Educational decentralization is a worldwide phenomenon, which takes different forms and leads to different outcomes in different socio-economic contexts. Taking Chinese-English bilingual education in Mainland China as an exemplar, this study examines how the decentralization of education has worked in China in the past two decades, and what…

The concept of English as a lingua franca (ELF) has recently caused a great deal of controversy, much of it based on a misunderstanding of ELF. In this presentation, I shall first provide a brief history of lingua francas and then compare and contrast two major Asian lingua francas--Bahasa Indonesia and Putonghua--in order to show how different…

This article reports findings from a classroom environment study which was designed to investigate the nature of Chinese Language classroom environments in Singapore secondary schools. We used a perceptual instrument, the Chinese Language Classroom Environment Inventory, to investigate teachers' and students' perceptions towards their Chinese…

During the 2010-2011 school year, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) piloted the After-School Global Language Opportunity Benefiting All Learners (GLOBAL) program for 12 weeks at eight different school sites. This school year the program expanded to 25 weeks and 11 sites. GLOBAL is an approach to learning that allows students to develop basic…

This study focused on an intelligent robot which was viewed as a language teaching/learning tool to improve children's reading ability, reading interest, and learning behavior. The iRobiQ, with its multimedia contents, was employed to encourage children to read, speak, and answer questions. Fifty-seven pre-kindergarteners participated in this…

Researching the longitudinal development of second language (L2) learners is essential to understanding influences on their success. This 7-year study of oral skills in adult immigrant learners of English as a second language evaluated comprehensibility, fluency, and accentedness in first-language (L1) Mandarin and Slavic language speakers. The…

Curriculum development research on nursing English in Taiwan has tended to end at needs analysis, offering little guidance on how to design and implement a course. Our objective was to examine how a course on workplace communication in English for nursing students in Taiwan would emerge in the classroom if teachers and students collaboratively…

Teachers' technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK) for meaningful learning with ICT describes their knowledge for designing ICT lesson activities with respect to five dimensions: active, constructive, authentic, intentional, and cooperative. The ICT lesson activities designed by teachers can be assessed to determine the strengths and…

This study examined reading performance of 102 Chinese Mandarin-speaking 4th graders in their second language (L2, English) as a function of performance in their first language (L1, Chinese). The results revealed that for Rapid Automatized Naming (RAN) and Rapid Alternating Stimulus (RAS) measures, the mean naming time decreased monotonically in…

This study examines ways in which Chinese immigrant families are involved in their children's mathematics education, particularly focusing on how different types of families utilize different forms of capital to support their children's mathematics education. The theoretical framework defines four types of Chinese immigrant families--working…

This article reports a case study of two Chinese-English bilingual families in Singapore and illustrates the importance of incorporating two hitherto disconnected fields of research--family language policy and family literacy practices--to an understanding of early language and literacy acquisition in the familial milieu. Specifically, this work…

Granted the fact that different cultures have different speaking styles, knowledge of these styles can help people grasp the essence of social cultural knowledge to communicate with others more successfully. In this regard, the present paper aims at comparing the use of speech act of gratitude in Persian and Chinese EFL learners and English native…

Taiwan began its political reform of languages in the 1990s. At this time, "Mandarin Plus" (Official Language Plus) became the core of Taiwanese language policy to deal with the aftermath of forced national linguistic assimilation under Chiang's administration (1945-1988). Mandarin Plus, defined as teaching vernacular languages other…

Humanities includes a diverse range of disciplines in which little literature has explored in any depth the desired learning outcomes. This study was designed to articulate and illustrate learning outcomes in the humanities from students' voices and work. Undergraduate students in their final year, postgraduate students and recent alumni from the…

Three-quarters of Singapore's population consists of ethnic Chinese, and yet, learning Chinese (Mandarin) has been a headache for many Singapore students. Recently, many scholars have argued that the rhetoric of language planning for Mandarin Chinese should be shifted from emphasizing its cultural value to stressing its economic value since…