This study examines the application of artificial intelligence, particularly large language models (LLMs) in integrating Chinese culture into foreign language teaching, focusing on two key dimensions of cultural understanding and narration. For cultural understanding, LLMs support cultural theme analysis and cross-cultural concept comparison, effectively broadening learners' cultural horizons and enhancing their intercultural sensitivity. For cultural narration, LLMs assist in optimizing content expression and narrative strategies, improving the precision of cultural communication. The study emphasizes that successful human-machine collaboration hinges on maintaining learners' active cognitive engagement throughout the learning process. Additionally, given the potential ideological issues in LLMs-generated content, teachers need to develop keen discriminatory abilities and guide learners in strengthening their cultural autonomy and critical thinking skills.

Based on the third-generation activity theory and EGAP blended instruction, this study explores the evaluation model of factors in online and offline activities. The results of evaluation modeling using PLS-SEM show that students' motivation positively influences their attitudes towards resources and compliance with rules; online and offline resources influence students' compliance with rules. These factors, along with online and offline integration, further influence students' overall gains. Teachers' online feedback and course evaluation rules exhibit moderating effects on overall gains. The evaluation model reveals that the dynamic interaction and effective integration of the above factors contribute to the solution of the contradictions in the current EGAP blended instruction. The study provides meaningful implications for applying the third-generation activity theory and PLS-SEM analysis in blended instruction evaluation.

This paper focuses on the philosophies and paths of building the College English Courses (CEC) Virtual Teaching & Research Center led by Zhejiang University. Based on the concepts of “fostering virtue through education, integrating research with education, connecting the east with the west, and contributing jointly for shared benefits”, the CEC Virtual Teaching & Research Center commits itself to boosting core competitiveness featuring “innovation in course concepts, optimization in the course system, improvement in teaching and assessment, and enhancement in technological application”, and developing its organization system with “five elements”, namely serving the nation, perfecting the system, integrating research with education, innovating curriculum design, and contributing for shared benefits. The building of the CEC Virtual Teaching & Research Center reflects the efforts to actively explore innovative forms and modes of basic teaching organizations, which conforms to the requirements on College English teaching in the information age and responds to both the growth need of student individuals and the strategic need of national development.

With the rapid development of new-generation information technologies, artificial intelligence (AI) is irreversibly reshaping the ecosystem of foreign language education, bringing unprecedented opportunities and challenges to foreign language education. Only by forging ahead in the right direction can AI-empowered foreign language education truly promote the development of programs and serve the progress of humanity. To carry forward the reform of foreign language education, it is essential to actively embrace AI technologies, integrate into the broader trend, and identify the contemporary positioning of foreign language education. Efforts should also be made to strengthen the internal capabilities of foreign language education, enhance its connotation, optimize its structure, update its types and models, and adhere to its humanistic nature through inheritance and innovation.

This study adopts a 5-dimension error scoring system including fidelity, fluency, terminology translation, style and cultural reception to compare the English-Chinese translation qualities between a group of translation learners majoring in English and a Neural Machine Translation (NMT) system. The results show that the NMT's total error score and fidelity error score are significantly lower than the translation learners' mean error score, but its fluency error score is significantly higher than the translation learners' mean score. The differences between human and machine translation in terminology translation, style and cultural reception are not statistically significant. In view of the results, translation instructors should make efforts to alleviate learner anxiety, guide and supervise the proper use of machine translation technology, and reform measures of translation teaching assessment.

Advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have brought new opportunities to foreign language education in universities, and the new ecology of online and offline integrated teaching has put forward new requirements for non-language major foreign language teachers. This paper sorts out the conceptions of teacher competence and the previous relevant literature both at home and abroad. Then, it proposes a situated and dynamic competence framework for non-language major foreign language teachers in the online and offline integrated environment. The proposed framework comprises three competence components of awareness, knowledge and skills, and includes three development stages of exploration, integration and innovation. The paper is expected to provide insights for the professional development of university non-language major foreign language teachers in the information age, and promote the deep integration of ICT and foreign language teaching.

With 76 non-English majors as the subjects and through questionnaires, background data analysis and interviews, this study explored the relationship between their affordance perception and English learning engagement in the mobile environment. It found that: (1) the subjects' overall performance of affordance perception and English learning engagement were good, but the imbalance of their internal development still existed; (2) affordance perception had different regression effects on the three sub-items of English learning engagement, and compared with resource affordance and interpersonal affordance, network affordance had better predictive effects on English learning engagement. The findings showed that the affordance perception and English learning engagement were the results of the coupling between learners and the mobile environment, and the internal relationship between them could be influenced by learners' adaptability and initiative.

