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Academic positions vary greatly as regards attitudes towards and expectations of global English around the world. In this paper, I focus on the English language learning context in China and use data collected during the period when Beijing was preparing for and hosting the 2008 Olympic Games (2006-2008) to examine how English and the study of English are perceived and accessed by learners engaged in teaching and learning English outside formal educational institutions, namely, Olympic community English classes and English corners. In particular, I will explore, via interviews and group discussions, the reasons underlying learners' voluntary choice of English learning; their perceptions of the status of English relative to Chinese in a globalizing context, the potential influence English imposes on Chinese language and culture, and the significance of English to Chinese society. My research findings show that my informants associate English (learning) with multiple benefits to life and career; they express a strong confidence that English will not be a threat to the Chinese language and culture and they claim that English is useful to the development of China both now and in the long run. In this paper, I posit that my informants' opinions reflect a view of the social world from a particular historical, economic or political perspective or several perspectives combined and I relate their positions on the global spread of English in China to issues of language ideologies. I believe that the nonlinguistic socio-economic, social-historical and socio-political factors exert a crucial role in the emergence of dominant ideologies. Hence, besides presenting and interpreting the prevailing English language ideologies as captured in the discourse of my research respondents, in the last part of the paper, I will explore the possible social, cultural and political factors which caused the ideologies of language to emerge and the implications borne out by these ideologies in the context of China's ongoing globalization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The correlation between motivational beliefs and foreign language learning has been widely explored. However, there has been little investigation of this link among learners with different foreign language levels. Based on expectancy-value theory (EVT), this research examined the association between motivational beliefs and English achievement of 11,854 Chinese secondary students. Data were collected using students' self-reported English self-efficacy, intrinsic value, utility value, and English achievement test. The results of ANOVA showed that self-efficacy, intrinsic value, and utility value of high-achieving English learners were significantly higher than that of medium-achieving ones, followed by low-achieving ones. Multiple regression analysis demonstrated that after controlling for socioeconomic status and gender, intrinsic value was most correlated with high- and medium-achieving learners' English achievement, followed by self-efficacy, while utility value was not significantly associated with English achievement of the two groups. In addition, utility value was most strongly related with low-achieving learners' English achievement, followed by intrinsic value, but self-efficacy was not positively linked with their English achievement. These findings not only extend EVT and validate the situative perspective of motivation research, but also have practical implications for foreign language education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which analyzes research on the Web-based educational tests in college English writing teaching in China from 2000 to 2009. The bibliometric study was based on papers taken from 10 Chinese journals of English language teaching. The article analyzes the effectiveness of the research and discusses implications for future development.

Mean dependency distance (MDD) and mean hierarchical distance (MHD) are two linguistic measures used in dependency syntax studies to investigate the syntactic features of compositions written by English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. However, their applicability and validity in differentiating proficiency levels and genre effects among Japanese as a foreign language (JFL) learners remain unknown. This study uses a longitudinal dataset that tracks 110 Chinese JFL learners over 12 months and examines their syntactic development as well as the effects of genres. The results indicate that both MDD and MHD effectively capture developmental and genre effects; moreover, both measures show significantly higher values in argumentative writing than narrative writing. However, the extent of genre effects over time is not the same in MDD and MHD. The findings provide new insights into the developmental characteristics of JFL learners' interlanguage and may contribute to evaluating syntactic complexity and developing automatic evaluation systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lexical complexity has been a key consideration of teaching preparation in determining grade appropriateness of teaching materials. However, the lack of quantified and defined standards for benchmarking lexical complexity has made it difficult for teachers when adapting source texts to target learners. This study has assessed quantitative differences in lexical complexity of exemplar texts at different points of schooling using a range of lexical diversity and sophistication features. The data consists of 2,372 texts from popular curriculum packages adopted from 1 to 12 grades of the English curriculum in China. One-way ANOVAs revealed significant differences in 16 out of 17 lexical complexity indices among different grades. Subsequent post hoc tests identified three lexical diversity features and four sophistication features that helped to differentiate exemplar texts across these 12 grades. These findings on the nature and role of lexical complexity have yielded new insights into the establishment of grade-level benchmarks for material preparation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent years have witnessed a growing body of research on the English learning of ethnic minority students in China, yet little is known as to how these students enact their agency to address the challenges they encounter in learning English. Through the lens of activity theory, this qualitative case study explored the manifestations and influencing factors of English learning agency of four first-year Uyghur university students. Data were collected through the students' journals, interviews, and documents, supplemented by the interview data from their teachers. The findings revealed that Uyghur students' English learning agency was manifested by reflecting on the gap btween themselves and their Han classmates and adjusting their English learning methods; adapting to the mode of all-English teaching and the rule of English presentation; using tools such as the Mandarin Chinese, English learning apps and the Internet; and seeking help from teachers, peers and other community members. The study also found that Uyghur students' agency was influenced by factors such as language proficiency, motivation, and personal learning