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The professional experiences of teachers of languages and cultures, along with the learning experiences of their students, are embedded in educational contexts, which themselves are informed, and constrained, by national language policies. This study aims to explore 51 English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) secondary teachers’ perceptions of Web-based technology use to enhance students’ cultural awareness in Chile. Specifically, the study investigated teachers’ use of Web-based resources for cultural awareness, culture content and technology-based tasks, as well as perceived challenges in implementing technology-enhanced language and culture learning.

The study adopted a mixed-method research design combining online questionnaires and interviews as data collection tools. Results were analyzed through the use of descriptive statistics and content analysis.

The teachers in this study emphasized reflection in their classrooms but did not take a critical approach. Their approach to culture was limited to a “country-specific” view, and technology-enhanced activities accentuated differences rather than promoting meaningful intercultural exchange. Challenges to the successful implementation of technology-enhanced language and culture learning included a somewhat out-of-date theoretical approach to intercultural learning in the national curriculum, a nationwide approach to professional development that lacks a focus on critical reflection and inadequate support for effective use of technologies in schools.

The study highlights the importance of periodically revising a country’s EFL language policies, communication methods, support mechanisms and implementation factors to ensure classroom integration of language, culture and technology education.

This paper explores the tension between macro-level national policy and teachers’ perspectives on their classroom practice, including the contextualized limitations of implementing national policy at the micro level.

While many works have reported adopting exploratory practice (EP) principles in language teaching research, only a few studies have explored the enactment of EP in an online extensive reading of students majoring in English education. Given the relative paucity of attention to the use of EP as the practitioner research in English language teaching (ELT), the present EP investigates how students understand online extensive reading practice mediated by online group discussion and extensive reading logs, where the first author served as the online extensive reading practice instructor.

The exploratory practice focuses on incorporating research into pedagogy and fastens the importance of the quality-of-life in the classroom. The data were collected through students reading logs and semi-structured interviews. The collected data were analyzed using the thematic analysis. In this case, there were six phases including familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, searching for the themes, reviewing the themes, defining the theme and writing up.

The findings reveal that online group work driven by EP enables everybody to engage in learning activities. EP assists the students in perceiving their potential and gaining a better awareness of the need to devote themselves to the class. In the EP activities, they work together to build a peaceful situation to advance the quality of learning in EFL classrooms.

The present study’s limitation is the small sample. Apart from that, the research results cannot be generalized to other places.

This study suggests that EP is suitable to create a mutual understanding among the learners and teachers. To conclude, English language competency can be achieved in a pleasant atmosphere through EP.

The present study succeeded in adding new literature studies related to EPs by discussing online group discussions and their challenges during the learning process. These aspects were identified through reading logs and interviews with students. Thus, it focuses on the implementation and challenges of online group discussions.

While most language departments of the university offer service-learning (SL) subjects based on language teaching, such as “Teaching Chinese as a Second Language in Local Schools” and “Serving the Community through Teaching English,” this paper aims to argue that teaching students to teach language(s) is yet to be the best strategy to serve the service recipients.

SL is widely understood as an experiential learning pedagogy that integrates academic focus, reflection and community service and is shown to be impactful. In Hong Kong, the first university that has made SL a graduation requirement is the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (the University). Considering this, new SL courses have proliferated over the past decade. Adopting a narrative inquiry approach, this paper examines personal narratives from a new SL subject aiming to raise awareness of refugees in Hong Kong. The data includes students’ reflective journals, co-created personal narratives and podcasts and semi-structured interviews.

This paper finds that crafting and recording narratives of shared experiences deepens cultural understanding, cultivates empathy and facilitates language learning in a genuine setting.

Ultimately, this paper advocates a well-designed SL that combines language, content and technology as a powerful, transformational experience for both college students and service recipients.

This paper focuses on a brand new SL course, “Storytelling for Understanding: Refugee Children in Hong Kong,” offered in Semester 1, 2022–2023. The subject was developed by the two authors from a language division affiliated to the University. The deliverables were podcast recordings, co-authored and co-edited by the students and the children.

