Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine whether the degree of dominance of Mandarin-English bilinguals' languages affects phonetic processing of tone content in their native language, Mandarin. Method: We tested 72 Mandarin-English bilingual college students with a range of language-dominance profiles in the 2 languages and ages of…

This paper reports a case study on Maneesha Rai, a Nepalese girl living in Hong Kong and an "out of school" student. Based on in-depth interviews, a case was constructed of her previous school days and current "out of school" days. These provided a vivid picture of her life and several themes were created using schema analysis…

This paper reports on the results of an investigation of the relationships between motivation, motivation intensity, use of Chinese outside of class and self-rated competence in Chinese. Analyses of 162 questionnaires and 17 semi-structured interviews revealed the following findings: (1) the participants reported having high integrative…

Producing a sensible utterance requires speakers to select conceptual content, lexical items, and syntactic structures almost instantaneously during speech planning. Each language offers its speakers flexibility in the selection of lexical and syntactic options to talk about the same scenarios involving movement. Languages also vary typologically…

This article reviews the existing Chinese language Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and points out three problems in their design: the monism-based teaching method, the non-integration of cultural elements, and the lack of learner-learner interactions. It then presents the design principles of the Introductory Chinese MOOC in an attempt to…

Phonation is used in many tonal languages, but how it should be incorporated into tonal systems is not well understood. The purpose of this dissertation thus is to examine the role of phonation in tonal contrasts, and to investigate how phonation and pitch interact in the tonal space. This dissertation presents close studies of tonal contrasts…

In an era of globalisation (Spring 2008), wellbeing no longer can be explored within one's own national borders, but necessitates cultivating shared international understandings to maintain healthy twenty-first-century classrooms. This literature review across Chinese and English international publications contends that understanding wellbeing…

This study explores the process of Community of Practice (CoP) building for language teachers' professional development through the support of a WeChat group. WeChat is an instant messenger app that provides a multimodal platform for one-on-one and group interactions through text, audio and video. In order to support the implementation of flipped…

Speaking in Chinese is problematic for all learners, particularly for beginners and more so during online interaction. Despite the fact that interaction has been identified as crucial for the development of speaking skills, it can be hindered by students' lack of language competence or their anxiety. Teacher-centred practices in tutorials can…

In the field of teaching and learning Chinese as a foreign language (CFL), most studies investigate Chinese character learning strategies in pen-and-paper study by campus-based students. With the increase in distance-learning, and expanding popularity of smartphones and tablets and widespread availability of mobile applications for language…

In the past decade, techniques traditionally used in the audiovisual translation (AVT) industry have been applied to foreign language teaching (FL) with promising results. Both teachers and researchers have provided useful data on various AVT typologies (i.e., subtitling, dubbing, audio description) to improve specific learning areas: vocabulary…

Italian-schooled Chinese migrant youth in Prato enact a Chinese diasporic identity which develops as a result of the diasporic stance they manifest through Mandarin-speaking practice, in addition to other practices associated with Mandarin. Being children of Chinese migrants with limited Italian literacy, the youth speak a Chinese dialect and…

This study aimed to investigate the development of visual and auditory temporal processing among children with and without dyslexia and to examine the roles of temporal processing in reading and reading-related abilities. A total of 362 Chinese children in Grades 1-6 were recruited from Taiwan. Half of the children had dyslexia, and the other half…

In multicultural classroom practices, technology is a power-amplifier tool that teachers can use to "provide multiple approaches to learning for each student" to increase the power of digital artifacts in the learning of science and literacy (Council of Chief State School Officers, 2013, p. 4). Increasingly, both preservice and inservice…

Oral input has long been recognised as a key factor influencing second language acquisition in early childhood. Children rely heavily on oral input to learn new words and develop phonological awareness of a language. However, in the context of English teaching in Hong Kong kindergartens -- which feature diversity in language use in the classroom…