experiences. Additionally, preferential policies of the state and the school, help from teachers and peers, and emotional support from family members also had an impact on their English learning agency. This study provides implications for the English teaching of ethnic minority students at universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study is contextualized onto three levels- the macro-level globalized context, the meso-level national context, and the micro-level of school contexts. Under the influence of these different contexts, this study is designed as a phenomenological study with the aim to understand the phenomenon of English learning and using perceptions, investment, and identity constructions of ten English major students in China through semi-structured interviews. In order to fulfill that goal, Darvin and Norton (2015)'s model provides a solid theoretical foundation for the researcher to investigate this critical educational phenomenon. The findings of the study include not only how participants reflect on their English learning experiences at different learning stages, but also how they exert their sense of agency and re-construct their English language identity in new environment. Findings also show the power of native English as a form of capital and the influence of authoritative voices on students' perceptions and language identity while students enter and transfer their English learning to teaching trajectories. By providing a critical and multi-layered approach, this study demonstrates how Chinese educational system institutionalizes native English and thus shapes English major students in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on semi-structured interview data to explore the conceptions of research held by College English teachers in China and the extent to which these conceptions are conducive to professional development. Our analysis highlights several tensions in the teachers' perspectives between doing research for publication and for pedagogical growth, between conducting theoretical research and practical research, between quantitative and qualitative perspectives, and between personal and external motivations for doing research. The data also illustrates how teachers' conceptions of such issues are informed by multiple and sometimes conflicting sources of advice and experience. The paper concludes with implications for how to make research engagement conducive to College English teachers' professional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The past three decades have witnessed a proliferation of research on Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' use of learning strategies, but little has been examined about the potential influence of learning contexts upon their strategic engagement. This paper reports on the findings of an investigation of the impact of learning contexts upon the use of learning strategies of two cohorts of EFL learners in China. Both cohorts were non-English majors, one from a university where English is the medium of instruction (EMI) and the other from an EFL university. The data were collected using questionnaires and semi-structured interviews. Results reveal that learners from the EMI university demonstrated a higher level in their overall use of learning strategies over their counterparts from the EFL university. Independent T-test shows that the two cohorts were significantly different in their use of cognitive, meta-cognitive, affective and social strategies. These findings were discussed from a socio-cultural perspective. Implications are presented for the reform of English language education in China and beyond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the needs and challenges of using English as a medium of instruction in Hong Kong universities, where oral Cantonese and written Chinese are the more dominant local languages. It then presents one way of trying to address the needs of the students in these institutions by reporting on the Scaffolding Literacy in Academic and Tertiary Environments (SLATE) project, which was an attempt to adopt a genre-based approach to literacy teaching at a large English-medium public university in Hong Kong. Drawing on work done by the Sydney School genre theorists (Rose & Martin 2012), the SLATE team first profiled the literacy needs of students in particular disciplines. They then used these field-specific understandings of language to develop pedagogical material to scaffold students from non-English speaking background into developing discipline-specific understandings of language. This material was embedded into literacy support for the students within the core units of study of the discipline. In embedding this support, the SLATE team adapted the Teaching Learning Cycle (Rothery 1996) to an online context. In order to do this, they theorised feedback as Negotiated Construction and used it to help students understand some of the features of academic writing. The project described here demonstrates the viability of adopting genre-based approaches to language and literacy teaching in online environments to support the needs of non-English speaking students in institutions where English is the medium of instruction in Hong Kong and elsewhere. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Teacher monologue has received scant attention in English as a foreign language (EFL) classrooms which emphasise the teacher-and-student exchange. This study assumes that a key index of interaction would be the construction of knowledge, in which teacher monologue has a due role to play. The research is set in the context of EFL teaching at the tertiary level in China and examines teacher monologue with reference to the concept of making semantic waves in Legitimation Code Theory, which has been proved to be an important means of cumulative knowledge building in classroom practice. Systemic Functional Linguistics is used to analyse how semantic waves are generated on the ideational base of context dependency, i.e. the extent to which the reality construed in teacher monologue is dependent on its context. The transdisciplinary perspective attempts to provide one possible way to model linguistic choices in making semantic waves in EFL classrooms. The findings are the primary and secondary categories of semantic patterns representing a scale of context dependency. Semantic waves trace recurrent movements between relatively decontextualised and context-dependent meanings in the progression of semantic patterns. The shifts might scaffold students in the construction of knowledge essential for developing academic English proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Well known to students of rhetoric, classics, and the history of education, Quintilian's Institutes of Oratory also merits the attention of EFL teachers and scholars who deal with public speaking and written composition. Although created in ancient Rome 2,000 years ago, the Institutes is replete with insights that are as applicable today as in Quintilian's time. After providing historical background on Quintilian and his masterwork, this article examines his comprehensive program of speech education, his explication of the symbiotic relationship between speech and writing, and his notion of the good person