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This qualitative study investigated the impact of online education on the learning and peer interaction experiences of students from eight universities in Hong Kong over the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It employed an expansive and spatial notion of translanguaging to explore the process by which students drew on the affordance of virtual communication environments to communicate, study and develop new identities. The findings suggested (1) the students strategically mobilised manifold multimodal resources to constitute their communicative repertoires that facilitated smooth intercultural communication and academic success; (2) such communicative competence centralized the mediating effect of digital semiotic systems and thus might empower the students with disadvantaged language skills; and (3) through translanguaging acts the students developed a virtually translocal identity with an expanded experience of internationalisation of higher education whereby the increasingly interwoven physical and virtual spaces bring extended social networks, learning resources, and career opportunities. The implications of the findings were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While translanguaging has gained increasing recognition as a multiliteracy pedagogy in English-medium instruction (EMI) education, research exploring its implementation in STEM classroom contexts remains limited. Furthermore, the interplay of EMI teachers' professional identities and their instructional strategies has received little attention. This qualitative study explores how STEM academics in an EMI programme in China implemented translanguaging pedagogy, developed their professional identities, and examined the impact of identity on their classroom instructional language use. Drawing upon nexus analysis, the study maps the intersecting discourses influencing two EMI lecturers' divergent language ideologies and translanguaging strategies. The findings highlight the role of teacher identity and agency in navigating institutional and classroom discourses, facilitating planned and effective translanguaging pedagogy. The study reveals identity struggles within the examined institution, where academic staff faced a challenge in balancing their roles as effective EMI teachers and successful researchers due to a discourse of research meritocracy and were constrained in exploring translanguaging pedagogy due to a discourse of internationalism. These challenges undermined their motivation to invest in teaching identity and pedagogical skills. This study underscores the need for a balanced view of research and teaching, more robust teacher evaluation systems, and institutional support to foster effective translanguaging pedagogy in EMI by incorporating teacher identity construction into EMI teacher preparedness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

AI-powered language tools (AILTs) are commonly used by university students, yet there is a limited understanding of how students utilise and perceive these tools in everyday academic communication practice. Employing a post-humanist lens and based on over 1700 open-ended comments from a nationwide student survey, this qualitative study examined students' lived AILT experiences to explicate the impact of AILTs on academic communication in higher education learning and assessment. Thematic analysis of the data shows that students' academic writing is realised by assemblages of distributed spatial and personal linguistic repertoires, underscoring AILT's role in enhancing students' communicative performance and personal language development. AILTs are also conducive to transforming the academic writing process into an additional learning space. Students have developed a new identity as spatially advised learners, enabling them to assert their agency in terms of language development and subject-content knowledge while also holding critical perspectives on the limitations of AI. Furthermore, the findings point to divergent and eclectic student viewpoints on the ethical concerns of AILTs in assessment in the absence of university instructions. The study discusses implications for university policymaking and pedagogy in developing teaching and assessment methods that match students' stances and needs in AI-mediated academic communication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]