Informed by basic psychological needs theory, this multi-case study explored four supervisors' feedback practices and their effects on Chinese English-major students' engagement with feedback on their undergraduate dissertations written in English. Data comprised interviews with students and supervisors, stimulated recalls with students, audio…

Drawing on data collected from multiple sources, this qualitative case study investigates how seven English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) academics from a university in mainland China perceive and cope with their professional vulnerability within the system of performativity. Three themes were generated from the data: (1) professional vulnerability…

Little is known about what academics focus on when providing assessment feedback to international students for whom English is an additional language (EAL). This study examines written assessment feedback provided to 11 EAL-speaking international students throughout a two-year Master of Social Work programme and investigates their perspectives of…

Recent years have witnessed a heightening of interest in the role of teachers working in EAP (English for Academic Purposes), particularly with regard to defining and debating their professional identity. However, it must be said that most authors have painted a rather dismal picture, when comparing the status and professional standing of English…

Multimodality has been a growing research interest in the field of applied linguistics. With the actor-network theory as an analytic framework, the purpose of the present study was to explore how university students of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) take advantage of both material and non-material semiotic resources while being…

This study navigates the constructive role of English as a foreign language (EFL) as a critical intercultural discourse of locus of enunciation and linguistic citizenship through which teachers in Chinese educational context act as agents of action and social change. Based on a critical discourse analysis of learner diary entries, the study traces…

This systematic literature review identifies evidence used to justify embedded approaches to academic literacy development. This inquiry is of direct relevance to widening participation in higher education and persistent inequity with completion rates for linguistically and culturally diverse student groups. Using the PRISMA-P checklist, 20…

The paper seeks to demonstrate how academic Content Obligatory Language can be potentially organized in teacher talk applying semantic gravity waving from Legitimation Code Theory. The questions asked are: Which concepts do I teach from my discipline in this session? How do I teach these to ensure effective comprehension? Research was conducted…

This article examines theoretical and methodological issues raised when Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) is used to investigate knowledge-building practices in online and face-to-face teaching environments where English is the medium of instruction (EMI) in non-Anglophone higher education (HE) contexts. The article introduces two dimensions of LCT,…

The dissonance between teachers' substantial effort to provide feedback and students' under-engagement with feedback has been consistently reported in higher education. A contributing factor to this disparity students' lack of feedback literacy, however, has been under-researched. This case study of two Chinese undergraduate students therefore…

This article is an autoethnographic study of the emotions and identities of a foreign language teacher in an Australian university while I was struggling with a heavy teaching workload due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using self-narrative data of emotional experiences related to my teaching, I examine how my emotions and identities are…

Holistic assessment is an evaluative approach in which assessors work backwards from an overall appraisal of work to determine the criteria relevant to individual student responses. One of the strongest proponents of this approach in higher education is Royce Sadler, whose theoretical contributions over recent decades provide a strong conceptual…

This paper examines the multiple, intersecting identities expressed by international taught-post graduate students who are studying in a culture and language that is not their own. The study presented includes the collection of data around and beyond a planned pedagogical intervention on a pre-sessional EAP programme. The data were thematically…

Teaching a graduate course focused on critical understandings of interculturality offers an opportune space in which to explore decolonizing pedagogical practices. In this short paper, I examine my own attempts at decolonizing students' experiences of intercultural learning by incorporating non-Western knowledge systems to draw attention to…

This study explores how college writers responded to teachers' after-class tutoring that was intended to complement their in-class writing instruction. Through qualitative content analyses of three focal college student writers' interviews, reflections, writings, and teacher-student talks collected in a Chinese university, the study shows that…