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This article hypothesizes that one of the reasons for Chinese EFL learners' rigid use of nominalization and insufficient use of hedging in academic writing can be attributed to the unclear understanding of the relationship between these two expressions. The aim of the research is to first prove and then explain the possible co-occurrence of nominalization and hedging in scientific papers, with the intention of deepening Chinese EFL learners' understanding of the reasons for their possible co-occurrence. After a corpus-assisted statistical analysis of sixty abstracts selected from leading scientific journals written by native English speakers, it's been found that there is indeed a tendency for nominalization and hedge to co-occur both at the textual-level and clause-level. Besides, a tentative analysis is conducted to explain the pattern of their co-occurrence. It has been observed that the number of nominalized expressions in clauses is inversely correlated with the probability degree of hedging, and the position of nominalization in the clause (theme or rheme) influences the generalization level of hedging. The research results could shed light on the pedagogic approach in improving Chinese EFL learners' academic writing by making evident that the elusive Grammatical Metaphor competence could be enhanced by deepening the understanding of the inter-relationship between seemingly different in-congruent expressions like nominalization and hedges.

This paper aims to further understand the future development of literacy theory and language learning in contemporary Chinese universities through the research on the current situation of EFL students' literacy in Chinese universities and the teaching characteristics of contemporary Chinese teachers. In this study, literature analysis method, literature comparison analysis method, literature synthesis method and other analytical methods were used to obtain the results. Based on our results, the lack of literacy training is an extremely important reason for the defects of literacy skills of contemporary Chinese college EFL students in the process of language learning. The strengthening of literacy training is one of the key measures to improve the comprehensive level of literacy of contemporary Chinese college EFL students in the process of their language learning. Theoretically, the future development of literacy theories and language learning among contemporary Chinese college EFL students is bound to closely connect with the new theory of multiliteracies and critical literacy in literacy development and the multiliteracies teaching methodology in language learning. Practically, the new theory of multiliteracies puts forward a series of hypotheses for school literacy education to cope with the drastic changes facing the world today. At the same time, the critical literacy theory is rooted in critical education theory, focusing on the important role of literacy in the formation of individual human values. Besides, the multiliteracies teaching methodology in language learning explores how to change traditional teaching methods, effectively using multimedia resources, and cultivating language learners' skills of multiliteracies.

Source-based writing research has received much attention in recent years, which generally shows that both novice and expert EFL (English as a foreign language) writers have difficulties in writing from sources. As many Chinese institutes of higher education attach increasingly more importance to publications in international journals, citation and plagiarism become critical issues for both student and teacher researchers as well as the institutes. Nevertheless, not much research can be found on the issues with Chinese students, especially undergraduate students. The present study thus investigated Chinese undergraduate EFL learners' perceptions of plagiarism and use of citations in their course papers. A total of 141 students from a highly prestigious university answered an open-ended questionnaire and 97 of them submitted course papers. Major findings were: (1) the students had a (fairly) good knowledge of plagiarism and identified various reasons for plagiarism in academic writing, (2) they used summary the most often when citing from sources, followed by paraphrase and quotation, and (3) they mainly used single-source citations to primarily support their own ideas, position an author's opinions and/or findings, and acknowledge the author's ideas. These findings reveal a general overview of students' perceptions of plagiarism and use of citations in their course papers, thus providing implications for formal classroom instruction of writing from sources.

Computer-based testing (CBT), which refers to delivering assessments with computers, has been widely used in large English proficiency tests worldwide. Despite an increasing CBT in China, limited research is available concerning whether CBT can be used for the Test for English Majors-Band 4 (TEM 4). The current study investigated whether testing mode impacted TEM 4 score and factors (i.e., computer familiarity level and attitude towards CBT) that might correlate with performance on CBT of TEM 4. Overall 92 Chinese undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of the groups, i.e., CBT or paper-based testing (PBT), and took the test. A mixed method was employed, including (1) quantitative and qualitative analysis of test performance in two modes, as well as CBT group participants' computer familiarity and attitudes towards the mode; and (2) thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews. The results revealed that (1) test scores in CBT and PBT were comparable; (2) two items in the computer familiarity questionnaire, i.e., comfort level of reading articles on the computer and forgetting time when using computers, positively correlated with CBT scores; and (3) participants' attitude towards CBT did not impact test performance.

