Two drawings based on tasks originally used in Clark's Drawing Abilities Test from each of 297 Chinese students were first evaluated independently by two Chinese visual artists as below average, average, and above average in drawing abilities. Based on these judges' verbalization to make explicit their implicit criteria for judgments, a set of…

The study investigates the effects of second-year university students' metacognitive beliefs and strategies on learning Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL). The analysis shows that metacognitive beliefs, which identify students who are confident about their ability to learn a foreign language, are positively associated with students' CFL…

In this article I discuss the selection and assembly of formal features in second language acquisition. Assembling the particular lexical items of a second language (L2) requires that the learner reconfigure features from the way these are represented in the first language (L1) into new formal configurations on possibly quite different types of…

We explored children's early interpretation of numerals and linguistic number marking, in order to test the hypothesis (e.g., Carey (2004). Bootstrapping and the origin of concepts. "Daedalus", 59-68) that children's initial distinction between "one" and other numerals (i.e., "two," "three," etc.) is bootstrapped from a prior distinction between…

This research investigates students' performance while writing Chinese essays using an interactive online writing system. Participants include students from two seventh-grade classes of a junior high school in Taoyuan County, Taiwan. The experimental group uses the conditioned writing interactive online system, while the control group receives…

This article examines the degrees of collaborative language learning that were supported in cyber face-to-face interaction. The concept of "cyber face-to-face" is used here to encapsulate the kind of environment in which a combination of real-time oral/aural, visual, and text-based interaction happens simultaneously via the various…

Background: There has been a lack of research on exploring how beliefs about language learning (BALLs) and out-of-class language-learning activities are related. BALLs and out-of-class language-learning activities play an important role in influencing the learning behaviours of learners and learning outcomes. Findings of this study provide useful…

As the racial and ethnic make-up of the United States (U.S.) further diversifies, the need for open dialogue around stereotypes and discrimination intensifies. Schools can provide students with the opportunity to begin to unravel the complexities of race and ethnicity. Students in bilingual classrooms inevitably bring up the issues surrounding…

From a modest beginning with one professor and a handful of students, Chinese studies have moved forward to a flourishing branch of scholarship with ten researchers and teachers and several dozen students brought together in a Sinological Institute at Leiden University. (Author/RK)

THE AIM OF THIS STUDY WAS TO IDENTIFY AND SET TONE-REGISTER BOUNDARIES, AND TO DESCRIBE TONAL CONTOURS OF SINGLE WORDS AND COUPLETS IN TERMS OF WHAT GOOD MANDARIN CHINESE SPEAKERS ACTUALLY DO. THE STUDY WAS BASED ON ISOLATED AND COUPLED WORDS OF HIGH LINGUISTIC FREQUENCY, WHICH WERE RECORDED BY 18 PROFESSORS OF MANDARIN CHINESE ON NARROW-BAND…

In this study we examined syntactic ambiguity resolution in two different Chinese languages, Cantonese and Mandarin, which are relatively similar grammatically but very different phonologically. We did this using four-character sentences that could be read using two, two-syllable sequences (2-2) or a structure where the first syllable could be…

This is a selective annotated list of children's books about China and the Chinese. Topics range from dynasties, the era of Western influence, emigration, revolution, to present day affairs. Most of the books have a Chinese setting, but some are about the Chinese in America. Listings are made under categories such as picture books, stories for…

The author spent most of his life trying to forget his Chinese heritage. This article, which describes his change of heart, offers a personal account of his re-education as an adult at the "after-school" classes at New York's Chinese school. (Editor/RK)

This study investigated the use of discourse markers (DMs) by college learners of English in China. It compared the use of DMs for four discourse functions by students at different proficiency levels. An audio-video instrument called Video Oral Communication Instrument was conducted to elicit ratable speech samples. Fraser's (1999) taxonomy was…

This study aims to investigate whether English for Specific Purposes (ESP) reading relates to English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' identity and how they relate to each other if there is a link between the two. Via purposeful sampling, an experienced Taiwanese ESP reader in her 40s was recruited and received three life-story interviews.…