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This study explores the professional development (PD) of rural teachers in China based on their relationship with "left-behind" children, guided by two research questions: 1) How do rural teachers describe their relationship with left-behind children? and 2) How do rural teachers perceive the influence of their relationship with left-behind children on PD? The study revealed that Chinese rural school teachers experienced complex teacher-student relationships, both positive and negative, with left-behind children. Essentially, this study found that rural teachers are more likely to experience negative, conflict-ridden teacher-student relationships that can be attributed to left-behind children's psychological or behavioural problems, lack of support from parents of rural children, respect and understanding, as well as rural schools' inappropriate educational and management methods. However, the current study is not aimed at criticising the negative impact of teacher-student relationships on rural teachers' PD. Instead, it argues that by reflecting the challenges of teacher-student relationship with regard to left-behind children, rural teachers have become reflective and critically reflective practitioners to improve their PD. This finding enriches the understanding of how teacher-student relationships influence rural teachers' PD, and also provides recommendations from multiple dimensions to enhance these teachers' PD and education.

Under the influence of COVID-19, most universities worldwide transitioned from face-to-face pedagogy to online hybrid learning. As a result, scholarly publications about this transition are rapidly accumulating. However, to date, there are few studies published in international journals investigating online education in Macau during the pandemic, particularly on the feeling of presence when Macau students study online. Using an instrumental case study at a university in Macau, this research explored online learning during the pandemic. The interviewees reported a lack of embodied presence in online learning. Nevertheless, many of them enjoyed this learning mode, as it provided a more reciprocal classroom, flexibility and convenience. The interviewees also believe the lack of physicality is not the determining challenge affecting online learning, suggesting that joint efforts and collaboration between peers, better-designed pedagogy for teachers, smoother teacher-student communication channels, the university's online policymaking, and the support of infrastructure, online teaching quality could all be improved. This result questions the emphasis on bodily presence in the online learning environment and the drawing of a stark divide between online and offline. In contrast, it endorses the concepts of presence under a framework of a Community of Inquiry, which is a more post-digital view, welcoming the seamless combination of the online and offline world within contemporary society.

Background: Currently, no second-line systemic treatment regimen has been recommended in advanced biliary tract cancer (BTC). Cumulative clinical evidence showed that systemic treatment with tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) in combination with immunotherapy may shed light on the dim clinical outcome in advanced BTC. Objective: The aim of this study is to evaluate the anticancer efficacy of lenvatinib plus programmed cell death protein-1 (PD-1) antibody in patients with BTC who progressed after first-line cisplatin/gemcitabine (CisGem) chemotherapy. Methods: Patients with advanced BTCs who progressed after CisGem were recruited. A combination regimen of lenvatinib (8/12 mg daily) plus PD-1 antibody (200/240 mg injection every 3 weeks) was prescribed. Clinicopathological information and therapeutic outcome, including tumor subtypes, biomarkers, treatment duration, adverse events (AE), progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS), were recorded and estimated. Results: A total of 351 patients with BTCs were reviewed and 74 were recruited eventually: 35 had intrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (47.3%), 4 had extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (5.4%), and 35 had gallbladder cancer (47.3%). The median administered cycles of PD-1 antibody were 6.43 (95% CI: 5.83-7.04) cycles, and the median duration of lenvatinib medication was 21.0 weeks (95% CI: 18.04-23.93). Twenty-eight patients (37.83%) experienced detectable objective response per RECIST1.1 within a median follow-up duration of 15.0 months. The objective response rate (ORR) was 20.27% (95% CI: 10.89%-29.65%), and the disease control rate (DCR) was 71.62% (95% CI: 61.11%-82.14%). The median PFS and OS were 4.0 months (95% CI: 3.5-5.0) and 9.50 months (95% CI: 9.0-11.0), respectively. Seventy-three patients (98.64%) reported AEs and 39 (52.70%) experienced =grade 3 AEs. In subgroup analyses, tumoral PD-L1 expression =50% and tumor mutation burden (TMB) =2.5 Muts/Mb were associated with prolonged PFS. Conclusion: Lenvatinib plus PD-1 antibody treatment shows an active trend towards improving survival in patients with advanced BTCs after failure with CisGem chemotherapy. The treatment-related AEs are worthy of attention and are manageable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As early as the 1990s, educationists, and even some governmental policy makers in China, advocated suzhi (quality) educational reform, aiming to develop creative individuals, and to revamp the exam-oriented and authoritarian education system. However, this suzhi educational reform was not entirely successful, with education in China becoming a hybrid of suzhi coupled with the much-maligned authoritarian and exam-oriented system. I believe that students' quotidian life at school is governed by a disciplinary power that imposes a hidden curriculum. This essay uses Foucault's major theories as a conceptualizing framework by examining the control of time, space, and body etc. as technologies of power at Chinese primary and secondary schools. The study concludes by depicting a postmodern future for Chinese students in which they flourish with creativity and innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. The aim of the research is to examine how Mainland China and Chinese people are represented in the visual materials of four sets of Liberal Studies (LS) textbooks in Hong Kong. Methods. Norman Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis, viewing language as a social practice and