Multilingual learners confront challenges not only in mastering new languages but also in forming new identities. Guided by the investment model, we traced the learning of Chinese and English of two Uyghur women who attended a coastal Chinese university and investigated how they navigated the Chinese mainstream education system to university…

In order to counter low birthrates, the Singapore state recruits top-performing students from China and Vietnam with scholarships to augment the local talent pool. Another criterion is that most immigrants must be ethnically Chinese, so as to fit into Singapore's majority racial group. This study examines whether and how race (or other factors)…

Given the status of English as a lingual franca and the ongoing trend of internationalization of higher education, English medium instruction (EMI) has become increasingly popular in many EFL university settings. However, taking up EMI teaching can be an emotionally complex and daunting task for disciplinary teachers. Informed by a…

Metaphors are powerful windows to gain insight into EFL teachers' professional identity constructions. This study examined 33 Chinese EFL student teachers' (STs) self-generated metaphors about teaching before and after their student teaching. Before their teaching practicum experience, they were: (a) optimistic, but had naïve perceptions about…

With the aim of further exploring students' engagement with language education policy processes and their decision-making practices that shape their language learning experience, this study carried out a nine-month ethnographic fieldwork to examine the English language learning trajectories of three rural high school students in China. On top of…

This article investigates the intercultural competence and identities of undergraduate heritage language learners (HLLs) studying abroad under the auspices of the U.S. Flagship Program. Based on survey responses and interviews with HLLs from Flagship Programs across the country, the article aims to assess the preparation of HLLs for study abroad…

Our paper contends that growing awareness of the historicity of English lies at the heart of the process by which English language teachers develop "critical" identities. We compare novice teachers in three different contexts of English teaching: urban Guatemala, rural Nicaragua, and a Tibetan refugee community in India. Collectively,…

This article reports on the motivations of Chinese learners to learn Japanese in light of increasing diplomatic tensions between China and Japan over the last three decades. In the study, 35 Chinese learners of Japanese were selected, according to the time they began learning, to examine their motivations to learn Japanese as mediated by shifting…

This article investigates the identity construction process of China's rural-urban migrant children through analyses of their discourses and of their use of language. Rural children have relocated to the urban centers with their parents on a massive scale over the past decades as China has undergone rapid economic changes. Many migrant children…

The issue of neoliberalism has aroused sustained interest among English language teaching (ELT) and applied linguistic researchers who are politically minded. Neoliberalism is a dominant rationality with immense economic, political and ideological consequences in all aspects of social and institutional life in globalization, including foreign…