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Time-travel television dramas have recently gained tremendous popularity worldwide. Defying stereotypes of romance TV dramas as women’s genres, time-travel romance TV drama genres seem to have attracted young men and women of different walks of life. Informed by positioning theory and Bakhtin’s heteroglossic dialogism, this study investigates a group of bilingual Mainland Chinese, heterosexual postgraduate students’ consumption of a Chinese time-travel TV drama, Scarlet Heart. It is found that well-educated Mainland Chinese women and men are still confronted with dilemmas of gender role boundaries and pressure to subscribe to traditional gender values. However, the time-travel TV drama has enabled the interviewees to negotiate new gender relations when they assign different positions to the female protagonist and themselves in the discussion. It is therefore proposed that time-travel TV dramas can be appropriated as dialogic resources for ideological becoming and critical literacy activities for facilitating construction of alternative subject positions and identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper responds to the prevalent discourse on the ‘lack of English proficiency’ among EMI teachers in contexts where English is used as an additional language. It explores how AI-powered tools, particularly ChatGPT, enable EMI teachers in Taiwan to leverage their expertise and teach in English with more confidence. This study first describes the training of an EMI PD programme. Then it reports on the challenges and strategies, and the extended and innovative use by EMI teachers after the training. By reporting on the experiences of three EMI teachers, this study shows how collaborating with ChatGPT contributes to developing an empowered EMI teacher identity. This study fills a research gap, shedding light on the transformative potential of collaborating with ChatGPT to transform content teachers’ identities into an EMI teacher identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article drew on the recent dynamic, distributed view of translanguaging and flows and the New Materiality view of meaning making to explore content and language integrated learning (CLIL) activities in an English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) secondary Science classroom. Fine-grained analysis of the multilingual and multimodal classroom interactions between a Cantonese-speaking Science teacher and her Urdu-speaking students exemplified how students and teacher engaged in dynamic translanguaging, trans-semiotizing and trans-registering. The analysis supports the dynamic, heteroglossic, trans/languaging view of language learning and sheds light on some of the current queries about translanguaging. 本文應用學者近年提出的動態分散性超語流動觀 和新唯物意義構建觀 兩種理論對以英語作爲教學語言(EMI)的中學科學課堂中内容與語言融合教學 (CLIL)的活動進行了探索, 透過精細地分析課堂上母語為廣東話的科學教師與其母語為烏都語的學生之間多語多模態的課堂互動, 為師生如何投入動態超語, 超符號及超語域的交流提供了示例。 數據分析支持動態的、話語混雜的、超語的語言學習觀, 並為目前有關超語的一些疑問提供了解釋。 This article explored the content and language integrated learning (CLIL) activities in an English-Medium-Instruction (EMI) secondary Science classroom based on two recent theories of translanguaging and meaning making. The detailed analysis of classroom interactions between a Cantonese-speaking Science teacher and her Urdu-speaking students offered an example of how students and teacher engaged in multilingual and multimodal interactions during CLIL lessons. The findings of this research shed light on some of the current queries about translanguaging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Upholding a critical, ethical, multilingual stance presents numerous challenges amidst a myriad of institutional, infrastructural, and societal pressures. Despite significant breakthroughs, such as translanguaging theories and pedagogies and the evolution of English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) principles, the journey towards a more inclusive and equitable English language education remains fraught with difficulties. Monolingual English continues to dominate assessments and academic publishing, and critical scholarship often appears powerless. I discuss the need for critical research to be grounded in praxis and discuss the struggle of EMI researchers against entrenched and renewed coloniality within increasingly neoliberalized academic institutions. I explore these contradictions in an imaginary dialogue between multiple voices. I then propose a research initiative ('PAA-STELE') aimed at overcoming the dominance of monolingual English assessment. I conclude that through collective action and a steadfast commitment to critical-ethical principles, we may effect change, albeit slowly and incrementally, within the English language education field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When 'decoloniality' and 'decolonizing' have become words frequently used in conferences and journal publications in our field of Applied Linguistics/Language and Education, as well as on many academics' lips, we start to worry about how they too can be easily co-opted as buzz words emptied of their critical meaning and actional potential and become appropriated as discourses with symbolic capital to add to one's portfolio for academic promotion. What Kubota (2016) has cautioned about translanguaging can be