School of Languages at XJTLU Conference 2024

Virtual reality (VR) technology, which surged during the pandemic, has been instrumental in facilitating language acquisition by providing an engaging, virtual learning environment. This tool continues to benefit teachers and students in post-pandemic time. The teacher and researcher designed a few VR settings in the XJTLU VR Lab based on textbook material (Road to Success 2). In this presentation, the researcher intends to share the design and utilization of two most favoured VR settings voted by student participants in her class, and the corresponding feedback from questionnaire. One setting is restaurant, where real-life menu photo was shown to participants. International participants were encouraged to interact with their Chinese language partners and exchange knowledge about food culture. The cultural aspect of the restaurant setting empowered international students to express themselves. The other popular setting is library, where learners saw virtual book shelfs, fetched or placed the books as they liked. As they moved the virtual books around, international student participants practiced a new-learned difficult sentence structure “complement of direction” (V+ 来/去). With frequent practice of the structure and instant feedback from Chinese students, international student participants gained more confidence in using this structure, according to their feedback. The VR rooms, especially ones experienced with VR goggles, offer immersive space that is similar to real-life context, but is safer and risk-free for learners to explore new language.

Travel constraints during the pandemic have necessitated the delivery of Chinese language modules at XJTLU in an online format, limiting opportunities for international students to engage with native speakers and immerse themselves in local Chinese culture. To address this issue, we have envisioned a proactive solution - pairing international students with their Chinese counterparts and tasking them with collaborative activities within a Virtual Reality (VR) environment, specifically Mozilla Hub. The statistics show that international students are very interested in practicing Chinese with native speakers and are willing to learn more about Chinese local culture.

Inspired by the paper ‘Designing and Supporting Virtual Exchange: The Case of Chinese–English e-Tandem’ (Tim Lewis & Kan Qian, 2021), this E-tandem program aims to provide international students at XJTLU with an enriched avenue to practice Chinese and gain profound insights into Chinese culture through meaningful interactions with their language partners. VR technology is incorporated to create new immersive learning experiences that transcend the confines of traditional online education. Positive feedback on VR-facilitated interaction, performance, and engagement was received from participants. Meanwhile, VR dizziness and other technology-related issues were reported. We hope this E-Tandem program can be applied in various language teaching domains in the future.

本研究报告了美国东北部私立院校弥赛亚大学过去 12 年设计创新对外汉语 (CFL) 教学法的关键阶段以及利用技术和社交媒体提高学生学习的经验。尽管弥赛亚大学仅有约3000名本科生，在采用尖端数字化工具提升中文专业和汉语K-12教学证书专业课程方面，已走在中文专业院校的前列。尤其是在疫情期间，法语、德语专业因入学人数少而被永久取消，而我们的中文专业却在过去十年里持续蓬勃发展。本演讲将分享有效课程设计中涉及的几个关键策略。首先，一年级中文课的汉字教学被推迟。然后将它们逐步引入到不同级别的汉语课程中。其次，整个语文课程取消了手写汉字，取而代之的是打字。第三，制作音调清晰的YouTube视频来帮助学生练习汉语口语，特别是鹦鹉学舌视频录制练习。最后，我们创造了汉字zumba 舞蹈，以丰富学生的汉字学习之旅。所有这些关键战略在这个强有力的中国项目中都发挥着重要作用。本研究中改进的 CFL 教学创新的结果不仅将帮助语言教育者在教学中探索数字工具，更重要的是，它将鼓励他们研究其环境中潜在的技术进步，以改变他们的教学体验。

This study reports pivotal stages of designing innovative Chinese as a Foreign Language (CFL) teaching pedagogy and the experience of using technologies and social media to enhance students’ learning over the past 12 years at Messiah University, a northeastern private institution in the U.S. Although Messiah University only has around 3,000 undergraduate students, it has been in the forefront among institutions with Chinese majors, to adopt cutting-edge digital tools to enhance the curriculum of the Chinese Studies major and the Chinese K-12 Teaching Certificate major.  Especially during the pandemic when French and German majors were permanently canceled due to low enrollments, our Chinese majors, however, have been able to continue thriving over the past decade. This presentation will share several key strategies involved in effective curriculum design. First, Chinese characters teaching is delayed in the first-year Chinese classes. They are then introduced progressively throughout the rest of different levels of Chinese classes. Second, characters' handwriting is canceled throughout the entire Chinese curriculum, replaced with typing. Third, YouTube videos with clear tone movement are created to help students practice oral Chinese, especially through the parrot video recording practices. Last but not least, Chinese characters Zumba dancing is created to enrich students’ character learning journey. All these key strategies play an important role in this robust Chinese program. Results of the refined CFL teaching innovations in this study will not only help language educators explore digital tools in their teachings, but more importantly, it will encourage them to investigate potential technological advancements in their contexts to transform their teaching experience. 

