Tochon is a professor with the highly-ranked Department of Curriculum and Instruction, and also has ties to the Department of French and Italian. He is an expert in international studies in curriculum, pedagogy and teacher education, world language education, bilingual education, and research methods. Tochon was awarded an Honorary Professorship in Foreign Studies by Sochoow University on March 28. The university gives very few such awards, notes Tochon, as they are considered a higher award than the honorary doctorate.
Tochon was previously awarded honorary degrees, honorary doctorates or equivalent, from the: Universidad Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, Lima, Peru; the National University of Rio Cuarto, Cordoba, Argentina; and the Asia-Pacific Association for Multimedia Language Learning. He holds honorary professorships from Henan University of Technology and Guangdong Foreign Studies University, both national universities in China. These institutions recognized Tochon for his “research excellence and international recognition.” These awards come in addition to two PhD degrees Tochon had received in French Curriculum & Instruction (Laval, Quebec, Canada), and Educational Psychology (Ottawa, Canada). Tochon’s primary scholarship focuses on the Deep Approach to world language, an immersive, learner-centered, technology-rich, and project-based approach designed for institutions of higher education that offer programs in language and culture, area studies, and international or global studies. His other scholarship also focuses on world language teacher education, globalization, and language education policies.