Dr Victor Lim Fei researches and teaches on literacy education. He is interested in how and what we should teach in today’s digital age as well as meaning-making in learning and meaning-making as learning. Victor is passionate about education and its value in improving in both personal and societal well-being. He believes that literacy education must be future-oriented and progress with the evolving contemporary communication landscape.
Victor’s research is based on the confluence of multimodality, literacy, and digital technology, with a focus on systemic functional multimodal discourse analysis and multimodal literacy. He has also developed ideas on embodied semiosis in teaching and the pedagogisation of multimodal studies. His work is situated within multimodality in education, multiliteracies, social and educational semiotics, as well as digital and media literacy.
In his teaching, Victor models a reflexive pedagogical approach - blending principles and practices from both didactic and authentic pedagogies. He believes that learning must be intentionally designed for and carefully scaffolded through overt instruction, just as learning is inquiry-based and social constructivistic. Victor values learning through the making of multimodal representations, and uses digital technology to bring new learning possibilities into the classroom.
Victor’s work has appeared in journals, such as Cambridge Journal of Education, Functional Linguistics, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Semiotica, Social Semiotics, and Visual Communication. He has published more than twenty journal articles and book chapters and has been cited on his work. Victor has also been invited to present on his work internationally, such as in Australia, China, France, Taiwan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Switzerland.
Victor is presently Principal Investigator of an Educational Research Funding Programme project on “Integrating Multiliteracies into the English Language Classroom: Developing an Instructional Approach to Teach Multimodal Literacy (Critical Viewing and Effective Representing of Multimodal Texts)” (2019-2022) and Start-up Grant for New Assistant Professor project on “Harnessing Transmedia Narratives for Literacy Development: Drawing Pedagogical Principles from Approaches in Multimodality” (2019-2020). He is also Co-Principal Investigator of the English Language Institute of Singapore Research Fund project on “Reading to Learn Science: Developing a Multimodal Literacy-based Approach for the Singapore Classroom” (2018-2019).
Victor’s completed projects as Principal Investigator include the Singapore Ministry of Education Senior Specialist Track Research Fund project on “Translating Systemic Functional Theory into an Approach for Critical Viewing” (2017-2018) and “Multimodal Literacy in Science: Interpreting the Reading to Learn (R2L) Programme through Technological and Subject Literacy Lens” (2017-2018). He was also Co-Principal Investigator for the Singapore Ministry of Education Academies Fund project on “Cultivating Laterality in Learning Communities within a Centralized Education system- Scaling of innovation through Networked Learning Community” (2016-2018).
Victor serves on national committees, such as the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competences (PIACC) Expert Advisory Group, SkillsFuture Singapore (2018-2021). He is also on the International Advisory Board of the academic journal Designs for Learning and serves as an invited peer reviewer for many journals.
Victor was formerly Deputy Director, Technologies for Learning, and Lead Specialist (L3), Educational Technology, at the Singapore Ministry of Education (MOE). He has experience in translational research, policy formulation, and programme development, with a focus on how educational technology can improve teaching and learning. In his role, Victor contributed to the conceptualisation of the Fourth Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in Education Masterplan to nurture future-ready and responsible digital learners, the development of strategies and initiatives for MOE’s translational research, innovations, and scaling efforts, as well as the strengthening of cyber wellness education in Singapore. Victor was also a member of MOE Senior Specialist Council (2014-2015), the Inter-ministry Cyber Wellness Steering Committee (2016-2017), as well as the English Language Curriculum Review Committee (2016-2018) and the General Paper Syllabus Development Committee (2017-2018).
Before his posting to MOE headquarters, Victor was General Paper teacher, level head, subject head, and school staff developer in a junior college, and was an adjunct lecturer on sociolinguistics at a university in Singapore. Victor was a recipient of the Singapore Public Service Commission Scholarship and the National University of Singapore (NUS) Research Scholarship for his undergraduate and postgraduate studies. He was a research scholar in the Multimodal Analysis Lab, Interactive Digital Media Institute at NUS, where he was awarded the MOE PhD Postgraduate Scholarship and NUS Research Scholarship to complete his doctoral dissertation titled ‘A Systemic Functional Multimodal Discourse Analysis Approach to Pedagogic Discourse’.