This study aims to delve into the interplay between didactic audiovisual translation (DAT) and computer-assisted language learning (CALL), exploring their combined impact on the development of intercultural competence (IC) among learners of English as a foreign language (EFL).

Using a quasi-experimental approach with a quantitative research design, the study analyses the outcomes of a questionnaire answered by 147 students across 15 language centres in Spanish Universities. These participants actively engaged in completing the lesson plans of the Traducción audiovisual como recurso didáctico en el aprendizaje de lenguas extranjeras project, a Spanish-Government funded research initiative aimed at assessing the effects of DAT on language learning.

The current study confirms the reliability of the instrument developed to measure students’ perceived improvement. Beyond validating the research tool, the findings of the current study confirm the significant improvement in intercultural learning achieved through DAT, effectively enhancing students’ motivation to engage in language learning.

The current research solely examines students enrolled in higher education language centres. This paper closes with a CALL for additional research, including participants from other educational stages, such as primary or secondary education. In the broader context of CALL research, this study serves as a valuable contribution by exploring the potential of DAT in fostering IC in EFL settings.

This research confirms the potential of DAT and CALL to promote students’ learning process, as the combination of these approaches not only yields linguistic benefits but also intercultural learning.

The purpose of this study is to theorize that computer-assisted language learning (CALL) can be integrated in English language learning with a focus on cultural learning of both home and target language.

The present study used a systematic methodology to conceive the language and home-culture integrated online learning (LHIOL) curriculum design based on relevant conceptual frameworks and gather qualitative data from focused group interviews of 30 teachers and 3,000 students’ open-ended questionnaires, along with learning artifacts to identify major themes.

CALL, used as cultural and linguistic material, helps students embrace their cultural identities, especially ethnic minorities, capitalize on their distinctive values, and appreciate and empathize with other languages and cultures. The instructors advocate for localizing intercultural communicative competence (ICC) educational content into Vietnamese culture, using real multimedia resources. However, the LHIOL curriculum faced systemic constraints regarding competitions between linguistic and cultural instruction, teachers’ refusal to recognize ICC’s importance and recognition of an explicit link between virtual cultural learning and their lives.

LHIOL is a preliminary practical effort to suggest how a cultural education from one’s native tongue can be integrated into a culture-focused English/Western language environment. By incorporating fundamental concepts that underpin the integration of language and culture as well as CALL, improving ICC offers a framework that can be applied to elucidate cultural learning.

This study aims to investigate the integration of heritage language and culture in technology-enhanced bilingual education and examine the dominance of the English language and culture in computer-assisted language learning settings.

This research used a narrative inquiry methodology. The data came from semi-structured interviews with 25 bilingual teachers in the Kurdistan region of Iraq and Texas.

The study found a significant bias in the use of technology toward the target language, often at the expense of heritage language and culture. The curricula analyzed were predominantly focused on superficial cultural elements of the target language, leading to a neglect of deeper cultural engagement.

This research highlights the phenomenon of cultural cringe within bilingual education and the skewed use of technology toward the target language.

To measure the dynamic features of compassion as an emotional and behavioral construct, the present research used a univariate latent growth modeling (LGM) approach within the structural equation modeling (SEM) framework. The aim was to trace the dynamic development of compassion longitudinally in accounting and business students during a three-credit English course at university.

The suggested method ensures the measurement invariance over time, deals with the first order latent variable, traces its growth and takes into account the measurement errors. This longitudinal analytical method was used to explore the initial state and the growth of compassion in four points of time during a language course. The data were collected from 60 adult accounting and business students in four time phases using Sprecher and Fehr's Compassionate Love Scale and were analyzed in Mplus 8.4 with univariate LGM.

The model fit was accepted and the invariance of the latent factor was confirmed over time. The negative covariance between intercept and slope (second-order latent variables) suggested that lower initial scores in L2 learners' compassion show a faster increase in compassion over time as the mean of slope is larger than that of the intercept. L2 learners who started off at a higher level of compassion showed a slower change in compassion over time. This can be at least partly explained by the teacher's motivating role or learners' compassion but needs to be further explored in complementary qualitative phases for deeper insights.

