Negotiating identity by transnational Chinese students during COVID-19

For some years now, there has been an increase in the number of Chinese students travelling abroad to pursue higher education. The outbreak of COVID-19 has created new challenges for international students around the world. Based on an analysis of online forums during the pandemic (January–July 2020), we focus on the challenges Chinese transnational students have been facing. From the state's point of view, being at the front of China's internationalization progress, the students are expected to have both a ‘vision of globalization’ (国际化视野) as well as a deep ‘Chinese feeling’ (中国情怀). However, in practice during the pandemic, the students found it extremely difficult to achieve a balance between their multiple identities. In this article, we argue that discrepancies between the students’ identities may be due to the pandemic having highlighted several existing conflicts that have so far received only meagre attention or were even overlooked.

Equitable Design and Assessment

English academic discourse in U.S. institutions rests on Eurocentric rhetoric where hidden assumptions and expectations may place transnational students at a disadvantage in instruction, assessment, and entrance into communities of practice. The author's empirical research draws on transnational students, faculty, and staff perceptions into linguistically sustaining pedagogy to bring awareness to transnational lived experience and to make recommendations for equitable instruction and assessment. Bakhtin's dialogism and negotiation and the Academic Literacies model provide theoretical frameworks to provide practical recommendations while also examining the negative discourse and deficit-based practices surrounding English learners in American higher education. A discussion of a course redesign highlights possibilities for valuing the transnational student and offering equitable pedagogy while also increasing student investment in language learning.

Examining Burmese students’ multilingual practices and identity positionings at a border high school in China

This study explores a cohort of Burmese students’ lived experiences at a border high school in China and demonstrates that their multilingual practices and identity positionings constitute exclusionary effects that limit their interactions with their local Chinese teachers and peers. The paper argues that these Burmese students’ in-group interactions reproduce the process of exclusion, further complicating their identity positionings. This paper confirms the established fact that transnational students are marginalized in a variety of national contexts in complex ways, and draws attention to in-group differences among transnational students with diverse backgrounds. These findings have implications for multilingual practices and education policy makers, and for a more inclusive pedagogical approach to reducing marginalization and educating students of diverse linguistic, cultural, and racial backgrounds for global citizenship.

Introducing Translanguaging in an EAP Course at a Joint-Venture University in China

This article describes an innovative approach to introducing translanguaging in an English for academic purposes (EAP) course at a young Sino–US joint-venture university in China. To promote the use of Chinese students’ full linguistic and communicative repertoires in an English-medium-of-instruction university, I intentionally incorporated translanguaging into an EAP course through three components: explicit discussion of translanguaging, a short writing assignment on an extended definition of a Chinese concept, and a team survey project to test a generalization about Chinese culture. Observation and feedback from students indicate that these translanguaging writing assignments have the potential to contribute to students’ cultural knowledge, writing and communication skills, intercultural communication and awareness, and identity construction as translingual and transnational students. I describe the context and rationale for the innovative assignments, and the assignments themselves. I then reflect on the process and discuss implications and plans for expansion of activities that promote translanguaging.

Gaming the System

This chapter highlights the potential and practical application of CALL and specifically the use of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) for the language and identity socialization of transnational students. The authors focus on the educational trajectories of 1) children returnees and 2) international migrants who have lived and attended school in the U.S. and now have been uprooted to Mexico as a result of repatriation and/or deportation. The authors advocate creating blended affinity spaces at schools where youth can meet and play digital role-playing games. Game-ecology literacy development within these spaces is detailed through the sharing of game screen shots, blog posts, and the perspectives of transnational students that support this kind of learning within the EFL environment. The chapter concludes with a “call to action” and steps for educators to create such blended affinity spaces for gaming at schools.