equally true of the scholarship on decoloniality: ... its knowledge is becoming another canon – a canon which is integrated into a neoliberal capitalist academic culture of incessant knowledge production and competition for economic and symbolic capital (p. 475). In this paper, we write about the pains, memories, fears, hopes and desires associated with experiencing colonizing acts across different timescales: in one's everyday life (e.g. micro aggressions in social interactions), in how one's own sense of self and the world (subjectivity) is shaped and reshaped (e.g. through academic socialization), and in embarking on what can be done to change the various social structures of (both colonial and other kinds of) domination and subordination. The journey is never purely academic or intellectual as it is always embodied, evoking painful memories, fears and discomfort. And from this journey of sorting out what has happened to us (and many people like us) who have been subjected to the exercising of colonial power mediated through many diverse agents, across many shorter-timescales happenings as well as longer-timescales events and processes (Lemke, 2000, 2008), we aim at finding a pathway ahead that is over and beyond just research publications and presentations. No doubt, research publications and presentations are important as a starting point, but they must lead to some further actions for them to be truly decolonizing (and not just 'knowledge about decolonizing'). Then we'll propose a tentative thinking and planning tool to work with teachers, students, administrators, policy makers and most importantly ourselves, to grasp what it means/what it takes, and simultaneously begin to work, to 'decolonize' ourselves, our curriculum, our pedagogy, our scholarship and then gradually our field of Language Studies and Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In content and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms, it is assumed that non-language content subjects provide more authentic communicative contexts for students to learn a foreign/second/additional language (L2). However, learning abstract concepts and academic language in an L2 simultaneously is also challenging for CLIL students. It is thus important for CLIL teachers to unpack and repack both abstract concepts and academic discourse for the students. 'Semantic waves', which model classroom practices of both unpacking and repacking, is arguably a key to understanding cumulative knowledge-building. Applying the concepts of semantic profiles and semantic waves, this paper analyses the classroom discourse of two CLIL science lessons in Hong Kong. In one lesson, the semantic profile mainly consists of downward shifts. The teacher adopted various useful strategies to unpack science concepts, especially with multimodalities, everyday L2 and students' L1 resources. Yet, there was limited repacking. In contrast, some repacking was observed in another lesson, where the teacher provided explicit instruction on academic language and guided students through academic writing tasks. A semantic wave can thus be observed there. These findings on strategies for unpacking and repacking provide significant insights into knowledge building in CLIL contexts, and may hence illuminate CLIL pedagogical practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translanguaging and trans-semiotizing research has problematized the static view of language and argued that meaning making is a dynamic, material, social, and historical process across multiple timescales in complex eco-social systems. The second author proposed the concept of trans-semiotizing as an alternative lens to study language teaching and learning. In this autoethnographic study, the dynamic processes of online language learning and teaching are examined by analysing the semiotic resources, trans-semiotic practices, and the coordination of different semiotic resources. To capture such dynamic processes and the semiotic resources involved, the first author setup multiple cameras and used screen recording to document my teaching. Data include recordings of my computer screens, video recordings of my physical environment, facial expressions, body movements, screen shots of my social media posts, and my teaching notes. We draw on Lemke's dynamic eco-social system concept to discuss how semiotic resources are used in online language teaching and learning across different timescales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although people may readily refer to Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.S. as Anglophone countries, recent demographic and sociolinguistic profiles of these countries indicate that they are actually both Anglophone and multilingual, and in some of their cities, even more multilingual than Anglophone. Recent research also indicates that when plurilingual approaches to teaching and learning were tried out in these settings challenges arose due to the 'either-or' binary thinking often found in institutional policies and among some instructors. In this paper, the rich semiotic practices and repertoires of migrant and international students are discussed to call for a shift from a deficit model to an asset model of teaching. Some possible ways to break through these 'either-or' binaries are offered through using a heteroglossic, plurilingual lens. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we address the epistemological conflict inherent in the relationship between named languages and translanguaging theory. Following with interest Turnbull's (2016) reframing of foreign language education as bilingual education and García's (2017) response, we see the logic of this reframing, but we also acknowledge García's concern that the notion of deficit lies at the heart of language learning as it is commonly conceptualized, and this deficit construct sits uncomfortably within translanguaging epistemology. In the article, we draw on Bakhtin's (1981) dialogical theory of language, Thibault's (2011) distributed language view and the theoretical construct of desire as both a lack and an energy (Ahmed 2010) to suggest that the naming of languages needs to be incorporated into translanguaging theory in a way that acknowledges the social construct of 'named languages' as integral to the expansion of one's linguistic repertoire as a whole. We make this suggestion in order to help develop translanguaging theory from a subaltern to a majority theory. We further suggest that language education can play a significant role in furthering the translanguaging project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the roles of multimodality and thematic patterns in the teaching of the particle model of matter. Although the particle model is a fundamental topic in science education, there is no consensus on (1) whether or not the model should be introduced in early grades and (2) how to introduce the model to students for the very first time. Drawing from teacher development projects in Sweden (Grade 3) and in Hong Kong (Grade 7), we suggest that the learning and teaching of the particle model can be facilitated by utilising a variety of modes. With multimodal scaffolding, Grade 3 students were able to demonstrate aspects of the particle model related to the expansion of gases in a warmer environment. The paper illustrates teaching episodes from the two projects in terms of (i) aspects of the particle model that were constructed using different semiotic modes, (ii) shifts in the salience of different modes in the teaching and learning process, and (iii) a thematic pattern that the classroom interactions adopted to explain puzzling phenomena. For a theoretical advancement, we suggest that thematic analysis should be extended to multimodal interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While translanguaging research has been gaining currency worldwide, calls have been made for deepening its theorisation and providing more systematic pedagogical guidance. To contribute to this discussion, this study is informed by a fluid, distributed, dynamic process view of human meaning-making. Through a fine-grained multimodal analysis of classroom activities and interactions, it elucidates the translanguaging/trans-semiotising practices of an experienced science teacher trying out a CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) approach inspired by the Multimodalities-Entextualisation Cycle (MEC) in a Grade 10 biology class in Hong Kong. Post-lesson interviews and survey indicated that such practices generated a positive impact on the students in the continuous flow of knowledge co-making. Implications of the study for furthering the theorisation and practices of translanguaging/trans-semiotising will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Translanguaging theories emphasize a fluid, dynamic view of language and differ from code-switching/mixing theories by de-centring the analytic focus from the language(s) being used in the interaction to the speakers who are making meaning and constructing original and complex discursive practices. Trans-semiotizing theories further broaden the focus to analyse language as entangled with many other semiotics (e.g. visuals, gestures, bodily movement) in meaning making. In this paper recent developments in trans/languaging and trans-semiotizing theories are discussed in conjunction with fine-grained classroom analyses to illustrate the key role played by trans/languaging and trans-semiotizing practices in the dialogic construal of content meaning in content-based education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Content-based education programmes, in which a second/foreign language (L2) is used as the medium of instruction when teaching non-language content subjects, aim at both content and L2 learning. With such dual goal in mind, and with the rapid expansion of the programmes to contexts where students might have only basic L2 proficiency, there have been consistent calls for reconsidering the roles of first language (L1) in the teaching and learning process. The functions of L1 in content-based classrooms have been well documented, but it is necessary to have a more systematic approach to planning and using L1. This paper seeks to address this gap by applying the notions of 'curriculum genres' and 'task structure' when analysing patterns of teachers' use of L1 and L2 in a collection of content subject lessons observed in English-medium secondary schools in Hong Kong. With illustrative episodes presented in this paper, we would argue that 'curriculum genres' and 'task structure' can serve as useful tools for both researchers and teachers to analyse