The practice of Corrective Feedback (CF), which is situated within a Second Language Acquisition (SLA) Paradigm, is currently positioned towards an accuracy-orientated delivery based on native speaker norms. This is despite the recognition in different areas of linguistic research that there is considerable variation in the way that English is spoken around the world. This paper argues that the epistemological assumptions and methodological approaches to investigate CF within an SLA paradigm have various underlying weaknesses that undermine research findings. These findings purport to provide support for an accuracy-orientated CF in the English classroom. However, it is suggested in this paper that a meaning-orientated CF would be more reflective and beneficial for students given the transformative changes that have occurred to English over the past 30 years. This perspective is discussed in relation to one teacher's approach to CF who participated in a larger project which examined CF conducted in a British-Sino University.

Chinese has a rich and diverse vocabulary of terms, especially verbs, expressing power relationships. This paper selected 25 power relationship terms from the Chinese Proficiency Scale for International Chinese Education, and used a true-false format to test the differences in acquisition between international students from Confucian cultural circles and those from non-Confucian cultural circles. The study found that: (1) The acquisition levels of both groups are generally behind that of ordinary vocabulary; (2) There is a significant difference in the acquisition levels between the two groups, with the former performing better than the latter; and (3) There is a significant difference in the acquisition of these terms in administrative and family settings between the two groups, with the former performing better than the latter, but there is no significant difference in the acquisition of terms in other settings such as education. In response to these findings, the paper used interview data to provide mutual confirmation, and applied theories related to learning input, language transfer, and cultural circles to analyze and interpret the results. Finally, the paper made targeted suggestions for the teaching of power relationship terms.

English language education nowadays is not merely about the instruction and acquisition of linguistic knowledge and skills. Instead, it has progressed to the real-life applications of the target language, which further requires a mastery of cultural knowledge and skills. In terms of culture, English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners, compared to native speakers of English, own their unique native culture. Yet, since language teachers tend to focus on the delivery of English cultural knowledge, EFL learners' native culture is sometimes shadowed in the mainstream English classrooms worldwide. To this end, this exploratory paper aims to advocate attention to the importance of EFL learners' native culture awareness and share some practical teaching and learning experiences in an English course called "Multimedia and Foreign Language Learning." The paper outlines the pedagogical design of the course in China, providing classroom examples and practical suggestions to course designers, educators and instructors. We expect to give insights into integrating native culture into foreign language education in university settings.

Involving the global issues as listed in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in education is necessarily done in the education process, especially in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learning. Exposure to global issues is known to improve students' understanding, awareness, and ability to solve urgent issues faced by global society. This paper aims to find out the trend of research on the coverage of SDGs in students' learning process. This systematic literature analysis was done by applying Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) Method. A total of 25 studies were recognized through a systematic search by using Sustainability, SDGs, and EFL as keywords. The result shows that the trend of associating SDGs with EFL settings was done mostly in Indonesia. In the recent year 2022, it reached the highest number of studies in the particular matter with 7 total of research. It was also found that the study involving SDGs on EFL learning was mostly done in the tertiary setting, compared with K-12, junior high school, secondary, high school, and other educational institutions. It was also discovered that the specific area of study enhances EFL students' learning achievement, environmental awareness, global citizen values, as well as students' levels of self-norms, beliefs, and self-value.

