Volume 44, Issue 2

There are both pedagogical and theoretical grounds for asking second language writers to plan before they start writing. The question then arises whether pre-task planning (PTP) improves written output. To address this question, this article reviewed 32 studies by comparing the effect of PTP either with no planning or with unpressured online planning (OLP). These studies also investigated the moderating effect of variables relating to the writer participants, the nature of the planning, and the writing tasks. The main findings are: (1) There is no clear evidence that PTP leads to better overall writing quality when this is measured using rating rubrics, (2) PTP generally results in more fluent writing, (3) its impact on syntactical and lexical complexity is inconsistent and negligible, (4) OLP does sometimes result in increased linguistic accuracy, and (5) there is insufficient evidence to reach clear conclusions about the role that moderating variables have on the impact of PTP, but the results suggest that collaborative (as opposed to individual planning) can lead to increased accuracy and that PTP tends to lead to more complex language when the writing task is a complex one. The article concludes with a set of principles to ensure better quality research and three general proposals for the kind of future research needed.

Although much research has been conducted on the interactions between the career development of foreign language teachers and their contexts around the world, a literature review reveals that there exists scanty research on the relationship between university Russian language teachers’ career development and their contexts in China since 1949. Based on relevant studies on the career development of foreign language teachers and the ecological theory, this paper involves research on the impact that different ecological systems (micro-, meso-, macro- and exo-ones) have played in the career development of Russian language teachers in China. Participants are 10 Chinese Russian teachers of different ages from different universities in different parts of China. Via literature review, narration methods and semi-structured (in-depth) interviews with the help of NVivo, this research finds that Russian language teachers ’ career development results from multi-faceted interactions of the following contexts: ideology, Russian language educational policies and personal factors as well as college contexts. This paper concludes with some suggestions for improving Russian language teachers’ career development in China.

Preceding works tend to explicate affordance through supposing what is happening here and now. They seldom relate it to actual social, diachronic activities, such as foreign language learning. To tackle this issue, this study explores how students actualize affordances in technology-enriched language learning environment (TELLE) by examining their perezhivanija (lived and emotional experience), a term borrowed from sociocultural theory. Because an individual’s social life is a developing process or a perezhivanie Perezhivanie is the singular form of perezhivanija. , it is necessary to base the research in a dynamic development of language learning to figure out how the affordances are actualized. Narrative interviews were adopted to collect data from three Chinese college students who learn English as a foreign language in a Northeastern university in China. The results showed that due to the students’ different past perezhivanija in English learning, their present interpretations of the perceived affordances in TELLE varied. This influenced hugely in their actions taken during their English learning in college to actualize the affordances. The findings indicated that the actualization of affordances is historical, dynamic and developmental instead of static. It does not lie in the autonomy of the students or the teachers, but in the institutional and cultural legitimacy of technology use in student’s social life. The paper contributes to the application of affordance theory in foreign language learning and provides implications to language teaching practice in TELLE.

The present paper is a response to the current problematic situation of oral English teaching at the tertiary level in China and the increasing popularity of web-based mobile oral English learning in oral English classes. Our paper focuses on the use of mobile-phone-based educational software known as “English Fun Dubbing” (EFD) and its advantages in terms of teaching and learning phonetics and oral English in the college classroom. The starting point was a needs analysis which revealed the lack of practice regarding English speaking. In this study, an action research method was adopted, involving 40 second-year students, who employed “classroom teaching + English Fun Dubbing” model as the intervention. Extensive examples from this model were used to build up a picture of the blended learning processes at work. Several imitation tasks, a conversational activity and a speech-delivering task were designed and implemented. Direct observation and the results of the questionnaire survey provided the evidence of the improvement in the students’ oral performance. It is our aim to develop the present project to incorporate oral proficiency. The main results of this action research were reflected in the adjustments in the pedagogical treatment, the changes in the role of the teacher and the student, and the shifts in the students’ attitudes towards their learning process.

The current study investigates a group of Chinese undergraduates’ perceptions of Chinese culture. It examines the discourses that the students drew on to assign meaning to Chinese culture and how the students used these discourses in constructing their Chinese cultural identity. A qualitative study was conducted collecting written self-reflective reports on critical intercultural incidents from 39 Chinese undergraduates at a university in Beijing. Questions designed to evoke reports from the students had them describe incidents in their past intercultural experiences that made them acutely aware of themselves “being Chinese” and specify aspects of Chinese culture that they felt such awareness could be attributed to. A discourse analysis reveals the multiplicity and contextuality of the students’ notions of Chinese culture. The findings raise important considerations for contemporary Chinese undergraduates’ cultural identity and their much debated “identity crisis.”

The launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in China calls for a paradigm shift in theory and practice of foreign language (FL) teaching from a communicative language teaching approach (CLT) to intercultural language teaching (ICLT), which treats intercultural communicative competence (ICC) as the core of FL education. Unfortunately, the College English Curriculum Requirements of China (CECR) does not specify the aspects for cultural teaching or assessment; nor does it provide any theoretical or practical guidance for teachers on how to teach or assess ICC. This leads to teachers’ confusion about what should be taught and assessed and how, hence to a deficiency in real actions. In this paper, we first outline the learning outcomes of ICLT-oriented courses, the ICC components which respectively fall into the categories of intercultural attitude, knowledge and skills. By presenting the pedagogical practice of a cultural literacy course, we also demonstrate how FL teachers can help learners achieve these learning outcomes through a five-stage instruction process. Finally, we discuss how these learning outcomes can be assessed using formative and summative assessment tools, especially how ICC components can be incorporated into a comprehensive test of FL.