jo Oranje

Dr Jo Oranje holds a PhD in intercultural communication from the University of Otago, awarded in 2016 through the Department of English and Linguistics. Currently, she serves as an Assistant Research Fellow in the Division of Health Sciences and as Manager of Student Pastoral Care within the Student Services, Academic Division at the University of Otago. In these roles, she provides academic support to refugee-background and international students, particularly those undertaking Health Sciences First Year (HSFY) programs, facilitating their successful transition from secondary to tertiary education.

Oranje's research specializations encompass intercultural language teaching, language teacher cognitions, cultural portfolios in foreign language education, feedback in clinical learning environments, and the secondary-to-tertiary transitions of refugee-background students. She participates in multidisciplinary projects such as the University of Otago Transitions Project and the Teaching & Learning Research Initiative-funded Refugee-Background Students in Aotearoa project, which produced a 2023 report on supporting successful educational transitions. Key peer-reviewed publications authored or co-authored by Oranje include "Language teacher cognitions and intercultural language teaching: The New Zealand perspective" in Language Teaching Research (2018, 125 citations); "Adopting a cultural portfolio project in teaching German as a foreign language: Language teacher cognition as a dynamic system" in The Modern Language Journal (2015, 66 citations); "Advancing dental education: feedback processes in the clinical learning environment" in the Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand (2020, 20 citations); "Navigating the secondary-tertiary education border: Refugee-background students in Southern Aotearoa New Zealand" in Research Papers in Education (2023, 15 citations); "The role of culture in EAL students' lessons at a New Zealand primary school: A case study" in New Zealand Studies in Applied Linguistics (2013, 12 citations); and the book chapter "Intercultural language teaching: On reflection" (2021, 12 citations). Her body of work has accumulated approximately 149 citations, demonstrating impact on applied linguistics, intercultural education, and health sciences student support.