Teun A. van Dijk's ideological coding categories are integrated to analyse discursive representations (e.g. the embedded hidden power) in the Hong Kong Today volumes published by four influential commercial publishers: Modern, Ming Pao, Marshall, and Aristo. Results. The analysis reveals that China and mainland Chinese are negatively portrayed in visual images in four commercial LS textbooks, in which the representations concerning mainland China and mainlanders are all found ideologically biased to highlight their negative characteristics and alienness. Conclusions. Through the lens of critical discourse analysis, the reasons underpinning China and its people being represented negatively in LS textbooks are traced to the British colonial government's manipulation of educational policies, which tends to distance the Hong Kong students from Chinese nationalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human capital has had a considerable influence on the education policies in China. In this paper, a new policy of the Shanghai Education Bureau is described in which universities were strongly rec-ommended to replace their English in general education programs with an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) one, in order to produce talent for regional and national development. Using a Fou-cauldian perspective to explore the extent the teachers were subjectified by the Shanghai EAP Poli-cy. The teachers had demonstrated their subjectivity, particularly via critiquing, questioning the dis-course and mediating their EAP teaching. Teachers' praxis becomes useful in helping them to de-velop independent professionalism to sustain their subjectivity in a neoliberal discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim. The number of kindergartens is swelling in China, and that of private kindergartens in particular. The quality of teaching in the latter is positively linked to the levels of teachers' professional competence. Thus, to enhance the teaching quality in private kindergartens, strengthening teacher's professional competence is one of the vital approaches. Teacher's professional competence can be enhanced via effective CPD activities. Therefore, this study aims to explore the types and content of CPD activities for Chinese private kindergarten teachers. Methods. A qualitative approach was adopted in this research. 18 kindergarten teachers were selected as participants from three private kindergartens in Shenzhen. Data was collected by semi-structured interview from 18 teachers. Results and conclusion. The findings showed that the school-based CPD activities are valued by most private kindergarten teachers. Furthermore, this study found that CPD activities can help private kindergarten teachers to be more inclusive and positive in teaching. They enabled teachers to acquire knowledge and skills that are relevant to child care and development, teaching, as well as cooperation with colleagues and children's parents. Practical application. The research findings presented herein have significant implications for the knowledge base of private kindergarten teachers' CPD in China. It also has implications for the practice that is relevant to private kindergarten teachers, principals and policy makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The last two decades have witnessed a prolific increase in academic activity in the study of English for Academic Purposes (EAP). Many teachers who were trained for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) have been required to teach EAP. TESOL and EAP are two different concepts and teachers transitioning from TESOL to teaching EAP may encounter many difficulties. However, little research has been carried out in this area, particularly beyond the context of the UK. Helping teachers to clarify their perceptions of TESOL and EAP is the first step to facilitate this transition. The present study aims to facilitate Chinese university teachers' pedagogical transitions from TESOL to teaching EAP by clarifying teachers' own understanding of these two concepts and by outlining how several different factors contribute to their EAP conceptualisation. By using a multiple case study methodology, the current research has revealed that the investigated teachers' perceptions of EAP comprised eclectic theories, which overlap with some current EAP literature. Facing a somewhat unethical research culture in China, some teachers added moral rubrics into their EAP concepts as reminders to their students. The teachers reported that TESOL and EAP diverged in discourses and commissions: EAP is more student empowering, but TESOL is more humanistic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Roadkill has gradually become a common factor that has contributed to the decline of amphibians, and traffic volume is an important parameter that can be used to determine the impacts of roads. However, few researchers have studied the effects of either daily or nightly traffic volume on amphibian roadkill in China. Hence, as an essential step for implementing mitigation measures, we conducted 77 road surveys along 10 km of road in the Wanglang National Nature Reserve (NNR) to determine the temporal and spatial distribution patterns of amphibian road mortality. In total, 298 dead individuals (Bufo andrewsi and Rana chensinensis) were observed on the road from April to October in 2017 and during June and August in 2015 and 2016. B. andrewsi had the highest number of records (85.2%) and was more vulnerable to road mortality than R. chensinensis. Amphibian fatalities mainly occurred during the breeding season in April, but there was an additional concentration of B. andrewsi roadkill in June and July. There was a significantly positive correlation between amphibian road mortality and mean night-time traffic volume. Roadkill hotspots were non-randomly distributed throughout the study area and were mainly concentrated in the road sections near the breeding pools. Therefore, to effectively mitigate the effects of road mortality in the Wanglang NNR, measures should be implemented both during hot moments and at hotspots. First, based on roadkill hot moments, during the breeding season (in April) and in June and July, the Wanglang NNR should establish temporary traffic restraints at night. Second, based on roadkill hotspots, culverts should be established in areas near breeding pools adjacent to roads, and barrier walls should be installed to guide amphibians into the culverts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]