The global expansion of online language courses is on the rise, offering greater flexibility in the approaches to learning design. This study delves into the exploration of the fundamental learning design patterns within a K-12 synchronous language course. Leveraging a rich array of textual data, including syllabi, textbooks, course outlines,…

Framed from positioning theory and dynamic systems theory, the paper reports on a naturalistic study involving four Chinese participants and their American peers in an intercultural asynchronous computer-mediated communication (ACMC) activity. Based on the moment-by-moment analysis and triangulation of forum posts, reflective essays, and…

Global efforts to prepare young developing minds for solving current and future challenges of climate change have advocated interdisciplinary, issues-based instructional approaches in order to transform traditional models of science education as delivering conceptual facts (UNESCO, 2014). This study is an exploration of the online interactions in…

In the first case study, a piece of recent BBC news reported on Chinese netizens leaving random but funny comments on a Western website attracted people's attention. A closer look at those comments reveals that understanding the Chinese netizens' comments requires metaphorical and cultural knowledge. This study starts with theoretical explanations…

The framework of this study is cooperation between students of English at a Chinese university and their counterparts at a Danish university, i.e. neither group of students are native speakers of English. The theoretical framework for the study is Vygotsky's sociocultural approach combined with the work by a number of researchers on the link…