In the field of applied linguistics, Diane Larsen-Freeman is widely recognized, among her numerous contributions, as the originator of Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST). Over the years since her seminal publication (Larsen-Freeman, 1997), CDST has evolved into a meta-theory that guides the field's thinking on a variety of developmental phenomena, not least the study of second language acquisition. As its theoretical potency rises, so does the need to achieve a tangible understanding of CDST's core constructs. In this paper, we empirically examine one such construct, co-adaptation, in the context of asynchronous dyadic interaction. A data corpus of 39 emails sent between two college students in China and the United States over the course of seven weeks is analyzed using NVivo 12. Co-adaptation is observed at the pragmatic, discourse, and linguistic levels. True to the spirit of CDST, we describe, and discuss the nuances of, our findings. Considering the novelty of our approach to data analysis, we end by reflecting on the limitations specific to our study, as well as worthwhile directions for future pursuits.

Hands-off data-driven learning is a data-based, student-oriented learning model characterized by inquiry and discovery. English context vocabulary teaching is the key to English teaching in colleges and an important indicator to evaluate the quality and level of college English teaching, which is a language teaching paradigm focusing on the language environment. Combining the two approaches can give students a more realistic, practical, and meaningful language learning experience. This paper analyzes the vocabulary learning level of two non-English major undergraduate classes at Southwest University of Political Science and Law before and after the application of the context experiment. The positive effect of context vocabulary teaching in the control groups is verified by comparing and analyzing the influence of context teaching based on hands-off data-driven learning on their scores and learning results between the experimental and control groups. It shows that the combination of context in English vocabulary teaching with hands-off data-driven learning can help to improve students' ability to understand, absorb, and apply English vocabulary.

This paper reviews the literature on English for Specific Purposes (ESP) research in 15 CSSCI foreign language journals in China's CNKI database over the last two decades. The data have been quantified and visualized with Citespace. This paper analyzes research advances and themes, and then puts forward suggestions based on the current situation of college English teaching in China. The findings reveal that: 1) ESP publications have shown a rising trend during the past 20 years; 2) The study of ESP in academic dissertations is mainly at the MA level; 3) ESP research focuses on such issues as relationships between ESP and college English, academic English, corpus and teaching modes; 4) The dominant method of ESP research in China is non-empirical while more and more empirical studies have emerged since 2011. This study also critically analyzes the research limitations and recommendations of the ESP study.

Peer response has gradually gained popularity in teaching English writing to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners in recently years. A number of researches have proved its advantages while Chinese English teachers are still doubting its validity and possibility. This paper aims to prove that incorporating peer response and teacher feedback is advantageous to EFL learners' English writing. It would start with the explanation of some key terms and then first examine the benefits of peer response to verify the necessity of introducing it to an English writing class for EFL learners. Then drawbacks of teacher feedback would be argued with the certification that it is corresponding to some advantages of peer response. Finally, the contribution of using peer response and teacher feedback together would be discussed to further attest the argument mentioned above. At the end of the paper, a conclusion will be made to generally summarize what has been discussed and how this relates to being a language professional. Hopefully, it could be informative and constructive for Chinese English teachers to take a closer step into the theoretical base of this teaching strategy which has been established by former researchers and seek for the possibility of its implementation in the real-setting classroom in EFL context.

Most people want to be able to read their reading materials quicker and remember them effectively. Covering a large quantity of reading materials at a normal speed requires much more time than is usually available. Good readers, however, can cover a lot of materials by identifying key elements of a sentence for key idea with the help of connectives when skimming. Constructivism theory emphasizes that students need to actively construct the meaning of their knowledge they have learned, and actively explore and discover knowledge. Syntax is the core of the whole language system with syntactic structure occupying a macroscopic and important position in improving students' language ability and language level in a real sense. This paper introduces and analyzes how to identify key elements of a sentence for key idea with the help of connectives under constructivism so as to find a practical and feasible reading strategy when skimming. It is advised that readers glance at secondary sentences by reading the connectives as they are helpful in getting possible additional information while successfully identifying key elements of a sentence for key idea. The method fundamentally helps students improve their reading speed and develop their skimming understanding ability. The research methods of this paper are the ones of experience, literature review, theoretical basis, the main language order and keen analysis. This paper concludes by understanding the method of identifying key elements of a sentence for key idea with the help of connectives in skimming practice when reading under constructivism theory and its role is to guide readers to apply the knowledge of subject-predicate-object grammatical rule as the main language order in the skimming practice to help readers to get the general meaning of a sentence, paragraph, passage and a text.