Natural speech entails the production of both segments (i.e., vowels and consonants) and prosody (i.e., prosody phrasing, stress, intonation and rhythm). Correct segmental production without good or natural prosody is staccato or robot-like. In the field of Chinese as a second language, most attention is attached to the production of tones and segments, likely due to the status of Chinese being a tonal language and the difficulty of tone acquisition by second language (L2) learners. However, L2 prosody is indispensable for natural L2 speech, because it serves both linguistic and paralinguistic functions and may even have social and economic implications. To fill in the gap, this study investigates the effectiveness of training L2 prosody by combining Cued Pronunciation Readings and Chinese Prosodic Transcription system (CHIPROT). Cued pronunciation reading (CPR) is a method developed to help students perceive and practice suprasegmental features of spoken English (Landon, 2007; Tanner and Landon, 2009). It is a self-directed, computer-assisted technique which uses oral readings to improve students’ perception and production of utterance-level prosody, including pausing, word stress, and intonation. Chinese Prosodic Transcription or CHIPROT (Třísková, 2021) is a transcription system that transcribes the prosody of natural Chinese speech which annotates two major prosodic features of Chinese: prosodic phrasing (i.e., how an utterance is chunked into small units) and syllable stress/prominence.
20 participants who have completed at least two semesters of Mandarin course were recruited to attend the training study. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the two groups: the training group vs the control group.
The training adopted a pre-test and post-test and delayed-test design and lasted around five weeks. The first three sessions involved the training of Chinese prosody system. In the next three weeks, the two groups received Chinese prosody training materials in MS Powerpoint (with audios embedded). In each session, the training group listened to the audios of the training sentences and carefully examine how various prosodic features were represented in the transcriptions. They also needed to record their reading of the sentences according to the CHIPROT transcriptions at the end of the whole session and embed he recordings in the MS Powerpoint before sending it back to the researchers. The control group received the same sentences, but only needed to listen to the audios and record their reading of the sentences in Chinese characters and pinyin. Before all training sessions started, both groups recorded their reading of a short conversation and commented on two familiar topics. The same recordings were obtained at the end of all training sessions. A delayed test involving both old and new sentences one week after the training was conducted as well.
Following the training study, five native speakers of Chinese were recruited to rate

Since the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated the global adoption of remote language education, research on the future of online language teaching has burgeoned. But scant attention has been paid to the relationship between student readiness and teacher beliefs. This presentation reports the findings of a mixed-methods study conducted in 2021 with 309 world language teachers, including 77 Spanish teachers, 50 Chinese teachers, 16 Japanese teachers, and other teachers of French, German, Italian, etc., in the U.S. after their remote teaching experience.
A Principal Component Analysis of the survey data revealed three constituting factors of teachers’ perception of student readiness: technological access and proficiency, use of online learning support, and students' self-discipline. Students' readiness positively correlated with teachers' self-confidence (r = .52) and teachers’ belief in online teaching efficacy (r = .38).
Approximately 50% of teachers expressed an increased willingness to embrace fully online (149/309) or hybrid (148/309) language teaching after their remote teaching experience. Perceived student readiness significantly predicted teachers' increased receptiveness of both hybrid (X2 = 53.471, p ＜ .001) and 100% online teaching (X2 = 87.713, p ＜ .0001).
In follow-up interviews, teachers confessed having “shared learning curves” with the students during remote teaching. Qualitative analysis of the transcripts suggests intertwined relationships between student readiness, teachers’ self-confidence, and their changing attitude towards online teaching. In addition, students’ readiness and, in turn, teachers’ increased receptiveness to online teaching were dependent on institutional and student group differences.
The results are compared to earlier findings on students' remote learning (e.g., Rüschoff, 2023), illuminating how teachers’ and students’ experiences evolved as they both adjusted to remote teaching. We conclude by discussing the implications for providing flexibility and support for future online language education for diverse populations.

