International students have continued to be the focus of simplistic stereotyping in media discourse where they are frequently identified as one of the forces behind declining academic standards in Australian universities. Their English language skills, in particular, have continued to be the focus of debate both in the mainstream media and in…

At present, there are few studies which explore the learning strategies employed by students of Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) and even fewer that focus specifically on mobile application use. This study provides insights into how adult learners at varying levels of proficiency employ mobile apps to support their Chinese character learning.…

This phenomenological study provided an in-depth description of the internal meaning of the lived experiences of Canadian-born and foreign-born Chinese students in Canada and uncovered the differences in their social experiences. The study used semi-structured interviews to allow the participants to express their views on their lives in Northern…

Traditional approach of listening teaching mainly focuses on the sentence level and regards the listening process in a passive and static way. To compensate for this deficiency, a new listening approach, that is, discourse-oriented approach has been introduced into the listening classroom. Although discourse analysis is a comparatively new field…

In a 2013-2014 Australia-China Council project, middle school students in Australia and China shared digital stories about their everyday lives and local cultures, and traditional tales with a modern twist. This article reports on research that aimed to explore the successes and challenges associated with this digital story exchange between…

During recent decades, both institutions of higher education and university students of the world are trying to become international by offering or gaining some form of international education, which has caught the attention of increasingly more researchers (Jackson, 2004; Trenchs-Parera, 2009). As East Asian students have increasingly become the…

This paper reports on the result of a study on Chinese university EFL learners' foreign language writing anxiety in terms of general pattern, effect and causes. 1174 first-year students answered the 26-item Foreign Language Writing Anxiety Scale (FLWAS) (Young, 1999) and took an English writing test, 18 of whom were invited for semi-structured…

Speech acts are the major concern of interlanguage pragmatists. The present study aimed to 1) examine the reliability and validity of an interlanguage pragmatic (ILP) competence test on speech acts in a Chinese EFL context, and 2) investigate EFL learners' variations of ILP competence by language proficiency. Altogether 390 students participated…

The use of integrated skills tasks in language tests has been debated for many years and international English test developers such as Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Pearson Tests of English (PTE) already use such tests to assess English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' language proficiency. Empirical research has rarely investigated…

Accommodating to the development of globalization, China witnesses a mounting demand for international business talents who are proficient in both foreign languages and business knowledge and adept at international cooperation and competition in business context. In order to meet this need, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, taking advantage…

This article outlines the necessity for investigating the attitudes of local students towards the use of the English-medium instruction (EMI) strategy in their programs in China. It starts by presenting an overview of English as a global language, how English is emphasized in China, and briefly presents the concept of "Attitude" and how…

The topic of silence and "the Chinese learner" has been extensively studied often in relation to cross-cultural adjustment, intercultural issues, learning styles, language ability and differences of classroom expectations. These studies have often led to recommendations to understand silence and "the Chinese learner" in more…

The study reported in the present paper focused on the expectations of and concerns about the impending semester-long study abroad of students from a prestigious Chinese university. Data were collected via questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Analyses of 33 questionnaires and 15 semi-structured interviews yielded the following main…