Aural decoding skill is an important contributor to successful EFL listening comprehension. This paper first described a preliminary study involving a 12-week undergraduate flipped decoding course, based on the flipped SEF-ARCS decoding model. Although the decoding model (N = 44) was significantly more effective in supporting students' decoding performance than a conventional decoding course (N = 36), two main challenges were reported: teacher's excessive workload, and high requirement for the individual teacher's decoding skills. To address these challenges, we developed a chatbot based on the self-determination theory and social presence theory to serve as a 24/7 conversational agent, and adapted the flipped decoding course to a fully online chatbot-supported learning course to reduce the dependence on the teacher. Although results revealed that the chatbot-supported fully online group (N = 46) and the flipped group (N = 43) performed equally well in decoding test, the chatbot-supported fully online approach was more effective in supporting students' behavioral and emotional engagement than the flipped learning approach. Students' perceptions of the chatbot-supported decoding activities were also explored. This study provides a useful pedagogical model involving the innovative use of chatbot to develop undergraduate EFL aural decoding skills in a fully online environment.

This paper aims to report on Chinese college students' emotions in English as a foreign language (EFL) speaking classrooms, including the trajectory of their emotions, and their perceived impacts of these emotions on their performances in class. Through conducting a case study among 12 Chinese college students and qualitatively analyzing the reflections and interview data collected over a semester, the present research, adopting the Positive Psychology perspective, reveals diverse emotions experienced by students in their EFL speaking classrooms. The emotions students felt were both complex and dynamic throughout the semester, and were found to interact with the changing internal and external factors, displaying a transition from the mixed emotions of excitement and anxiety to lower-intensity emotions (i.e., relaxation and boredom), and finally becoming inter-individually varied. As for the impacts of students' emotions, students believed that both positive and negative emotions were associated with their performances in class. The present study suggests that much attention should be paid to EFL college students' emotions in speaking classrooms both by themselves and by their teachers, and provides some possible sources of their emotions. In order to enhance students' psychological well-being and achieve better teaching effects, this study also recommends pedagogical practices that boost positive emotions and reduce negative emotions to be incorporated into EFL speaking classes.

Against the backdrop of globalisation, many English language teaching (ELT) curricula emphasise the need to promote awareness of intercultural communication. However, in many settings, the current ELT practices still predominantly focus on Anglophone cultures or interactions with Anglophone speakers, as the teachers and materials may not fully anticipate the cultural complexity and diversity the students will encounter in the future. This paper reports on a case study designed to build teachers' critical intercultural literacy through a series of workshops at a university located in southeast China, specifically aiming to train Chinese university teachers in how to challenge textbook content from a critical perspective. Through an analysis of interviews with teachers and their reflective journal entries, this paper examines how teachers made sense of critically-oriented teaching and it discusses the implications for developing a critical stance beyond the classroom informed by critical pedagogy and Global Englishes language teaching.

Based on peer feedback, this paper further explores the application of peer feedback training to English writing teaching in China. From the theoretical perspective, compared with teacher feedback, peer feedback is beneficial to motivate students to take the initiative in learning, practice the student-centered concept, and promote cooperative learning among students. Peer feedback training, namely peer feedback under teacher intervention in this paper, combines the advantages of teacher feedback and peer feedback, which can not only be accepted by learners but also achieve significant pragmatic effects. From a practical point of view, peer feedback training can be applied to teach large groups of students, thus reducing the pressure and burden of teachers and improving the quality of peer feedback. The results also show that peer feedback training mainly works during the training stage rather than the modification stage. It is crucial to pay attention to the mechanism of peer feedback training and apply it to practice to promote the quality of English writing teaching.

