This case study examines the journey of a successful Chinese language learner who has become a Chinese language instructor. His path of learning Chinese is found to be different than that of most non-heritage Chinese instructors. Key factors contributing to his success include prior experience of learning Spanish as a second language, strong…

This study explored the language learning motivation of a small group of five university students in the UK through the constructs of Dornyei's L2 Motivational Self System and Henry's notion of 'the ideal multilingual self'. The five participants, all successful language learners at school, chose to specialise in modern languages at university and…

Foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) is 'a distinct complex set of self-perceptions, beliefs, feelings and behaviours related to classroom language learning arising from the uniqueness of the language learning process' (Horwitz, Horwitz and Cope 1986: 128) [Foreign language classroom anxiety. "The Modern Language Journal" 70, no. 2:…

The purpose of this study was to explore the reasons for low retention rates among students in the Chinese classes in upper secondary education in the Czech Republic. The principal research question was whether Chinese characters were the main reason why many students decided to stop attending their Chinese classes. Semi-structured interviews with…

Despite an increasing number of studies that explore language learning beyond the classroom (LBC), research examining LBC activities in relation to in-class learning is very limited. This paper investigates what kinds of LBC activities university students of Chinese and Japanese in Australia engage in and how they connect these activities to…

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated a global shift to a 'new normal' of online and hybrid learning, significantly affecting language education. This study investigates the impact of emergency remote teaching on language learners' anxiety, examining their preferences for teaching modes and the reasons behind them. Diverging from prior research…

This study explores how the concept of Assessment for Learning (AfL) is practised in the CLIL contexts. It focuses on the assessment purpose of understanding and supporting students' content and language learning. Ten CLIL teachers in the bilingual program of three different regions in Taiwan were involved in the study. Results from the class…

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive narrative of the current status of Chinese language teaching at upper secondary schools in the Czech Republic. Processes involved in developing the Chinese language curriculum in upper secondary schools were mapped through a qualitative survey. Representatives of 20 schools were interviewed to identify…

The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the strategies employed by beginning learners of Spanish, German, Chinese and Japanese as Foreign Languages at university level in order to comprehend texts in their target languages. It also investigates possible relationships between strategic behaviour and success in reading comprehension…

This study investigates the immediate and sustained effects of a pre-departure study abroad training on the oral production of L2 Chinese formulaic language across a range of social and transactional interactions. Eighteen upper-intermediate learners of Chinese were assigned to either an instructed or non-instructed group to determine the efficacy…

This study explores the relationship between the experience of confusion and the outcomes of Chinese character learning by learners of Chinese as a heritage language (CHL). Based on the claim that impasses triggering confusion can lead to deeper learning of conceptually difficult material, the study employed three impasse-driven tasks. The tasks…

This paper reports a case study focusing on naturalistic communication between a Chinese beginning non-native speaker of English (NNS) and an English native speaker (NS). The participants engage informally in a form of tandem learning, with each in turn taking the dominant role in the conversation through teaching the other vocabulary items in…

This article is based on an investigation of the experiences of six native Chinese teachers working in British schools through the Confucius Institute and the British Council programmes. This qualitative study is located in the interpretivist tradition. It reveals that the target group of teachers construct their professional identity by means of…

The demographic change of Chinese bilingual preservice teachers (herein referred to as trainees) has caused a shift in the practitioner populations in the US This qualitative case study reports on how six female trainees experienced critical language awareness (CLA) as a collective struggle in the language awareness training sessions and in the…

This paper addresses a number of questions in the emerging area of blended Chinese language learning design. First, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the extant literature? Second, how might insights from the wider blended and blended language learning literature advance the field? Third, how might these literatures be synthesised to…