This study examined the effects of students' argumentation standpoints on their argumentation learning in the context of socio-scientific issues (SSIs). To that end, four kinds of argumentation standpoints were defined: affirmative standpoints, oppositional standpoints, multiple standpoints, and non-standpoints. These four kinds of standpoints…

English is regarded as a key to globalization or internationalization and future success for Taiwan and its people. One of the most extraordinary results of English-as-the-global-language of English teaching and learning in Taiwan is private English language schools are ubiquitous. Research into how private English language schools weld together…

Local tour guides' English speaking competence determines inbound international tourists' travel experiences. This study investigated student tour guides' English learning by adopting role-play tasks. The communicative tasks were designed to explore how real interactions prepared English as Foreign Language (EFL) learners to become cultural…

Drawing on Conversation Analysis, this paper investigates how an English native speaker interviewer utilizes clarification requests as a form of recipient design during an interview to resolve problems of non-understanding. This data is contrasted with interviews between English language learners at a private university in Taiwan. The findings…

This study examines the relationships among language, identity, and interaction in multilingual multicultural classrooms through a case study of classroom interactions involving "qiaosheng" (overseas Chinese students). Qiaosheng education was created in the historical context of nation building in Taiwan. Qiaosheng Chinese ethnicity has…

Effective energy education depends on continuing research designed to identify instructional strategies that will proof effective in particular learning contexts. The aim of this study was to help Taiwanese students learn about energy-saving related concepts through idea-centered, collaborative knowledge-building activities carried out in an…

The citizenship curriculum used in Taiwan during the authoritarian period from 1949 to 1987 sacrificed the individual for the national interest as a tool for political socialisation. In the wake of democratisation since 1987, the curriculum has gradually been stripped of its nationalist overtones which were designed to foster 'informed citizens'…

This study explored peer groups' mediation processes in the digital space. Building upon translingual research and multimodal discourse analysis, the researcher analysed video transcript excerpts of oral conversations and on-screen interactions among university students of different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. This article focuses on…

This paper explored a less-studied preposition, "after," and its uses in a corpus. The analysis included an inspection of dictionary senses, followed by the distributional patterns of parts-of-speech, the co-appearing verbs of "after," the contextual uses of [-"ly after"] and [-"ly after"+NOUN], and finally…

Based on the advantages of collaborative writing and the advanced development of mobile technology, this study investigated the communication process and attitudes of a group of college students toward collaborative writing using a "Google Docs" app on an English writing course. Online collaborative writing assignments were assigned by…

Recently, second language (L2) instruction has benefitted from the development of instructional technology such as synchronous computer-mediated communication (SCMC). The present study was conducted to investigate learner perception of the effectiveness of SCMC interactions for L2 learning and building intercultural competence. Students (n = 55)…

This study was designed to determine if language acquisition can occur in a virtual situation in the absence of explicit instruction. After spending 1 year establishing a virtual community, the authors observed and analyzed interpersonal interactions and the development of Chinese communication competence, communication models, and interaction…

The purpose of this exploratory longitudinal study was to evaluate the efficacy of two new forms of recasts (i.e., elaborated and paraphrased recasts), each of which was designed to be more in accordance with contested views of input processing. The effectiveness of the two new forms of recasts was compared to that of conventional standard…

This study reports on a corpus analysis of samples of spoken discourse between a group of British and Taiwanese adolescents, with the aim of exploring the statistically significant differences in the use of grammatical categories between the two groups of participants. The key word method extended to a part-of-speech level using the web-based…

This study explores an activity designed to promote critical literacy in Taiwan. This activity had 23 college students perform different exercises all stressing the theme of self-identity as presented in a picture book and other learning sources. Data included classroom observations, reflection entries from the researcher­-instructor, classroom…