The various possibilities that social media offers to language learners and teachers have long been recognized by researchers within the field of language instruction, and many studies have been carried out in an attempt to address and unpack its potential contributions. This paper aims to review such research on the use of mainstream social media in language teaching and learning published in "Computer Assisted Language Learning," a top tier (i.e., Q1) journal indexed in major citation index systems (e.g., Arts & Humanities Citation Index, the Social Sciences Citation Index and Scopus), between the years 2016-2020 inclusive. For the purposes of the study, a total of 23 articles that meet the selection criteria is reviewed and presented in five sections. The first section deals with the majority of the articles, which are found to be on the use of social networking in language teaching and learning. In the following sections, studies on the use of videoconferencing, wikis, blogging and forums are discussed. Collectively, the studies reviewed in this paper outline a critical role for the use of social media in language instruction and the study aims to provide valuable insights for researchers, teachers and learners.

In China, the English Test Band 6 (CET6) is a national test that is used to assess the English proficiency of test-takers by the state with unified questions, unified fees, and unified organization of tests. It is held twice a year. This test has had a great impact on college students and college teachers. It was introduced in 1978. In 2016, the Ministry of Education reformed CET-6, especially in listening tests. The reformed listening test not only brings scenes and dialogues closer to daily life but also emphasizes the examination of students' comprehensive English listening and speaking ability. From the perspective of learners, this paper draws on the theoretical models and empirical results of washback at home and abroad and studies the backwash of the reformed English CET-6 listening to learners' listening learning through a questionnaire. To do the survey, the paper was surveyed by quantitative research methods with 60 samples in several public universities. After the collection and analysis of data, the authors have affirmed and determined this test has a significant washback effect on student learning.

Since the 1990s, the emphasis on intelligibility as a goal in pronunciation teaching rather than near-native or nativelike competence has been reinforced by the increasing use of English as a lingua franca. The insight of the intelligibility principle has greatly impressed researchers in China's English education, but has "very limited and weak" impacts on English pronunciation teaching and learning in China. English education in China has been systematically conducted from schools to universities under the direction of national syllabi and curriculum standards issued by the Ministry of Education. Using the documentary research method, this paper, the first try of its kind, takes a historical look at China's national syllabi and curriculum standards for schools issued after 1949, focusing on the conception of the nature and the role of pronunciation and pronunciation teaching, pronunciation goals, teacher's role, as well as requirements or suggestions about what to teach and how to teach. By tracing the process of developments in pronunciation teaching notions and principles that were and/or are officially advocated in China, the paper reveals two important facts. First, the English national syllabi and curriculum standards have encompassed both the nativeness principle and the intelligibility principle, though implicitly giving dominance to the former one, which in part accounts for the favor for the nativeness principle in formal English education, especially in schools, in China. Second, with the notion of English as a lingua franca adopted in the syllabi and curriculum standards, the intelligibility principle has been gaining more and more weight. Consequently, by elaborating that the two principles are by nature not incompatible, it is proposed that the current curriculum standards go further to take balanced attitudes towards the two principles so as to lead Chinese English teachers and students to set more realistic and instrumental-pragmatic pronunciation goals in line with varying English learning purposes. The findings and the proposal could be adopted by teachers and learners so as to change the school reality and may shed light on future relevant revisions of the current national English curriculum standards, teaching material development, teacher training, and pronunciation teaching methodology research.

As a public compulsory course for Non-English majors in colleges and universities, College Public English should not only develop students' language and cross-cultural communication skills, but also cultivate their correct outlook on life, values, world and native land emotion, which is consistent with the ideological-political goals of the course. English textbook is the guarantee for the smooth progress of English teaching, and more importantly, it is an important carrier to practice Chinese teaching ideas. This paper mainly focuses on how to integrate ideological-political elements into English teaching from textbook perspective. It discusses the measures of integrating ideological-political education into College English courses from four aspects: teaching objectives, unit themes, and knowledge points, grammatical structure and word explanation. It is finally pointed out that exploring and integrating ideological-political elements in textbooks is the key link to realize ideological-political education in College Public English courses.