Discover Ningbo project aims to communicate Ningbo stories well to Chinese language learners and build a bridge to connect them with real Ningbo and real China. It encourages them to explore the charm of Ningbo's local culture, immerse in the target language environment and enhance their language competence.
Guided by "the Framework of Reference for Chinese Culture and Society in International Chinese Language Education" published by the Centre for Language Education and Cooperation, the Ministry of Education of China, the project team completed "Discover Ningbo: Chinese Language and Culture Reader" during 2021-2022. The Reader displays the rich and distinctive cultural characteristics of Ningbo and covers a wide range of topics, including nature, food, history, places of interest, local customs, dialect, folklore, celebrity, Sino-foreign exchanges and so on. One story in the Reader has been digitalized as a WeChat mini-program in 2023, working as a pilot.
Based on the Reader's resources, the project team piloted some experiential workshops to integrate Chinese language learning with local culture field trips and received positive feedback from students in 2023. In the spring semester of 2024, the project team designed and launched the Discover Ningbo with Chinese NAA (Nottingham Advantage Award) course. It combines classroom learning with "mobile" language and culture field trips, further empowers learners to develop Chinese language skills, and cultivates cross-cultural communication awareness through onsite experience and practice.

随着语言水平的提高，学生在学习或者工作中，需要更加复杂的语言使用技能，比如在线信息搜索，借助翻译工具进行中文翻译，中文写作，或者中文演讲等等。为了获得这种技能，学生需要在老师的指导下，开始独立探索真实的语言材料。

在本次报告中，我将分享我在耶鲁大学开设的两门课程。这两门课程的教学目标是在了解中国历史、文化和艺术中，培养学生的语言批判性分析能力，并提高他们的正式演讲语言技能。课程材料包括真实的书面材料、图像和视频。根据多模式研究，理解交流和表达不仅仅是语言。视觉交流、颜色、手势和动作、声音和音乐、社区和社会背景都是语言学习的重要方面。

我在本次会议的报告将专注于在高年级中文教学中empowering language learners的几个途径：（1）以引发广泛关注的社会文化话题组织阅读材料，（2）力求将文化批评、文学的文本阐释和语言技能的训练结合起来， （3） 以思辨性的问题组织高年级语言教学的课堂讨论。总括起来，这些途径提供了一种更具思辨性和讨论深度，并将语言课和文学、文化课融合起来的课程模式。作为这一教学模式的例证，我的报告还将介绍最近几年来将上述的三个途径运用在美国的高年级中文课的一些教学实践。

Embark on an immersive educational odyssey with us as we navigate the dynamic landscape of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL), aligning with the sustainability goals of quality education (SDG4), reduced inequality (SDG10), and partnerships (SDG17). This transformative workshop encapsulates invaluable practices and insights derived from a collaborative cross-disciplinary venture with Durban University of Technology (DUT) in South Africa. The session will meticulously explore the multifaceted dimensions of conducting COIL projects, emphasizing sustainability goals, nurturing students' global perspectives, cultivating reflective skills, fostering heightened engagement within language classes, and advancing intercultural communicative competence (ICC). Innovatively, this new practice of the China-South Africa cross-cultural project brings fresh perspectives into language teaching in an AI-era, significantly contributing to the development of global citizens. Additionally, the exploration extends to the evolving role of teachers in this AI era, contemplating the potential for AI to replace repetitive and redundant teaching tasks. The integration of diverse disciplines, such as English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and radiography, coupled with the inclusion of students from varied cultural backgrounds and English proficiency levels, has ignited a blend of perspectives. This comprehensive exploration enriches not only language teaching landscapes but also enhances students' intercultural communicative competence (ICC) within a global institutional context.

Artificial Intelligence has begun to play a significantly expanded role in higher education in recent years. The present study aims to explore faculty members’ perceptions of AI and those factors that may influence the potential adoption of AI in their teaching practice. The study used Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DIT) as its primary framework to design the questionnaire and interpret the results. A Likert-style questionnaire of 15 questions was designed to collect data from 36 faculty members. The results revealed that most educators positively perceive AI, but a lack of guidance and institutional support hinders its adoption. A further factor that influences AI adoption appears to be social influence, and it is therefore argued that more significant interaction with peers could potentially expand the usage of AI in higher education. Moreover, training and guidance from institutions and the organisation of a platform to share practices could further promote AI adoption in higher education.

The emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) has presented new opportunities in the field of English language teaching (ELT), providing unprecedented potential for language practice. However, the technologies also place new demands on teachers who drive the teaching and learning process in language classes, especially in Macao where traditional and didactic teaching methods have dominated ELT at tertiary level for a long time. On the basis of Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology, and Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge, this study plans to investigate the readiness of English teachers in Macao universities in the era of AI. English teachers from different public and private universities in Macao will be invited to participate in the study. Mixed research methods will be utilized -- a questionnaire on teachers’ acceptance of technology, knowledge in integrating technologies into teaching, and behavioral intention will be distributed, and interviews will be conducted to provide more insight into the findings. It is hoped that the study can summarize findings from these three aspects: 1. English teachers’ knowledge of and attitude towards AI-powered technologies; 2. the relation between these constructs and their behavioral intention in using AI in ELT; 3. the causes behind these phenomena. In the end, there will be a discussion on the implication of the findings in relation to how AI can empower ELT in Macao.

This study investigates the academic writing challenges faced by Chinese undergraduate students in English Medium Instruction (EMI) settings, identifying a dual hurdle: mastering academic presentation of subject matter and employing precise, effective English. Highlighting recognized challenges, where EMI instructors often have limited English proficiency and English for Academic Purposes (EAP) instructors may lack subject expertise, this research adopts in-depth interviews to outline these issues and potential mitigation strategies. It advocates for collaboration between EMI and EAP instructors as a key solution, suggesting that interdisciplinary partnerships can significantly address these challenges. Furthermore, the research proposes integrating artificial intelligence (AI) into EMI environments. AI models, trained in both EMI and EAP contexts, could act as invaluable teaching assistants, offering support to both educators and students to improve writing outcomes. The findings emphasize the importance of leveraging AI and collaborative approaches to enhance academic writing instruction, presenting key insights for educators and institutions aiming to refine EMI strategies in the AI era.

Corrective feedback in the ESL classroom has long been considered an important part of effective instruction by researchers and practitioners because it makes students recognize their errors and provides a chance for them to repair. However, teachers' corrective feedback can work as a double-edged sword. On one side, corrective feedback may promote immediate learner repair; on the other side, it may discourage students thus reducing their engagement. This "error correction paradox" may overwhelm teachers with concerns about whether they should correct students or not. Additionally, studies on error correction have been mainly focused on how teachers correct students' errors. Less attention has been paid to the "error correction paradox.' My study aims to fill this gap by analyzing the interactions between teachers and students in the classroom and investigating teachers' practice of corrective feedback. The database consists of 42 hours of video-recorded classroom interactions, comprising 23 hours of teachers interacting with adult students (aged 20-40). The collected data were transcribed and analyzed within the conversation analytic (CA) framework. The results of my study suggest that corrective feedback strategies that downgrade a teacher's expert status by displaying uncertainty, such as "I'm not sure..." and "I wonder...", may prompt students self-correction or peer-correction and avoid causing embarrassment to the adult students at the same time.

Many of us attending this conference teach English to science students. As we adapt our teaching for the AI era, we might wonder: to what extent can AI aid the production of scientific writing? This talk will examine the performance of two popular AI tools (Chat-GPT and Grammarly) during the editing of real scientific journal articles. It will draw out their strengths and limitations, both comparative and collective, and comment on the implications of these for our teaching and our integration of AI assistants in the writing classroom.

I hold a PhD in chemistry, and since 2022 I have been proofreading and editing research paper manuscripts for several faculty members in SUSTech’s Department of Chemistry. This allows me to provide unusually detailed case studies and analysis of the successes and failures of currently available AI tools in this arena; this talk will be based entirely on real examples from papers I have edited and which have since been published in top chemistry journals. If time allows, examples from materials science and computer science will also be included. I hope this talk will be of interest to anyone who teaches writing to science students and is pondering how best to integrate AI into their practice.

