Sara Jaaksola
Doctoral researcher at University of Turku 🇫🇮 - Mandarin Chinese and language learning motivation. Passionate Chinese language teacher. In China since 2010.
- Finally did a little recap of my third year as a PhD student sarajaaksola.com/third-year-a... Can’t believe 2026 will be the last year!
- Educational pressure is one of the main reasons my family plans to leave China. I’m grateful my daughter is growing up fluent in Chinese, but on 4th grade 1 hour of daily homework is minimum and couple weeks before exams it goes up to 4 hours per day. That’s 5-9pm for a 10 year old.
- As a mom in a Finnish-Chinese family, I’m excited to read this book, things certainly often don’t go according to plan! We almost lost Finnish with our daughter, but after years of determination and work (some tears too) I’m happy she can follow L1 Finnish courses, even if it’s imperfect.
- New blog post! "I’ve come to believe that the work of cross-cultural parenting is less about reaching a fixed destination (perfect fluency, complete cultural immersion), and more about continuing to show up..." buff.ly/1rRJLBT #parenting #langchat
- This month finishing up two articles to submit and while waiting, working on my last article for my PhD thesis. #phdsky
- Most of my students are on holidays which gives me uninterrupted time to work on my articles and my thesis summary. I feel I’m getting more done than this whole semester! #phd
- Interesting PhD defense coming up from our department
- Had a wonderful time at @iapll.bsky.social PhD Winter School in Graz. My first time attending such an event. Received valuable feedback for my thesis, advice for future and tons of inspiration. And met many old and new colleagues and friends.
- EU and China Academic Mixer in Guangzhou. Interesting talks by postdocs in China and creating connections with academics in the area.
- Less than two weeks left for PhD Winter School in Graz!
- Going to Beijing tomorrow to see how Project Based Learning is used at a local school in the capital.
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- Fascinating! Reminds me of study where they researched adopted kids from China and discovered the early input of a tonal language they were exposed in China, led to their brains still considering lexical tones important after 12 years in fully French environment: pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25404336/
- I am so glad to have supervisors who give me feedback, suggestions, advice and support, but not orders.
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- One more month until doctoral winter school and I’m wondering how thick of a coat I will need in Austria 🤔 Last time I was in Europe during Winter was in 2014!
- I was listening to a YouTube video on gaps and gains related to PhD mindset, how you should focus on the gains and victories you have had to keep a mindset of being happy in the moment. youtu.be/GP1KisTPN0Q?...
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- Such a great evening to catch up with @iapll.bsky.social ECR group! Even my eyes are closed, trust me my mind was awake! 😁 Thank you @carlosmurillo88.bsky.social and Lani Freeborn for organizing.
- Thank you Turku University Foundation for your continued support! With the travel grants I’m attending PhD winter school in Austria in December and PLL6 conference here in China in May. Thank you!
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- It feels so hard to get PhD funding, I’m going to graduate before I get more! 😅 Still grateful I got 6 months last year and 2 months this year. And that as an entrepreneur rest of the time I’m able to connect my PhD to my teaching career.
- Booked my flights and accommodation for @iapll.bsky.social PhD winter school! 🎉 I also get to spend one night in Wien and 2 nights in Ljubljana where my brother lives. Exciting!
- Had such a wonderful time at FinEd Writing Workshop for educational PhD researchers in Helsinki. Writing, networking and delicious food. Together with inspiring discussions not only about doing research, but also about life and society in general. #fined
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- Had my yearly lunch with my supervisors, meeting about article edits and a quick coffee with colleagues. I feel the Autumn semester has officially started! On Monday off to a two day writing workshop.
- Had a pleasure to listen in to this inspiring presentation and discussion today.
- What a holiday!
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- Thank you for such great news from @iapll.bsky.social about PLL6 conference! Me and my colleague Katja Peltola got a poster presentation and I also got a solo paper presentation in as well! 🎉
- One article sent to the editor for feedback, now time to focus editing another article based on the reviewer comments I got and find a new journal for it. #phdsky
- I’m actually looking forward to writing my thesis so I can hopefully include all the bits and pieces I need to cut from the articles due to word limits 😁 #phdsky
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- I got 2 months funding from my doctoral program 🎉 Now I can fully focus on editing my two articles and completing the third one, and also starting my PhD thesis to combine the three sub studies. #phdsky
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- My manuscript gets longer the more I edit it 😅 I certainly need a course in academic “kill your darlings”, any suggestions? #phdsky
- Going to Graz for @iapll.bsky.social doctoral school in December! 🎉 Thank you for this opportunity, it means a lot for someone like me doing PhD fully remotely! Guess what my 9y daughter said? “Mommy did you get funding too?” 😅 Luckily I do already have ✈️ ticket funding secured! #phdsky
- Love all the digital tools and gadgets for research, but if I feel stuck working pen on paper still seems to be the best way to get unstuck. #phdsky
