Having had a particular interest in Literature since my A levels, I was initially planning to read Literature and Linguistics at university. But when I started looking at the subjects available to study, I decided that Psychology and Linguistics would be both more interesting and more practical, and I decided that the University of Reading was the best place to take this course.

I found it really stimulating to have to think about alternative explanations for the results of Psychology experiments. Like any young student of Psychology, I found the courses on Clinical and Abnormal Psychology particularly interesting. But even more fascinating were the courses relating to Cognitive Psychology. My interests in all things language-related lead me to pursue a PhD on infant word learning in the Department of Psychology after I completed my undergraduate degree. This eventually led me to academic research into bilingual language acquisition. I had really enjoyed Linguistics at University – especially a module on Second Language Acquisition, which overlapped with my own interests in simultaneous second language acquisition (which involves learning two languages from an early age). I was able to explore this topic further when I joined the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) as a full-time academic member of staff.

My background in psychology and linguistics has allowed me to teach a range of courses for the Masters of Speech & Language Pathology at NUS and to supervise research dissertations on aspects of language acquisition in the Singaporean context, which has been a fulfilling and enriching experience.