The present research examined the changes in Chinese university students' motivation to learn German during a 16-week semester. Analyses of the data showed that both at the beginning and toward the end of the semester, the participants held (fairly) positive attitudes towards German, were motivated to learn the language mainly for integrative and…

Although research on teacher collaboration has proliferated in the last few decades, scant attention has been paid to the development of teacher collaboration in school contexts. Informed by the perspective of complexity theory, this study investigates the complex process of teacher collaboration through qualitative interviews in an English…

Informed by literature on developing pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) through teacher collaboration, this study aims to investigate the trajectory of PCK development among business English teachers through module team collaboration in Chinese context. Drawing upon multiple sources of data including observation, semi-structured interview, and…

The current study examines how and why speakers of English from multilingual contexts in Asia are identifying as native speakers of English. Eighteen participants from different contexts in Asia, including Singapore, Malaysia, India, Taiwan, and The Philippines, who self-identified as native speakers of English participated in hour-long interviews…

In the field of second language learning motivation, the studies on process-oriented nature of possible L2 selves are scarce. In order to address this research gap, this study explored how a group of five Chinese non-English-major undergraduates developed their possible L2 selves during the transition year from high school to university. The…

Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) theory focuses on developing language learners' meta-linguistic understanding of the interrelation among linguistic form (grammar/vocabulary), meaning, and context. Guided by SFL when using a mandatory textbook and open educational resources, this study investigates how exposure to this blended teaching and…

Informed by an ethnographic approach, this study aims to investigate the professional culture of a group of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers in a high school in China. Relying on data gathered through extended field observation and in-depth interviews, this study seeks to uncover the distinctive characteristics of EFL teacher culture…

The scale of English language education in China is astounding, but recent research has shown that the latest national English education policy for Chinese schools has not been implemented successfully due to various reasons. One reason given for the lack of success is the impracticability of the top-down policy itself excluding teachers'…

This article discusses the second-language literacy practice of an ESL student in Australia. It firstly explores the literacy practices (reading and writing) exercised both in China (the subject's home country) and in Sydney, Australia, where the subject was taking an academic preparation course prior to her master study. Secondly, this article…

World Englishes has become a robust field of inquiry as scholars pursue more nuanced understandings of linguistic localization and multilinguals' negotiations of language differences. Yet research demonstrates that teachers and learners of English as a foreign language continue, albeit in a partially conflicted way, to believe that prestigious…

Peer feedback carries a number of potential benefits to students, yet how they learn in the process remains under-researched. Building on ideas of feedback as dialogue, this study aims to unpack the respective perceptions of the provider and the receiver of peer feedback in relation to the benefits and challenges of dialogue about academic…

Drawing on narrative inquiry, the present study aims to investigate the trajectory of identity formation of EFL university teachers. Two types of data are collected. One type comes from life histories of Hyland (2014), Nunan (2011) and Widdowson (2009), and the other type comes from semi-structured interviews with three excellent university…

China has launched a nation-wide project of learning English as a "core" subject starting from the third grade in primary schools after the Ministry of Education (MOE) issued "National English Curriculum Standards for Compulsory Education" at the beginning of this century. However, EFL teachers are far from sufficient in rural…

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 paper discusses how teachers explore teaching controversial issues in the Japanese language classroom to Japanese language learner (JLL) or culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students who have different cultural and political backgrounds. Assuring educational opportunities with consideration of JLLs' background is important…