Describes a study that used an ethnographic approach with a dramaturgy strategy to examine Chinese higher education students' interactions and perceptions of social presence in online learning environments. Results indicate that social presence, including social context, online communication, and interactivity, affected Chinese students'…

Challenges Gentner's (1982) claim that nouns are universally predominant in children's early vocabularies, noting that when a conservative method of counting nouns was used, 9 out of 10 22-month-old monolingual Mandarin-speaking children produced more verbs or action words than nouns or object labels in their naturalistic speech. (MDM)

Looks at the shifting profile of bilingualism in Hong Kong. Whereas Hong Kong society could once be characterized as diglossic, with differentiation of English and Cantonese in terms of their functions and status as "high" and "low" languages, it is currently undergoing a rapid shift away from diglossia, with erosion of these…

Using a large data set collected in Hong Kong, this study examined how Chinese students behave in the course evaluation process. Results suggest that Chinese students, like their Western counterparts, are able to distinguish separate dimensions of teaching quality. Due to their cultural background, however, they pay more attention in their…

Examines ethnic identity and its relation to personal self-esteem by comparing Chinese adolescents who immigrated to Canada and Canadian-born Chinese adolescents. Finds that aspects of collective self-esteem were positively related to personal self-esteem for the foreign-born group, not the Canadian-born group. (CMK)

Investigates how classroom communicative competence was defined in a multilingual preschool classroom. Sociolinguistic analysis of a conflict event, and the larger classroom context, reveals norms and values influencing the behaviors of the English-speaking teacher, bilingual teaching assistant, and Chinese-speaking preschoolers. Identifies…

A study involving 47 Chinese managers investigated whether those who were creative in imagery were better at interpreting ambiguous figures. Results found managers who were creative in imagery were more capable in interpreting ambiguous figures and were quicker in their discoveries than managers less creative in imagery. (Contains references.)…

Reviews four sets of computer-mediated materials for Chinese character learning. These include the following: Write Chinese, Chinese Characters Primer, Animated Chinese Characters, and USC Chinese Character Page. (Author/VWL)

Introduces two Chinese/Japanese/Korean (CJK) Web Utilities: NJStar Asian Explorer and Asian Communicator. (Author/VWL)

Analyzes transcripts of job interviews involving nine English-speaking applicants from Chinese backgrounds and two experienced interviewers from Anglo-American MNCs (Multinational Corporations) in Singapore in order to reveal subtle clashes in culture. Finds that applicants from a Chinese background may be disadvantaged when being interviewed for…

Discusses the lexical element "yeah," observed in the speech of nonnative speakers of English whose native language is Mandarin. Using the framework of conversation analysis, discusses the same-turn repair environment in which the token "yeah" occurs but reveals that the token serves as an additional component, doing something…

Mental state language was examined in Mandarin- speaking and Cantonese-speaking toddlers. Results suggested that theory-of-mind development was similar to that in English, with early use of desire terms followed by other mental state references. Much earlier emergence of desire terms and infrequent use of thinking terms suggests cultural…

Reports the results of three experiments that used vowel and tone monitoring tasks to investigate the role of tone information in processing Mandarin. (Author/VWL)

Fifty Hong Kong Chinese teachers rated the importance of 25 characteristics and 14 competencies for teachers of gifted learners. Characteristics classified as philosophical ideals were rated most important, followed by characteristics related to professional predispositions. Personal attributes were rated as least important. Implications for the…

Explores topicalization in the Chinese-English translation classroom. Examines translation in language teaching, Advocates translation as a useful skill and discusses it as a means of mastering a foreign language--in this case, English. (Author/VWL)