speaking (and writing) well as the ideal of ethical communication. In the process, it touches upon numerous issues germane to English language educators in China and to EFL teaching and research in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study explores the effects of structured input and structured output when delivered in isolation or in combination on the acquisition of the English causative. Research investigating the effects of processing instruction and meaning output-based instruction has provided some interesting and sometimes conflicting results. Additionally, there are a number of issues (e. g., measuring a combination of structured input and structured output, measuring discourse-level effects) that have not been fully and clearly addressed. To provide answers to the questions formulated in this study, two classroom experiments were carried out. In the first study, fifty-four Chinese university students (age 18–20) participated. The participants were randomly assigned to four groups: structured input only group (n=13); structured output only group (n=15); combined structured input and structured output group (n=16); control group (n=10). In the second study, thirty school-age Greek learners (age 10–12) participated. The participants were randomly assigned to three groups: structured input only group (n=10); structured output only group (n=10); combined structured input and structured output group (n=10). Only subjects who participated in all phases of each experiment and scored lower than 60 % in the pre-tests were included in the final data collection. Instruction lasted for three hours. The control group received no instruction on the causative structure. Interpretation and production tasks were used in a pre-test and post-test design. The design included a delayed post-test battery (3 weeks after instruction) for both experiments. In the first study, the assessment tasks included an interpretation and production task at sentence-level, and an interpretation task at discourse-level. In the second study, an additional discourse-level production task was adopted along with the interpretation discourse-level task. The results indicated that learners who received structured input both in isolation and in combination benefitted more than learners receiving structured output only. These two groups were able to retain instructional gains three weeks later in all assessment measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study explores variation in L2 motivation (Ideal L2 self and Ought-to L2 self) of 88 Chinese English university learners in China over a one-year period. It examines change in L2 motivation and the evolving relationship with other measures at three data collection points. No significant changes were found in Ideal L2 self values but Ought-to L2 self values increased significantly between Time 1, 2 and 3. Regression analyses suggest that the significant increase in values of Ought-to L2 self is affected by different motivational factors at various times. We claim that perceptions of the dynamic variation can be obscured in conventional statistical analyses because of the graphical representation of mean values of groups at different times. The use of bubble graphs representing number of participants whose values increase, decrease or remain stable between data collection points, shatters the false impression of stability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether English-medium instruction (EMI) has an impact on Chinese undergraduates' English proficiency and affect in English learning and use. A cross-section of 136 sophomores and juniors were drawn from an English-medium and a parallel Chinese-medium program. Data included: (a) participants' scores on two national standardized English proficiency tests; (b) their English-related affect as measured by three scales adapted from Gardner's (2004) Attitude/Motivation Test Battery; (c) their perceptions of EMI in Chinese tertiary education elicited with a survey developed by the Chinese Ministry of Education (2006), and (d) interviews with 10 focal students from the English- and Chinese-medium programs. Results showed no statistically significant effect of medium of instruction on English proficiency or affect in English learning and use. However, extent of satisfaction with EMI, perceived necessity for EMI, and perceived increases in study burden had statistically significant effects on the outcome measures. Additionally, prior English proficiency was the strongest predictor of subsequent English proficiency and English-related affect. These findings raise concerns about the quality of the focal English-medium program and point to students' perceptions of EMI and prior English proficiency as crucial influences on further language learning and use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the use of English vocabulary learning strategy in a key middle school in China. It establishes the correlation between strategies and beliefs in identifying their roles in vocabulary learning. The findings reveal that language teachers need to collaborate with parents to support young learners' strategic vocabulary learning.

The article presents information on a study conducted on the benefits of using Wikis in English language education in China and Great Britain. Researchers have found that Web 2.0 tools, that include including Blogs, Facebook, Wikis, YouTube, and Podcasts, provide opportunities for students to discuss language learning materials through online resources; and also offer opportunities to communicate with people at large distances through the Internet.

Extending Lee's (Pragmatics 15: 395--422, 2005) work, the researcher further investigates the requestive behaviour of a group of Cantonese learners of English (CLEs) in Hong Kong in terms of their strategy and linguistic preference. The data were collected from a discourse completion test (DCT). Their requestive behaviour is studied in three social and power hierarchical situations (low--high, equal--equal and high--low) in the university context and is compared with a group of native Cantonese speakers' (NCSs) and native English speakers' (NESs) requestive behaviour, respectively. The dual comparison results in three important findings. First, the evidence shows some L1 influence on the syntactic structure of the CLEs' query preparatory strategy. The equivalent interrogative form of (Nei1/Ngo5) ho2 ji5/h2 m ho2 ji5: (you/I) can/can-not-can in Cantonese and Can/Could/May you/I ......? in English contributes to the frequent use of the CLEs' indirect requestive behaviour in English. Nevertheless, the difference in direct and indirect strategies between the two groups is significant ( p < 0.005). Second, there is cross-cultural agreement on indirect requestive behaviour in the three situations between the CLEs and the NESs. Both groups use the politeness marker of cing2 or please to mitigate imposition and increase politeness. However, the CLEs demonstrate limited pragmalinguistic resources to enhance the force and politeness of the speech act compared to the NESs. The strengths and weaknesses of CLEs' requestive behaviour, their limited pragmalinguistic resources and the limitations of the study are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]