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This study explored the trajectory of teacher concept development during collaborative research practice promoted by a university-school partnership teacher development program. Drawing on Vygotsky's and Engeström's notion of concept formation, it examined how a secondary EFL teaching-research officer (TRO) negotiated between scientific and everyday concepts as she co-constructed the research theme "teaching assessment literacy" with mentors and fellow teachers mediated by the program. Multiple sources of data were collected over a span of two years, including six rounds of oral defense and research reporting activities, classroom observations, interviews, journals, and research reports. The analysis showed that the TRO experienced a gradually integrated and transformed path of concept development, and also initiated an expansive learning opportunity for her research participants, triggering collective concept development. While the program played a significant role in providing multi-module facilitating activities, academic-practice joint mentoring and collective scaffolding, more subtle guidance is suggested for the tension-laden process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher written feedback (TWF) has long been regarded as a necessary pedagogical tool for improving the writing proficiency of ESL/EFL learners, while student responses to this feedback can often reflect its effectiveness. This paper reviews 64 articles appearing in high-ranking journals during 2010–2021 in terms of research methodology, theoretical framework and main findings. Analysis of these articles reveals few studies adopted any theoretical frameworks to examine learner responses to TWF and suggests a need for longitudinal naturalistic studies adopting mixed methods and some theoretical framework such as sociocultural theory of mind (SCT) to better explain learners' dynamic engagement in response to TWF. The main findings of these previous studies reveal the diverse responses among learners at different language proficiency levels and in various sociocultural contexts. The results of the review indicate that future research could take classroom-based mixed-method research design to investigate learner variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Guided by activity theory, this study examines the major contradictions in an English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher professional learning community (PLC) established in China through a university–district–school partnership. Multiple sources of data were collected, including interviews, observations, and documents. Data analyses revealed four levels of contradictions: the primary contradiction between the university researcher and school teachers, the secondary contradiction between imparting theory and teacher learning, the tertiary contradiction between existing practice and new design, and the quaternary contradiction between practical engagement and academic research. The community members took a series of strategic actions, including questioning and observation, analysis and proposal, examination and implementation, and reflection and resolution. The study may offer insights about nurturing language teacher PLCs and overcoming contradictions in similar joint activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We surveyed the practices and abilities of 103 students at 4 universities in China to write from sources in English, documenting in their first and second years of Bachelors’ and Masters’ programs (longitudinally and cross-sectionally): (a) students’ self-reported approaches to writing from sources and instruction that had helped them; (b) the frequency, accuracy, and functions of citations in samples of their course papers; and (c) their abilities to summarize a reading passage under test-like conditions. The students wrote with some proficiency in English and emerging competencies in writing from academic sources, confirming, in this context where English is a foreign language, tendencies such as nascent senses of authorial identities and patchwriting documented in prior case studies of Chinese and other students writing at English-dominant universities internationally. Limited evidence for development from the first to second year appeared in undergraduate students increasing the frequency, accuracy, and functions of their citations, moving toward the tendencies maintained by graduate students in both years’ course papers. In their second years, most students also reported greater success in acknowledging source materials and focus on formal aspects of writing course papers. Only half the students indicated they had taken courses that helped them to write from sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This qualitative case study explored the extent to which learners' L2 writing concepts changed across different collaborative writing tasks, and how languaging helped learners make meaning between scientific and spontaneous concepts. Four first-year MA students from a Chinese university formed a study group and engaged in collaborative writing tasks as required by an Academic English Reading and Writing course. Multiple sources of data were collected, including audio-taped group discussions, group writings, individual reflections, and course-related documents. Data analysis demonstrated the microgenetic evolving trajectories of the rhetorical modes of "maintaining the flow of information". The participants progressed from spontaneous knowledge of those concepts to a scientific system through languaging about a text containing these conceptual features. Learners' conscious usage of scientific terms, constant revisiting to their prior knowledge, and critical reading of the academic text highlight the mediating role of languaging in empowering the dynamic interaction between scientific reasoning and spontaneous thinking. This study suggests that the integration of stylistic analysis tasks, peer collaboration, and rhetorical concepts may facilitate the transformation of students' thinking patterns as well as the development of their L2 academic literacies. • Languaging mediates the dynamics between learners' spontaneous thinking and scientific reasoning. • Languaging empowers learners' conceptual development. • The integration of stylistic analysis, peer work, and genric concepts may facilitate L2 academic literacy development. • Learners' scientific concepts develop across the several collaborative writing tasks executed repeatedly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined four experienced teachers' beliefs and practices in teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) writing at a university in China. Multiple sources of data were collected over two semesters, including class observations, interviews, and course materials. All the teachers perceived that they integrated product and process elements of writing in their teaching. However, they varied in their views about the focus and function of prewriting, multiple drafts, teacher written feedback, peer review, and the teacher's role in students' learning to write. Three of the four teachers showed consistency between their beliefs and practices in teaching writing, while the remaining one's practices were in some cases consistent with his beliefs and in other cases contradictory. Variability in beliefs and practices about teaching writing was related to individuals' prior experiences as EFL learners and teachers, their understanding of students' capabilities, self-reflection, and collegial influences. The development of their beliefs and practices in teaching writing paralleled the development of L2 writing theories in the West, mirroring the worldwide spread of English and of professional networks over recent decades. This study indicates that teachers' beliefs and practices need to be explicitly taken into account in designing and implementing development programmes for L2 writing teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a study which examines the problems and strategies in writing Master of Arts (MA) thesis proposals by second language English learners. Data analysis indicates the students' problems in their choice of research topic, design for thesis proposal, and grasp of the genre. The graduates students of Teaching English as Foreign Language (TEFL) have completed the thesis proposals by holding discussions with supervisors, reading relevant literature, and observing presentations.

The present study explored the summary writing processes of six first-year MBA (Master of Business Administration) students in a North American university. The participants, three Chinese who speak English as a Second Language (ESL) and three native-English-speaking (NES), each completed a course-related summary task while thinking aloud. The analyses of the think-aloud protocols, retrospective interviews, and written drafts reveal similarities and differences in the writing processes of the participants. Depending on their perceptions of the nature of the writing task, business employment background or related writing experiences, the participants either wrote confidently or struggled through the writing processes, relying to varied degrees on such strategies as verbalizing what is being written, planning content, referring to the sources, reading what has been written, reviewing and modifying one''s writing, and commenting on the source texts. The study highlights the role of students’ previous writing expertise in learning disciplinary writing, the complexity of a course-related assignment in terms of its unclear and inexplicit expectations perceived by students, and the need to identify key strategies for good summary writing across and within disciplines. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]