The International Virtual Exchange Project (IVEProject) has been connecting students across multiple countries through asynchronous forums on a large scale since 2015. However, considering the variety of virtual exchange methods and the advantages they bring to the field of foreign language learning, there is an increased need to explore the pedagogical possibilities of combining asynchronous and synchronous modalities, particularly across multiple institutions and countries. This short article reports on a pedagogical innovation which involved adding synchronous sessions conducted over Zoom to the asynchronous IVEProject forums. The authors arranged eight weekly Zoom meetings in which students from China, India, Japan, Jordan, Palestine, Türkiye and Syria participated in May-July, 2021. After the final session, a survey was administered to participating students and their teachers to explore their experiences. The results show that the majority of students appreciated and benefitted from the opportunity to communicate synchronously with peers from other countries. The paper also reflects on the benefits and challenges of combining synchronous sessions alongside the asynchronous IVEProject forums, aiming to derive lessons learned from this project in the hope that this will aid future EFL instructors in creating engaging virtual exchange projects which involve participants from multiple cultures and countries.

Drawing from a larger CIPP program evaluation ("Context, Input, Processes, Products") comprised of 11 analyses of the ETS online teacher training course titled "Teaching Academic English with the TOEFL iBT® Test" (TAE), this paper triangulates three qualitatively different data sets and seeks to understand how participants responded to the TAE course. The research team considered self-reported data (closed- and open-answer survey questions), engagement data, and learning data. The self-reported data were strongly positive and illustrated the value participants reported having about the course content, especially ETS-created materials. Some gaps were indicated: calls were made for more materials--especially additional resources participants could use when teaching--and for increased interactions during the course workshop. In partial juxtaposition, the engagement data indicated that participants were engaging the course less than anticipated. The learning data simultaneously indicated that some assessments were quite easy for participants while elsewhere participants did not have the desired uptake of some topics. Viewing the three data sets together, the research team arrived at a more nuanced conclusion: despite participant satisfaction, development processes should continue, to ensure the highest quality teacher training program possible, in terms of its content, resources, and interactions.

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 Translation, with the goal of assessing test-takers' oral and written communicative language abilities in workplace contexts. Given that a revised version of ETIC with many structural changes has been in use since 2021, and the recent growth of interest in assessing communicative language abilities, a critical review of ETIC is warranted. Drawing on Kunnan's (2018) recent model of test fairness and justice, this review primarily evaluates the usefulness and fairness of ETIC Basic, ETIC Intermediate, and ETIC Advanced. Appraisals reveal that ETIC encompasses the philosophy of fairness, justice, and usefulness in the development, administration, and scoring procedures. There is, however, room for improvement in various areas, such as establishing a test inquiry and appeal service and keeping the channels of communication open. As reviewers, we hope this article will assist language testing researchers and practitioners, teachers and students, or even potential test-takers in better understanding the unique ETIC assessment scene in China and spark more discussions about communicative language testing worldwide.

This paper provides an experimental study of interlanguage phonological characteristics of Chinese students learning Thai as a foreign language and the accentedness perceived by native Thai speakers. Both production and perception experiments were designed to see how Chinese students acoustically produced Thai final nasal consonants and how Thai native speakers perceived these Chinese-accented nasals. The production experiment compared the acoustic features of Thai final nasal consonants (i.e. /m/, /n/, and /[eng]/) produced by Chinese students and native Thai speakers (n = 5 in each group), who provided speech samples from a wordlist reading task, consisting of 28 words (840 tokens). Nasal acoustic properties of 840 tokens (duration, nasal murmurs, and formant transitions) were examined. The findings showed that the Chinese students produced significantly longer nasal duration and more drastic formant transitions compared to the native speakers. The perception experiment analyzed how native Thai raters (n = 10) rated speech samples concerning degrees of accentedness by using a 5-point Likert scale with 5 as the most native level. Based on this, the native Thai raters rated the Chinese students' speech as 3.22 on average, while native Thai speech was judged with an average score of 4.65, which demonstrated that native Thai raters could distinguish foreign speech from those pronounced by native speakers. To find out to what extent nasal acoustic characteristics in Chinese students' interlanguage phonology contributed to the degree of accentedness, stepwise regression analyses were utilized to discover that nasal duration was particularly important in accurately predicting accentedness in Thai with Chinese accents.

