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Teacher perspectives have been lacking in the mobile-assisted language learning (MALL) literature. To fill this gap, this study investigates how Chinese teachers implemented WeChat-supported language tasks and the challenges they encountered in the process. Based on technology-mediated task-based language teaching and authentic assessment frameworks, we designed tasks that aimed to achieve both pedagogical goals (focusing on linguistic forms and achieving authenticity) and technological goals. Teachers’ reflective journals revealed that implementing WeChat-supported tasks was a holistic and dynamic process, entailing four interrelated phases and requiring continuous management of unexpected events. This indicates that teachers should develop new skills and play complex, well-rounded roles to meet both the pedagogical and technological goals of technology-mediated tasks in MALL in the digital era.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, study abroad (SA) programs have undergone an urgent transfer to the online format. Although SA online has many merits toward sustainable international education in the post-COVID era, assuring the quality of these programs and sustaining students’ learning motivation have been key issues of concern. Moreover, there is still a lack of evidence derived from in-depth qualitative inquiries. To address these gaps, this study takes a close look at an individual’s story using a narrative approach to data analysis and employs an ecological perspective focusing on intentionality as the theoretical framework for exploring how the participant conquered the challenges when they transitioned to SA online. Successful plots identified include setting up the online learning environment, optimising the benefits of online learning, and sustaining students’ motivation to study. Several obstacles remained unsolved, such as the loss of interpersonal connection and empathy in online communication. This study concludes that the participant’s successful and unsuccessful encounters in enacting the affordances of online education were manifested by developed or undeveloped intentional actions as a result of individual-environment mutuality. Some implications are offered for constructing sustainable online SA environments that can diversify and innovate future international education experiences.

This paper reports on the implementation of a semester-long task in a university lower intermediate Chinese language course. Web-based podcasting technology, ChinesePod, was utilized to assist this implementation. The first part of this paper focuses on the task design informed by frameworks proposed in the literature. The second half of the paper presents and analyses data collected from an end-of-course questionnaire, semi-structured student interviews, and the written scripts of student self-made plays and videos of their performance of the play. The results reveal that the students differ in their perceptions of the task and the ways they approach it. This in turn leads to a quality difference in their performance of the task. This study highlights the importance of careful task design, recognition of individual learning styles and constant rapport with students, especially when student self-regulated tasks are implemented.

This paper reports on the implementation of a semester-long task in a university lower intermediate Chinese language course. Web-based podcasting technology, ChinesePod, was utilized to assist this implementation. The first part of this paper focuses on the task design informed by frameworks proposed in the literature. The second half of the paper presents and analyses data collected from an end-of-course questionnaire, semi-structured student interviews, and the written scripts of student self-made plays and videos of their performance of the play. The results reveal that the students differ in their perceptions of the task and the ways they approach it. This in turn leads to a quality difference in their performance of the task. This study highlights the importance of careful task design, recognition of individual learning styles and constant rapport with students, especially when student self-regulated tasks are implemented.

This research aims to examine university teacher and student perceptions of, and experiences in, e-learning in campus-based blended language learning environments at Australian universities. The blended environments examined in this research are those where campus-based face-to-face teaching is enhanced by the implementation of certain types of technology. It investigates why and how teachers adopted e-learning in their courses, their perceptions of the effectiveness of the blended e-learning and the possible barriers they face in the process. It also investigates how students perceived the connection between e-learning and face-to-face teaching and learning, whether they thought blended e-learning assisted their language learning for the course and what constituted their e-learning experiences in this blended environment. Specifically, their learning approaches to various e-learning tasks are examined. Most importantly, this study adopts an ecological perspective and explores the inter-relationships between teachers and students’ perceptions and experiences in the e-learning environment. This mixed methods research utilizes qualitative student and teacher interviews as well as quantitative student questionnaires and WebCT tracking records of student e-learning performances. Eighteen teachers and sixty students participated in this study and 19 of the 60 students also participated in the semi-structured interviews. The student participants are Chinese students taking a first-year beginners course in an Australian metropolitan university. The findings of this study indicate that learners play a decisive role in effective e-learning; however their role and the teacher’s role are inter-related and inter-dependent. e-Learning is most likely to result in desirable learning outcomes when teacher and student perceptions match in terms of interpretation of the learning environment, the designed goals of the e- learning tasks, the teacher and learner roles in the learning, and most importantly, when the learning approaches are effective for conducting self-regulated learning. For tertiary education where student-centred learning is highly valued and student profiles diversified, a better understanding of students’ experiences through contextualized and holistic research is a pre-requisite for good curriculum planning.