Browsing by Author "Qi GY"

Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
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    An Evaluation of Mandarin Learning Apps Designed for English Speaking Pre-schoolers
    (Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), 2019-09) Neumann M; Wang Y; Qi GY; Neumann D
    Touch screen tablets such as iPads are becoming increasingly popular as educational tools to support children’s first language learning in pre-schools. Apps can also be used to support early learning of a second language in English-speaking countries. However, little work has been done to evaluate these apps. The present research developed criteria for assessing Mandarin learning apps and applied them to evaluate 28 Mandarin apps for English-speaking pre-schoolers. The criteria included the domains of interactivity, usability, cultural awareness, collaboration, language and literacy content, and learning outcomes. The application of the criteria showed that half the Mandarin learning apps lacked key educational features essential for second language learning. The categories in which the apps scored most highly were interactivity, cultural awareness, usability, and language and literacy content. The apps scored lowest in the categories of collaboration and provision of learning outcomes. The findings suggest that further research is needed to inform best practice, app design, and to provide guidelines that help teachers select quality apps to support second language learning.
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    Becoming and being language teacher educators: a collaborative reflexive account
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-11-14) Nguyen M; Qi GY
    In this study we employed reflexivity as a typology and a means to foster our own becoming and being as language teacher educators (LTEs). Specifically, drawing on reflexivity as mutual collaboration, we engaged in duoethnography where we were researcher-participants in each other’s narratives, with the capacity to be reflexive beings. We collaboratively inquired into our own and one another’s professional trajectories, demonstrating how our journeys of becoming and being LTEs were characterised by our social and linguistic identities, our work and interaction with language teachers, and the research and teaching praxis. Findings and discussion advocate a dialogue in the field, acknowledging the dispositions, challenges, and possibilities that reflexivity can offer for LTEs’ trajectories.
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    Challenges and responses: A Complex Dynamic Systems approach to exploring language teacher agency in a blended classroom
    (Castledown Publishers, 12/04/2022) Qi GY; Wang Y
    This is a qualitative examination of how a Chinese language teacher responded to challenges and developed her agency in a unique teaching and learning environment, termed as the blended classroom. The uniqueness of this classroom lies in its attendance by two cohorts of students at the same time – the face-to-face and the online groups. The online group joined the face-to-face group and the teacher via a synchronous online classroom called Blackboard Collaborate. Through analysing data from the teacher’s reflection, face-to-face and email interviews and the recordings of her blended class, this research unfolds a semester-long trajectory of her agency development in the blended classroom. Guided by the Complex Dynamic Systems Theory (CDST), we conclude that teacher agency is a system composed of multi-layers of subsystems and it is a product of the constant interaction amongst these interconnected and interdependent subsystems, with certain subsystems playing a more dominant role than others at a given stage of one’s agency development. This finding led to our proposal of a framework of teacher agency system. This research advances our understanding of teacher agency as a system in the context of online and blended learning.
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    Chinese Students Abroad during the COVID Crisis: Challenges and Opportunities
    (21st Century Global Dynamics Initiative at the Orfalea Center of the University of California, Santa Barbara, 25/09/2020) Qi GY; Wang S; Dai C
    COVID-19 is a human crisis that has hit international education particularly hard. International students have been directly affected by air travel cancellations and quarantine measures which have made border-crossing almost impossible. Like many, they are victims of this crisis—particularly those from China, who constitute the largest market within the global international education sector. Chinese international students have faced a double stigmatization since the outbreak of COVID-19. First, they have been discriminated against by the “Chinese virus” stigma while they were overseas in the early stage of the pandemic. Second, they have been targeted in multiple ways by the anti-China politics triggered by the coronavirus. Given the fluidity of the crisis and the impacts of COVID-19 on Chinese international students, it is worth discussing their plight. Policymakers need to think carefully about the new dynamics of international education in terms of the huge market share of Chinese international students as related to new destination options and changing international education policies that may further affect Chinese students now and during the post-pandemic recovery.
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    Developing a distance-based doctoral supervisory model: Inquiry over disrupted trajectories
    (Taylor and Francis Group, 2023-04-24) Qi GY; Skyrme G; White CJ
    This paper proposes a distance-based doctoral supervisory model to support students in the process of navigating self, agency, and emotions over their doctoral journey. The model emerged through our examination of the lived experiences of three Chinese female doctoral students who, though enrolled as internal students in our New Zealand university, were prevented by the pandemic from returning from their Spring Festival sojourn to China, and continued their study by distance. We employed narrative analysis to deeply engage with their stories shared in diaries and one-on-one interviews, alongside social media interactions. These revealed a strong commitment to study emanating from answerability toward their research projects, already underway, and agentive actions to maintain peer-to-peer academic and emotional support, enabling resilience and reflexivity about personal values and needs. Learning from this experience, we emphasize in our model the need to nurture important bonds between students, their peers and their supervisors in online environments.
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    Games Literacy for Teacher Education: Towards the Implementation of Game-based Learning
    (International Forum of Educational Technology & Society, 2020-04) Chen S; Zhang S; Qi GY; Yang J
    Game-based learning (GBL) has been widely recognised in research, and evidently benefited for learners. However, what GBL is perceived by teachers and learners has been a concern that might impact on quality of teaching and learning in the GBL environment. Game-based pedagogy meticulously designed from a teacher's perspective was regarded as harping on the same string without fun by learners. This paper aims to explore games literacy capabilities in supporting teachers to implement GBL that meets learners’ needs and expectations. Semi-structured interviews and surveys with experienced teachers of GBL and experts in the relevant field were conducted, followed by an Analytic Hierarchy Process seeking perceptions of a group of academics and researchers. Findings suggested five key capabilities in game literacy required by teachers in implementing GBL. They are (1) basic games literacy, (2) high-level games literacy, (3) instructional design for GBL, (4) organisation and management for GBL, and (S) evaluation of GBL. Amongst the five, instructional design for GBL and high-level games literacy were rated highly impacting on the quality of teaching. Based on the findings, aiming at informing teacher education and professional development, we proposed a framework providing a guidance to improve game-based design and pedagogical practices for teachers in the implementation of GBL in their classrooms. It concludes that teachers’ capabilities in games literacy require specific attention to instructional design – that demands a thought-provoking process for GBL.
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