Over the decades, extensive research efforts have been directed towards classifying and evaluating motivational teaching behaviours. Recent calls in motivational research, however, have emphasised the need to investigate teachers' perspectives on how they develop effective motivational strategies so that implications for motivational teaching are firmly grounded in real-life practices. This paper reports on a qualitative case study which explored how two IELTS teachers in a private language school in China selected and enacted motivational strategies that they perceived as context-appropriate. Background interviews, classroom observations, and post-lesson stimulated recall interviews were used to gain insight into the participants' motivational practices and rationales. The findings indicate that, despite the close correspondence between the teachers' enacted practices and theory-based motivational strategies defined by researchers, the teachers exhibited agentic capacities in managing a range internal and external mediators which enabled them to develop strategies that served concurrent pedagogical purposes and responded to the perceived multidimensional particularities and exigencies of their teaching contexts. Thus, The study moves beyond restricted analyses of the motivational implications of teaching techniques; rather, it argues for the need to appreciate the full complexity of teaching practices and re-conceptualise motivational strategies as multipurpose and the study of them as pedagogically holistic.

Teacher cognition has been an important agenda of language teacher education in recent decades, and it has advanced the field's understanding of L2 teachers' work. Thus far, language teacher cognition has been understood from different epistemological perspectives and researched with different methodological approaches. Given that teacher cognition is social and situational, more research is needed from an emic perspective to understand how teachers develop and renew their cognitions in their professional context. This paper adopts a discursive psychological perspective on teacher cognition, investigating novice teacher cognition using applied conversation analysis. As part of a more extensive study, the study offers an in-depth analysis of novice Chinese EFL teachers' thinking, knowing, understanding, conceptualising, and stance-taking regarding language teaching. The teachers were recruited through a combination of convenience and snowball sampling strategies. The dataset includes 330 minutes of classroom teaching, 217 minutes of interviews, and 605 minutes of video-based guided reflection on teaching. The data revealed the key theme in teachers' understanding of 1) focusing on linguistic knowledge, 2) establishing teacher authority, and 3) developing practical pedagogical knowledge. The findings reveal teachers' moment-by-moment cognition-in-interaction and multiple roles in facilitating learning. Substantial implications are put forward for teacher learning and teacher education.

The growth of Sino-foreign cooperative universities, departments and courses in China necessitates further discussion of how to develop teaching approaches that suit students attending these institutions. Despite substantial analysis of the commercial dimensions of Sino-foreign university partnerships, discussion of effective teaching strategies within these settings remains underdeveloped. This paper shares the author's experience of developing and delivering a Western civilization course to 210 students attending a Sino-foreign undergraduate program at a Chinese university over the course of one academic year. Specific attention is paid to how digital tools can be used to address the challenges of unfamiliar teaching styles, limited language comprehension, and the lack of prior exposure to course content. Student feedback and anecdotal observations are drawn upon to underscore the potential utility of certain digital course aids deployed in the classroom and lecture hall, as well as being accessible to students through an online platform.

This paper first explains the concept of creativity, then reviews the domestic and foreign researches on creativity, and then discusses the importance and basic principles of cultivating creativity of middle school students. Finally, the paper puts forward the ways to cultivate the creativity of middle school students. The purpose of this paper is to promote the development of the teaching theory and the renewal of the teaching concept so as to develop the creative teaching and research learning and further improve the quality education level.