The Revised Preschool Language Assessment (RPLA) is a standardized measure for examining the language status of and determining potential language difficulties among preschoolers between 3 and 6 years old. To facilitate the applicability of the RPLA for use with Mandarin-speaking children, the present study adopted exploratory factor analysis…

This study investigates the influence of causal and concessive relations on discourse coherence in Chinese by means of eye movement and self-paced reading techniques. We use the sentential structure like "NP[subscript HUMAN] moved from place A to place B, {because ([Chinese characters omitted] yinwei) /although ([Chinese characters omitted]…

While research on English-medium instruction (EMI) has proliferated in the past decades, little research has examined how students from a monolingual background actually experience EMI, or the learning processes involved in such experiences. Drawing upon in-depth interviews and student reflection journals, this study examines the experiences of…

International higher education is a major source of revenue in many developed countries. Historically the top destination countries for international students have included USA, UK, France and Australia. The key countries where most international students are recruited from include China, India and other parts of Asia. The extant literature has…

Definite discourse-new bridging reference (e.g., a school … "the teacher"; Clark, 1975) is a complex syntax-pragmatic component of referential movement, one that is subject to relatively opaque form-function contingency compared with forms used for discourse-old reference, and one that is especially prone to crosslinguistic influence.…

In an attempt to promote telecollaborative exchanges in the field of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, this paper conducts a comprehensive review of telecollaborative practice from the past twenty years and focuses on five important themes emerging from the literature on telecollaboration, i.e. models, tasks, challenges, technologies, and…

This qualitative study investigates the lived experiences of interculturality among international students enrolled in a top-rated comprehensive university in Shanghai and a key provincial university in China's hinterland. Based on an analysis of narrative interviews with 20 international students from different sociocultural backgrounds, the…

This small scale case study aimed at identifying the feasibility of foreign language online instruction during the abrupt change of teaching mode toward online platforms. The feasibility in this study involves the practicality and the possibility of and the concerns about language teaching and learning foreign language online as reflected by the…

Focusing on five initially committed learners of Chinese who decide to quit the language during their college freshman year, this study is a critique of the institutional structure that disengages foreign language education in American postsecondary schools. The findings reveal three structural issues that may contribute to the declining…

This paper examines recent political debates surrounding data disaggregation in education policy in one US state, and analyses the discourses taken up by supporters and opponents of these policies. Analysis suggests how discourses move across time and space, and focuses on how these discourses are contextualized and entextualized in social media,…

This study aims to compare the rhetorical move structure of English Medium Instruction (EMI) lectures given by native English and Chinese lecturers. Two specialized corpora were therefore accordingly created with transcripts of twelve science-oriented lectures selected from MICASE and the BASE corpus and twelve science-oriented EMI lectures…

This article focuses on authenticity of second language identity which has been at issue. Previous research of the authenticity of second language identity has revealed that second language identity may be inauthentic due to the impact from social context and the individual's competence and desires. The discussion in this article aims at exploring…

The current study examines the relationship between bilingual children's dual language experience (i.e. language input, language output and vocabulary proficiency), and their social-emotional and behavioral skills. Data were analysed from 805 Singaporean bilingual preschoolers (ages 4; 1-5; 8 years), who are learning English and either Mandarin (n…

Current theories of bilingualism argue that the language practices of bilinguals are drawn from a single linguistic repertoire, and that enabling access to the full breadth of students' language practices can be a vital resource for further language development. This challenges commonplace practices within English as an Additional Language (EAL)…

A number of previous studies on Chinese relative clauses (RC) have reported conflicting results on processing asymmetry. This study aims to revisit the prevalent debate on whether subject-extracted RCs (SRC) or object-extracted RCs (ORC) are easier to process by using the eye-movement technique. In the current study, the data are analyzed in terms…