and critically reflect on patterns of pedagogic practices and language use in content-based classrooms. These will have significant implications for future research on using L1 and illuminate effective pedagogy in content-based education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, the role of translanguaging in facilitating content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is examined in connection with the notion of academic language across the curriculum in multilingual contexts. Ethnographic naturalistic observations and interviews were conducted to analyse translanguaging in the dynamic flow of interactions among South Asian ethnic minoritized students and their science teacher in a CLIL classroom in Hong Kong. The analysis shows that despite dominant school and government policies that impose a monolingual medium of instruction, translanguaging naturally flows from the dynamic interactions and activities in the classroom as both teacher and students are intensely engaged in meaning making about the lesson topics. Drawing on a recent theoretical explication of translanguaging and flows, the notion of translanguaging is further explicated with new theoretical and empirical import from the distributed language view. Pedagogical implications for CLIL are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, an excerpt of teacher–student interaction in an EFL junior secondary science classroom in Hong Kong is analysed using the conversation analytic method of sequential analysis. The fine-grained analysis reveals that in the teacher's effort to engage her students in the co-construction of a scientific proof, the students' familiar everyday discourses (e.g. students' examples and experiences as expressed in their familiar language) need to be allowed to play a significant role. It also shows how translanguaging can be well-coordinated with multimodal practices (using blackboard drawings, gestures) to facilitate students' meaning-making in the inquiry-based teacher–student dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the authors discuss topics within the issue, including content and language integrated learning (CLIL), the use of multilingual practices in CLIL, and how CLIL frameworks can impact English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students.

Content and language integrated learning (CLIL) is a rapidly growing area of both research and practice in all parts of the world, especially in Europe and Asia. As a young discipline, CLIL has a good potential of distinguishing itself from monolingual L2 immersion education models by becoming more flexible and balanced about the role of L1 in CLIL lessons. Although recent years have witnessed increasing research on the potential role of L1 in foreign language teaching [e.g. Littlewood, W., & Yu, B. 2009. First language and target language in the foreign language classroom. Language Teacher, 42, 1–14], monolingual immersion ideologies are still dominant in many contexts in the world (especially in Southeast Asia) because of a whole host of ideologies. The beliefs affecting medium of instruction policies and practice have their roots in the traditional tenets (e.g. the maximum input hypothesis) in the discipline of second language acquisition (SLA). Although these tenets are increasingly being countered by recent research in multilingualism [see May, S. (Ed.). (2014). The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education. New York: Routledge, for a critique of these tenets], SLA still has an influence on pedagogies in both immersion and CLIL programmes. In this paper, I shall first critically review these deep-rooted monolingual tenets. Then, I shall discuss how we can conceptualise the potential role of L1 in CLIL and by extension in content-based instruction (CBI), as both CLIL and immersion programmes are considered to be key approaches to CBI. I shall conclude with suggestions for future research in CLIL. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT Chen's book, Asia as Method (Duke University Press, 2010), and his theorization on topics of de-imperialization, de-colonization, de-cold war, as well as on foregrounding epistemologies and frames of reference situated in the diverse contexts in Asia have contributed to empowering scholars and researchers situated not only in Taiwan, but also in many parts of the world. His critical cultural studies project in linking up scholars both inside and outside of Asia and in putting forward counter-discourses to the binary 'the West and the rest' knowledge structures and knowledge production practices has important implications for critical curriculum and education work. My essay review will focus on the implications of his notion of 'Asia as Method' and his 'strategy of critical syncretism' in exploring and designing critical curriculum and education inquiry that seeks to transform deep-rooted colonial, imperialist, and cold war subjectivities. These subjectivities are part of the cultural and psychic aftermath of various imperialist, colonial, and cold war histories, the impact of which is still with us today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the colonial history of university education in Hong Kong, and recent changes in the governance of university education driven by global management discourses are