“Wonderful partners”: Cambodian university collaboration leads to workshop, training, recruitment, and research

The Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) invited two College of Education faculty members to give a workshop to the public on “AI for Language Teaching and Assessment” – just one of the many ways that these Boilermaker Educators collaborate regularly in Cambodian education with this university.

Virak Chan, clinical associate professor of literacy and language, and Wayne E. Wright, professor and Barbara I. Cook Chair of Literacy and Language and associate dean for research, graduate programs and faculty development, provided a public workshop on “AI for Language Teaching and Assessment” (May 30) at the invitation of the RUPP’s Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL). More than 100 faculty, students, and English language teaching professionals attended the workshop, which was also livestreamed to English Language Teaching professionals across the country.

“This opportunity came about due to years of collaboration with RUPP,” said Wright, who spends part of every summer co-leading Purdue’s College of Education study abroad program with Chan and doing research in Cambodia. “They’ve been wonderful partners for our study abroad program, on collaborative research projects, and for student recruitment into our PhD programs.”

One of Wright and Chan’s major research interests is education policy and practice in Cambodia.

Before coming to Purdue, Chan was a lecturer at RUPP’s IFL for more than 10 years, teaching academic writing, training English language teachers for high schools, and coordinating the institution’s master’s degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) program. Chan first met Wright in 2009 when Wright was a Fulbright Scholar at RUPP. Wright later recruited Chan into a PhD program at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Wright’s and Chan’s summer collaboration was extremely productive. In addition to the RUPP Workshop:

• Chan and Wright led the annual Purdue College of Education study abroad program to Cambodia (May 11 – 29, 2026), with RUPP as a host and strategic partner.
• The National Institute of Education in Phnom Penh invited Chan to present on “AI and Language Learning” to faculty and teacher education students at its 1^st National Research Conference (June 15-17, 2026). The conference theme was “Teachers and Artificial Intelligence in Digital Transformation.” Approximately 1,000 pre-service and in-service teachers attended from Cambodian education training institutions such as the Phnom Penh Teacher Education College  and several private higher education institutions in Phnom Penh.
• The Australian Center for Education in Phnom Penh requested Chan to present a professional development workshop on “Action research for English language teachers” for 40 English language teachers.
• Chan volunteered to lead a two-week intensive seminar course on bilingualism and multilingualism for 18 participants in RUPP’s MA in TESOL program, with guest lectures by Wright, Panha Song (former RUPP lecturer and now a new Purdue Education doctoral student), Samarnh Pang (PhD ’26), and other Purdue faculty and alumni.

Wright appreciates the long collaboration with Chan in Cambodian education efforts. A highlight for Wright was conducting research on multilingual education with Chan and Song, meeting with rural educators, education officials, and students.

“I was reminded of the joys of field research this past month in collaboration with Virak Chan and our doctoral student Panha Song,” Wright said. “We had the privilege of visiting multilingual education schools serving indigenous students in remote villages of northeast Cambodia. The trip to these schools involved long and bumpy dirt roads, river crossings via ferries, and crossing rickety wooden bridges. At each site we found dedicated teachers and administrators, supportive local educational officials, and wonderful young students.”

MORE: College renews ‘fruitful’ collaboration with Cambodian university

Sources: Wayne E. Wright and Virak Chan