Third year as a PhD student – done!

The first year of the doctoral degree program was memorable because it was exciting just to get started. The highlight of the second year was the PLL5 conference in Madrid, where I felt I had found my community. Now it is time to look back at my third year, 2025, as a doctoral researcher.

At the start of 2025, I had just finished my 6-month grant and had to go back to teaching full-time and trying to fit my PhD into the little cracks of time I had in between. I had gotten a book chapter proposal accepted in late 2024 and was busy gathering data when the new year arrived. It was an interesting project interviewing spouses married to Chinese, living in China, and learning Chinese. A very meaningful project for me. I am happy to say that the book will come out sometime later this year, can’t wait!

During Spring 2025, I was writing the book chapter and also working on another paper on Finnish university students learning Chinese. The article was rejected from a journal, but I received such excellent feedback that helped me to improve my article, so I definitely count that rejection as a win. I could really see that both reviewers had spent considerable time going through my article and gave me recommendations and criticism. By now, I have decided to split that overly long article into two to gain greater focus and to go deeper into the themes of those articles. Hopefully, I will hear good news on those articles this coming Spring.

In May, I attended the Tenth International Conference on Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL) in Hong Kong and gave a paper presentation on the study of Finnish university students learning Chinese and changes in their motivation. A nice surprise was to see my university teacher after ten years and to catch up with her and another student from my alma mater.

I enjoyed the conference a lot, but I do have to say the community of Psychology of Language Learning still has a more special place in my heart, even though we are all focused on different languages. But there just is something about people who research motivation, emotions, and positive psychology, that makes it such a unique group. However, I do hope to keep in touch with the TCSL community as well, as the Chinese language will for sure always be part of my career and what I do.

During Summer 2025, I had a break in teaching and research while on our epic train trip through Finnish, Swedish, and Norwegian Lapland. It is hard to summarize that trip, but as a family of three, we saw Santa Claus, hiked 10 kilometers in Abisko, and drank mountain river water, did a spontaneous trip to a water park in Boden, admired the mountains in Narvik, and had our 18-hour night train extend 13 more hours due to it being too hot in the Nordic! During that Summer, we also had long layovers in Amsterdam and Paris, and it was a delight to get to explore those cities for the first time.

That Summer, I completed my book chapter and sent it to the editor, followed by improvements according to her helpful feedback. I am so grateful to have been a part of this project and can not wait for the book launch later this year! I never thought I would be able to join in as a new PhD student, but I try to go by the words of my brother-in-law, who gave me this golden advice early on in my PhD: “Never say no to yourself”. Always apply, always try and do your best, editors or reviewers will tell you no many times, but do not say no to yourself. I think he does not remember that he gave me this advice, but it has supported me all these three years!

Every year in August, I also visit my university in Finland and have lunch with my supervisors. Even though I have their support remotely all year round, it is always a delight to be able to sit down around the same table and have a chat face-to-face. I also met with my colleagues, and with one, we planned our joint research project on L2 teacher wellbeing. We were happy to hear that our poster proposal was accepted to the PLL6 conference, which will be held in May 2026 in China. At the same time, I also submitted and got accepted for a paper presentation on an autoethnographic study looking back at 15 years of learning Mandarin Chinese. I bet that PLL6 will be the highlight of 2026, but I will tell you more about that later this year.

In August, I also attended the FinEd writing workshop for doctoral researchers for the second time. As always, it was an amazing time to get feedback on our writing, to attend workshops, and most of all, to spend time with colleagues in a beautiful location in Helsinki by the coast.

During Autumn 2025, back in China, I kept working on editing the book chapter and improving the two articles that I decided to split from the original article, which had a loss of focus. Throughout the year, I had amazing support from my new mentor, whom I very much look up to and am eager to learn from. I appreciate all of our Zoom chats and emails exchanged, and look forward to many more ways to cooperate in the future. If she ever reads this, I am sure she knows who she is!

The end of the year came with the highlight of 2025, the Doctoral Winter School at the University of Graz, organized by the International Association for the Psychology of Language Learning (IAPLL). I traveled to three new countries: Austria, Slovenia (to see my brother, and Italy (quick day-trip to Trieste for authentic pizza). It was right before Christmas, so I got to enjoy the European Christmas vibe for the first time since 2009! After I moved to Guangzhou, I always go back home during Summers, so I had missed all the Winter festivities for over 10 years.

The Winter School was just perfection, and I am not exaggerating! Like I have mentioned a few times in this post, this community is truly something I feel I belong in. During the three days, we immersed ourselves in the company of experts, mentors, and peers in our fields. We had several workshops, for example, one that helped me get over my fear of statistics! We got one-on-one time with experts from our field to ask anything that was on our minds. I had great discussions about career, postdoc, publishing, and more. With peers, we not only discussed deep topics related to our research, but also life in general. These types of discussions are certainly an introvert’s dream, as we are often not so keen on small talk in general. I look forward to meeting many new and old friends again at the PLL6 conference this year.

2025 in short

• Article 1 completed, now in editing to catch up with most recent research (systematic review)
• Article 2 completed, in review
• Article 3 split up from Article 2, in writing
• Article 4 completed, will be published as a book chapter later in 2026
• Other projects: L2 teacher wellbeing with a colleague, autoethnograpical study on Mandarin motivation
• Conferences and other events attended: TCSL in Hong Kong, PhD Writing Workshop in Helsinki, PhD Winter School in Graz
• Courses attended: Research ethics, PhD summary writing, and basics of statistics
• Accepted submissions: Book chapter, PLL6 poster abstract, PLL6 paper abstract
• Grants: Winter School and PLL6 travel grants from Turku University Foundation, 2 months research grant from my doctoral program