Due to modernisation and Englishisation in Bahrain, noticeably different types of bilingual and bicultural experiences exist, especially among the youth. Recently, the rise of Chinese education policies in the region raises the question of how it might alter the local linguistic market and the forms of capital within it. Applying a…

This paper presents a critical evaluation of the English Test for International Communication (ETIC), a large-scale, computer-based, and criterion-referenced English language proficiency test developed by the China Language Assessment in 2016. The ETIC test battery comprises five categories: Basic, Intermediate, Advanced, Superior, and…

Research and practice in task-based language teaching (TBLT) as a cognitively oriented second language (L2) pedagogy have grown substantially over the last three decades. A concurrent development in language education that thrives along the sociocultural paradigm, translanguaging, is also gaining great traction due to its potential in helping to…

Continuation writing was recently introduced as a new element of China's English as a Foreign Language (EFL) assessment. The assessment task requires students to complete the story within a set word limit. Preparing students for this task is challenging for Chinese EFL teachers, as little pedagogical guidance is supplied. Given the recent trend of…

The primary goal of the present study was to examine the relationship between academic buoyancy, academic emotions, and self-regulated learning (SRL) writing strategies in the second or foreign language (L2) writing context. Particularly, we aimed to investigate whether the relationships between writing buoyancy and SRL writing strategies…

The growth of the Chinese language in African countries and African students' consequent flocking into Chinese higher education are both emergent phenomena. This partly explains the lack of empirical research on this body of student migrants and their Chinese language learning. This paper applies Watkins' theorisation on pedagogic affect to…

Purpose: This mixed-methods study proposed a digital-storytelling-based (DST-based) online flipped learning approach during the pandemic, and investigated its impact on EFL learners' willingness to communicate (WTC) and their perceptions of the approach. Design/methodology/approach: A 16-week quasi-experiment was carried out in a college English…

The COVID-19 pandemic creates physical barriers and raises issues about online learning and course design. These must be overcome in order to continue teaching three English language support papers in a transnational education programme. This autoethnography explores online communication strategies and their effect on students' learning…

The relationship between language switching and task switching has been well studied in bilingualism literature. This study employs novel experiments involving magnitude-parity switching and transparency-orientation switching and compares the costs associated with these two types of task switching with language switching. Switching costs and the…

The Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (HSK) is a multi-level, multi-purpose Chinese proficiency test developed by the Center for Language Education and Cooperation (previously the Office of Chinese Language Council International and, henceforth, referred to by its colloquial name "Hanban"). It assesses reading, writing, and listening skills of…

Interpretive frameworks may be helpful to understand narratives, yet they also risk displacing unique information of the research context. In this paper, we argue that such is the case in narrative inquiry studies of English language teaching set in the Asian context, perhaps due to the pressure to use familiar interpretive frameworks that are…

In the last 15 years the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR) has become a very influential basis for the design of language curricula and the assessment of language learning outcomes, not only in its home continent but around the world. This article provides a basic introduction to the CEFR and then identifies the issues that have arisen…

Emotion is important in teaching and research but are rarely the focus of geographic scholarship. This article aims to bridge the gap between teaching geographic thought and teaching that considers emotion based on the case of a university class in China. Class sessions, supported with an English language textbook, were connected with different…

This scholarly investigation delves into the metamorphosis of China's language policies across three distinct epochs spanning over two millennia, tracing from ancient China to contemporary times. Employing a sociolinguistic lens, the analysis elucidates the historical trajectories of these policies, accentuating their theoretical and pragmatic…

To facilitate intercultural communicative competence, language learners are invited into the triadic capacity of Thirdness, where the social and critical interpretations of intercultural dialogue are explored. Little is known of the specific pedagogical stages to create such a terrain for the development of students' sustainable intercultural…