discussed. With the systemic penetration of global economic rationalism, Hong Kong university education has gone through structural changes that include funding-linked evaluative policies and practices. Market imperatives and institutionally defined notions of research performance based mainly on English-language, overseas journal publications are exerting strong influence on the cultural practices and life styles of academics and stand to significantly change academic and intellectual culture in higher education in Hong Kong. The long-term consequences of these local interpretations and adaptations of global processes will be discussed in terms of their potential impact on academic freedom, the shaping of intellectual space, the intensification of competitive institutional research output, and the risk of privileging certain forms of knowledge production that puts aside local societal needs, indigenous knowledge and epistemologies. The views of experienced Hong Kong academics in the humanities and social sciences, as expressed in in-depth individual interviews, are also discussed. These are then interpreted with reference to Habermas' notion of different kinds of knowledge-constitutive interests (Habermas 1971) and Foucault's notion of the technology of discipline power to uncover the state's implicit transformation and shaping of the social and epistemological bases of academic and intellectual pursuits and the increasing trend of individualization of intellectual communities into isolated, individualistic, competitive knowledge workers (Foucault 1977). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including one by Jonathan Donner on cellular phone use in developing countries and another by Bart Barendgret on cellular phone use in Indonesia.

The gendered nature of modernity in the European Enlightenment tradition has naturalized and institutionalized an essentialist, binary system of masculinity and femininity. A similarly hierarchicalized, binary system of gender role relationships also underlies the Confucianist social order in East Asian cultural traditions. Our recent study of some educated, Chinese, heterosexual men's consumption of Korean TV dramas in the late/post-industrial (but not post-capitalist) society of Hong Kong, however, shows that while the binary gender boundaries are increasingly being destabilized and crossed over in their everyday lived experiences, these boundaries are also simultaneously being nostalgically hung onto by some of the men in their pleasurable consumption of Korean dramas. The implications of their consumption practices are discussed in terms of the dilemmas faced by some Hong Kong men when they are confronted with the increasing destabilization of the gender role boundaries and how they use Korean dramas to negotiate new gender relations in modern day Hong Kong society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides a preliminary literature review of earlier studies related to short messaging services (SMS). The social impact of new mobile communication technologies is analyzed. Mobile text messaging has fulfilled an important function which provides a sense of co-presence for young people who lack the means to share some private physical space free from adults' surveillance. A study in Taiwan found that SMS is used to negotiate subtle gender relations especially among couples. The increasing popularity of text messaging in Hong Kong is discussed.

This paper proposes to overcome the traditional essentialist and dichotomous ways of conceptualising language and language pedagogies, i.e. to go beyond linguistic purist perspectives. Analysing bilingual teaching practices in a science lesson, the paper proposes that practical bilingual pedagogies can be developed to help students in bilingual education programmes to access dominant linguistic resources and discourses by capitalising on their indigenous linguistic and cultural resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses postcolonial perspectives related to teaching of English to speakers of other languages.

In this article we critically analyse our own autobiographical narratives and use the collective story as a format to tell our stories of learning and teaching English in different sociocultural contexts. We discuss how this local, socioculturally situated knowledge can contribute to the knowledge of the discipline and a re-visioning of the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I analyse pupil-teacher dialogue, in a mixture of English and Cantonese, from a segment of a Form 2 (Grade 8,13-14 yrs) English reading lesson. The lesson was videotaped in a working-class school in Hong Kong, and the excerpt is taken from a larger corpus of similar lesson data videotaped in the class over three consecutive weeks. The analysis shows how these Cantonese children, with limited English, succeeded in subverting the reading lesson, which was based entirely on information extraction tasks. Instead, they negotiated their own preferred comic-style narratives by cleverly making use of the response slots of the IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback) discourse format used in the lesson. Thus they achieved genuinely creative responses, in spite of the curriculum. The implications for teaching are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]