Jie Zhang

Associate Professor, Ph.D in Applied Linguistics, Chinese

Jie Zhang is Associate Professor of Chinese Pedagogy and Applied Linguistics in the Department of Modern Languages, Literatures, and Linguistics at the University of Oklahoma. She earned her Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from Pennsylvania State University. Her research focuses on second language acquisition, foreign language pedagogy, Chinese as a second language, and language assessment, with a particular interest in the application of sociocultural theory to foreign language teaching and learning.

Dr. Zhang has published extensively in leading journals, including The Modern Language Journal, Language Testing, Language Teaching Research, Chinese as a Second Language, and Teaching Chinese in the World, among others. She is also co-editor of Chinese Language Education in the United States (Springer, 2016).

At the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Zhang teaches advanced Chinese language courses and Chinese culture courses, including MLLL 2003: Flavors of China: Culture and Society through Cuisine. She serves as Chair of the M.A. in TESOL Program and teaches TESL 5123: Second Language Acquisition Theory for ESL.

Dr. Zhang currently serves as Executive Director of the Chinese Language Teachers Association, USA (CLTA-USA). Her previous leadership roles include President of the Oklahoma Chinese Language Teachers Association, Board Member of CLTA-USA, and Board Member of the Oklahoma Foreign Language Teachers Association. She also serves on the editorial board of Language and Sociocultural Theory and is an ACTFL Oral Proficiency Interview (OPI) Tester in Chinese with Full Certification.

Selected Publications

Zhang, Jie, & Liu, Bo. (in press). A comparative analysis of grammar coverage in North American Chinese textbooks based on the Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education. Chinese as a Second Language Research, 15 (2).
Zhang, Jie, Wu, Kexuan, Xu, Yi, & Diao, Wenhao. (in press). Leveraging AI tools in Chinese language pedagogical materials development and intercultural communication. In Amily Guenier, Henghua Su, & Minjie Xing (Eds.), AI in Language Education and Intercultural Communication. New York: Routledge.
Zhang, Jie, Qin, Tianyu, & Poehner, Matthew E. (2026). Rethinking L2 oral proficiency: OPI-DA as a dynamic framework for oral proficiency interviewing. In James P. Lantolf & Matthew E. Poehner (Eds.), Sociocultural Theory: Creating conditions for L2 development (pp. 201-221). Sheffield: Equinox.
Poehner, Matthew E., Zhang, Jie, & Qin, Tianyu. (2025). From diagnostic descriptors to prognostic recommendations: An OPI–DA framework. In Dmitri Leontjev, Matthew E. Poehner, & Ari Huhta (Eds.), Dynamic and diagnostic language assessment: Learning across frameworks to support L2 education (pp. 165-188). Berlin: De Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111233918-007
Zhang, Jie. (2024). Developing L2 Chinese learners’ conceptual understanding of the polysemous verb compound Verb-dao. Language Teaching Research Quarterly, (46): 199-213.
Zhang, Jie, & Liang, Xia. (2024). ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines 2024 and its integration with the Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education. Journal of International Chinese Teaching, (4): 38-45.
Xu, Yi, & Zhang, Jie. (2022). Chinese compound word inference through context and word-internal cues. Language Teaching Research, 26(3): 308-332. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/1362168820905811
Ruan, Jiening, Zhang, Jie, & Leung, Cynthia B. (Eds.). (2016). Chinese language education in the United States. Switzerland: Springer. ISBN: 978-3-319-21307-1. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21308-8

Education

Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics. The Pennsylvania State University.
M.A. in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics in Foreign Languages. Tsinghua University.
B.A. in English. Shandong University.