Previous research that explores the effect of ethnicity in the perception of speaker accentedness and personality traits often finds that Asian appearance contributes to a more accented and less competent impression. Importantly, most of the work done to date employed only Caucasian first language-speaking listeners; moreover, ethnicity and gender…

Using Chinese language teaching in an engineering department as an example, this paper explores how language teaching can meet the challenges of globalisation and the advancement of technology by fulfilling its educational function as described in Byram's model of intercultural communicative competence. By adapting theories and practices from…

This study aimed to create a game as scaffolding in 3D virtual worlds to enhance linguistic communication skills (LCS) in children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Two ADHD children participated in the 17-week study. In 8 of the 17 weeks of the study, they logged in 3D virtual worlds to learn LCS through play twice a week, one…

This research aims to analyze cultural items in the international Chinese education network course resource database found in the "Chinese Bridge" delegation online experience platform. Data were collected from 878 culture-themed courses implemented by 106 schools (including 64 universities, and 39 vocational colleges, 3 high schools)…

Motivation for an action is determined by the expectation for success and subjective judgment on task values according to the expectancy-value theory. Task values, including intrinsic value, attainment value, utility value, and cost, influence and predict the students' engagement in learning activities and their choices in the future. This study…

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to characterize the acoustic profile and to evaluate the intelligibility of vowel productions in prelingually deafened, Mandarin-speaking children with cochlear implants (CIs). Method: Twenty-five children with CIs and 20 age-matched children with normal hearing (NH) were recorded producing a list of Mandarin…

It is well known that English speakers produce fewer pronouns when discourse contexts include more than one entity that matches the gender of the pronoun, i.e., gender effect. It is controversial, however, what causes the gender effect. Some suggest that it results from speakers' avoidance of linguistic ambiguity, while others suggest that it…

Previous research is seldom addressed to biliteracy relationship for adult learners in the foreign language context. The present study was a repeated-measure design in a 9-month longitudinal study. One hundred and thirty-nine college students (ages 19-21 years) who learned English as a foreign language were measured twice at pre- and post-tests on…

The purpose of this study was to examine an adaptation of the Consultation Self-Efficacy Scale (CSES) and its psychometric properties among Chinese-speaking populations. The participants included 428 undergraduate and graduate-level students from school counseling training programs in Taiwan. We performed exploratory factor analyses to examine the…

Background: Research has shown that paired associate learning (PAL) plays an important role in children's word reading across different languages. However, little is known about the construct of PAL and its relationship with word reading in Chinese children. Methods: A total of 204 second-year kindergarten children from Mainland China were…

Background: Several studies have revealed that prosody contributes to reading acquisition. However, the relation between awareness of prosodic patterns and different facets of language ability (e.g., vocabulary knowledge) in school-age children remains unclear. This study measured awareness of prosodic patterns using non-speech and speech stimuli.…

Word learning in a second language (L2) is a complex process, which is affected by learner-related (e.g., morphological awareness) and language-related (e.g., word semantic transparency) factors. Morphological awareness is learners' sensitivity to the morphological structure of printed words, and semantic transparency is the degree to which…

Despite the rapid development of telecollaboration in foreign language education, telecollaborative exchanges involving Chinese as the target language have not received sufficient attention. Adopting an action research approach, this study focuses on examining the student perceptions as well as the challenges of a carefully designed…

This study explored the dynamic effects between fathers and mothers' education levels on the language outcomes of Mandarin-speaking preschoolers with hearing loss who had received early intervention in Taiwan. Data was collected using the revised preschooler language assessment from 113 children with hearing loss; the children in this study were…

The present study investigated the effects of exposure to Chinese orthography on learning phonological forms of new words in learners of Chinese as a second language. A total of 30 adult learners of Chinese studied spoken label and picture associations presented either with phonologically accurate characters, characters with partial phonological…