Motivation plays a crucial role in directing individuals’ language acquisition process and determining learning success. Dörnyei’s L2 Motivational Self System (L2MSS), including the ideal L2 self, ought-to L2 self, and L2 learning experience has been the dominant framework adopted by researchers to scrutinise the motivations among language learners. However, most studies were conducted in traditional language learning classrooms. Investigation into the blended learning environment, especially in the post-pandemic era where digital teaching has been increasingly popularised in higher educational institutions has been lacking. This study recruited 231 Chinese as second language (CSL) learners at a Chinese university to explore their motivational factors in the blended learning environment. Informed by L2MSS, a newer ‘anti-ought-to L2 self’ was added to the investigation of self-concepts and the L2 learning experience was reframed into three contextual factors, including attitudes towards the L2 Chinese community, cultural interest and pedagogical influence. This mixed-methods study employs a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews as the research techniques. Three research questions are proposed in the study: RQ1. What are the motivational profiles of CSL learners in the blended learning environment? RQ2. How do motivational selves and contextual factors predict CSL learners’ intended learning effort? RQ3. Are there any differences in CSL learners’ motivational selves based on the demographic variables? Results reveal that the ideal L2 self was the most prominent self-oriented motivational disposition among participants in the blended learning environment. Additionally, students perceived the pedagogical influence of teachers, peers and classroom atmosphere as highly influential to their motivations. Both selves and contexts were found to have positive predictive effects on intended learning effort. On the other hand, significant differences in the three motivational selves were identified based on the demographic variables including gender, employment status, and student type. The theoretical significance of this study lies in its effort to consolidate the constructs of L2MSS by adding voices from languages other than English learners, while from a practical perspective, it aims to offer CSL educational practitioners suggestions for promoting students’ motivations in the context of blended learning.

This proposal explores the dynamic landscape of language learning through two surveys conducted in 2020 and 2024 at an American university where five foreign languages are offered. Surveys covered language learning motivations, preferences, the link between language proficiency and career planning, and the role of technology and AI (in the 2024 survey). The results show an increased focus on career-related goals and changing preferences in language choices. It also shows the growing awareness of language skills as career enhancers, as well as the challenges faced in continuing language learning. Results offer insights into evolving trends, challenges, and opportunities in tech-supported language education. Results provide a guide to the creation of learner-centered environments, classroom teaching, and adapting pedagogy to meet evolving needs, fostering discussion on growing language programs to current trends. Attendees will gain actionable knowledge on empowering language learners in a world shaped by societal, technological, and career-related influences.

In recent decades, educational technology has increasingly become integrated into language education alongside technological advancements. The role of teacher identity and knowledge has been pivotal in effectively implementing modern technologies to enhance learning outcomes. Despite the widespread adoption of Mishra and Koehler’s (2006) technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework in numerous studies across various disciplines such as language learning, science, and mathematics, research focusing on teachers of Chinese as a foreign language (CFL) remains limited. Moreover, existing studies have predominantly relied on relatively small samples, thereby constraining the generalisability of findings and the comprehensive consolidation of the TPACK framework using rigorous statistical methods.
To address this gap, the current study examined pre-service CFL teachers’ technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge and their interplay based on the TPACK framework. A total of 742 pre-service CFL teachers participated in online surveys, utilizing a 31-item TCSL-TPACK survey instrument developed by Qiu et al. (2020). Descriptive statistical analysis revealed a disparity in technological knowledge (TK), with basic TK (e.g., using Office processing software) receiving the highest score, while TK related to the use of advanced technologies to facilitate teaching and learning received the lowest score. The findings suggest that pre-service teachers have demonstrated greater proficiency in content and pedagogical knowledge as well as basic TK compared to advanced TK. These findings not only advance the TPACK framework but also provide valuable insights for the development of teacher training program curricula. They underscore the importance of pre-service teachers enhancing their advanced TK to align with recent technological advancements to bolster their teaching skills and efficacy accordingly.
References
Koehler, M., & Mishra, P. (2009). What is technological pedagogical content knowledge (TPACK)?. Contemporary issues in technology and teacher education, 9(1), 60-70.
Qiu, C. A., He, H. X., Chen, G. L., & Xiong, M. X. (2022). Pre-service teachers’ perceptions of technological pedagogical content knowledge in mainland China: A survey of teachers of Chinese as a second language. Education and Information Technologies, 27(5), 6367-6391.