In the present research, awareness was raised of the developmental nature of compassion as an emotional and behavioral construct essential to the accounting and business profession. The great strength of this research lies in the dynamic approach to the compassion construct and the LGM used to capture the temporal growth of compassion and how it evolved through the L2 course.

This research paper aimed to investigate the affordances of using virtual reality (VR) in teaching culture among in-service teachers of teaching Persian to speakers of other languages (TPSOL) in Iran.

This qualitative case study, conducted at two Iranian universities, used purposeful sampling to select 34 eligible in-service Persian teachers from a pool of 73. Data collection used an open-ended questionnaire and interviews.

Before the TPSOL in-service training workshop, teachers expressed their reservations regarding the use of VR to teach culture in TPSOL courses. The emerged themes were “skepticism toward effectiveness,” “practicality concerns,” “limited awareness of VR applications,” “technological apprehension” and “prevalence of traditional teaching paradigms.” During the post-workshop interview, it was discovered that the teachers’ perceptions of VR in teaching culture had undergone a positive shift. The workshop generated emergent themes that reflected positive perceptions and affordances for using VR to teach culture in TPSOL, including “enhanced cultural immersion,” “increased student engagement,” “simulation of authentic cultural experiences,” and “facilitation of interactive learning environments.”

One primary limitation is the lack of prior experience with VR for teaching practices in real-world classrooms among the participants. While the study aimed to explore the potential of VR in enhancing pedagogical approaches, the absence of participants with prior exposure to VR in educational contexts may impact the generalizability of the findings to a broader population. Additionally, the study faced practical constraints, such as the unavailability of sufficient facilities in the workshop. As a result, the instructor had to project the VR cont7ent on a monitor, potentially diverging from the immersive nature of true VR experiences. These limitations offer opportunities for future research to refine methodologies and gain a more comprehensive understanding of the implications of integrating VR into teaching practices.

Extensive research has been conducted on the effectiveness of VR in language education. However, there is a significant gap in research on TPSOL, which is considered a less commonly taught language. This study aims to address this gap by exploring the use of VR in the TPSOL through the lenses of in-service teachers. As part of a larger investigation, this qualitative inquiry focuses on the perceptions of in-service teachers about VR, with a particular emphasis on the cultural understanding of the Persian language.

The application of artificial intelligence chatbots is an emerging trend in educational technology studies for its multi-faceted advantages. However, the existing studies rarely take a perspective of educational technology application to evaluate the application of chatbots to educational contexts. This study aims to bridge the research gap by taking an educational perspective to review the existing literature on artificial intelligence chatbots.

This study combines bibliometric analysis and citation network analysis: a bibliometric analysis through visualization of keyword, authors, organizations and countries and a citation network analysis based on literature clustering.

Educational applications of chatbots are still rising in post-COVID-19 learning environments. Popular research issues on this topic include technological advancements, students’ perception of chatbots and effectiveness of chatbots in different educational contexts. Originating from similar technological and theoretical foundations, chatbots are primarily applied to language education, educational services (such as information counseling and automated grading), health-care education and medical training. Diversifying application contexts demonstrate specific purposes for using chatbots in education but are confronted with some common challenges. Multi-faceted factors can influence the effectiveness and acceptance of chatbots in education. This study provides an extended framework to facilitate extending artificial intelligence chatbot applications in education.

The authors have to acknowledge that this study is subjected to some limitations. First, the literature search was based on the core collection on Web of Science, which did not include some existing studies. Second, this bibliometric analysis only included studies published in English. Third, due to the limitation in technological expertise, the authors could not comprehensively interpret the implications of some studies reporting technological advancements. However, this study intended to establish its research significance by summarizing and evaluating the effectiveness of artificial intelligence chatbots from an educational perspective.

This study identifies the publication trends of artificial intelligence chatbots in educational contexts. It bridges the research gap caused by previous neglection of treating educational contexts as an interconnected whole which can demonstrate its characteristics. It identifies the major application contexts of artificial intelligence chatbots in education and encouraged further extending of applications. It also proposes an extended framework to consider that covers three critical components of technological integration in education when future researchers and instructors apply artificial intelligence chatbots to new educational contexts.