Adopting a mixed design based on the Latent Growth Curve Modeling and Retrodictive Modeling from a Complexity Theory perspective, this study investigates the macro, meso and micro developmental features of English writing competence in a group of English-major freshmen across one year. It uses lexical complexity, sentence complexity, accuracy and fluency as the variables, and finds that: (1) the students' CAF development is not linear, faster at the beginning and the end than in the middle; (2) the students' English writing competence can be longitudinally classified into three prototypes, namely the continuous stable type, bouncing first and then stable type, and alternate bouncing and stable type; (3) the CAF development of the typical students indicates that the dynamic correlations among the sub-systems are different in three prototypes, and distribution of cognitive resources, initial writing habits, feedback and motivation are the driving forces of different outcomes. The results have implications for teaching of English writing.

In the New Era, integrating excellent traditional Chinese culture into teaching of foreign language majors has become increasingly important and urgent. Taking the course “Key Topics on Traditional Chinese Culture” as a case study, this paper addresses the issue mainly from two aspects of curriculum framework and teaching methods. In terms of the former, the author establishes the course themes based on traditional Chinese philosophical ideology of “Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism” and traditional Chinese literature of “Tang Poetry, Song Ci, Yuan Drama, Ming and Qing Novels”, and constructs three core teaching modules, including cultural learning, foreign language expression, and translation analysis. Regarding the latter, the author proposes five methods, namely close reading and appreciation, terminology translation, comparative reading of multiple translations, cross-cultural comparison, and synthesis. The paper provides references and insights for cultivating foreign language majors' ability of “telling China's stories well” and supporting the Chinese culture “Going Global” strategy.

The Project-based College English Virtual Teaching & Research Center was among the first batch of national experimental virtual teaching & research centers approved by the Ministry of Education. It aims for innovativeness in theoretical research, modes of organization and operation, and focal areas of work, and for excellence in course and teaching materials development, teaching methodology, and pedagogical research. To this end, the center coordinates collaboration in course development, resource construction and faculty development among school-based or virtual teaching & research groups, and encourages the sharing of academic and teaching resources, expertise, and pedagogical research achievements.

This study, from the perspective of educational ecology, proposes ways to build a symbiotic and win-win interdisciplinary “foreign language + discipline” teaching community, as well as a collaborative mechanism between ESAP (English for specific academic purposes) teachers and disciplinary supervisors. The interdisciplinary teaching community forms an educational synergy through the collaborative mechanism in terms of teaching goals and principles, teaching activities, teaching resources, and teaching research. The teaching community interacts with ecological factors such as learning activities, learning tools, and physical learning environment, creating a dynamic ESAP teaching ecosystem. The results of a preliminary survey show that the established teaching community can facilitate both foreign language acquisition and disciplinary learning, aligning the ESAP teaching ecosystem with the overall educational goals, and promoting the healthy development of the higher education ecosystem.

Research on emotions in the field of applied linguistics predominantly focuses on their linear effects, overlooking nonlinear relationships among variables. Conducting a questionnaire survey of 325 undergraduate students, and utilizing polynomial regression and response surface analysis, this study investigates the nonlinear impact of foreign language anxiety and enjoyment on learning engagement. The results reveal that when foreign language anxiety and enjoyment change in the same direction, students' engagement is significantly higher in the low anxiety and enjoyment situation than in the high anxiety and enjoyment situation. When foreign language anxiety and enjoyment change in the opposite directions, students' engagement is significantly higher in the low anxiety and high enjoyment situation than in the high anxiety and low enjoyment situation. The study offers a novel perspective for foreign language emotion research and provides implications for enhancing students' foreign language learning engagement.

Through questionnaires and semi-structured interviews, this study examines multiple interaction levels of 776 university English learners. It also delves into the role of learners' affordance perceptions in shaping the functioning mechanism for multiple interaction from an ecological perspective. The findings reveal that: (1) on the whole, the learners demonstrate medium to high levels of all dimensions of multiple interaction, yet there exists a slight imbalance across different interaction modes and stages; (2) the learners' perceived affordance types during multiple interaction exhibit consistency, but their perceptions of affordances in terms of necessity, usefulness and accessibility vary, leading to categorization of the functioning mechanism for multiple interaction into three paths: “teacher-student interaction → human-computer interaction → peer-peer interaction” (driven by perceived necessity), “human-computer interaction → teacher-student interaction → peer-peer interaction” (driven by perceived usefulness), and “human-computer interaction → peer-peer interaction → teacher-student interaction” (driven by perceived accessibility). The study contributes to deeper understanding of learners' behavioral and psychological mechanisms in multiple interaction, and offers insights for improving foreign language teaching and learning strategies.

This study explores the connotation and practice of Chinese cultural awareness construction in university foreign language education. It elucidates the significant importance of integrating Chinese culture into university foreign language education, and provides a detailed analysis of the three levels of Chinese cultural awareness construction, namely recognition of Chinese culture, identification of Chinese culture, and confidence in Chinese culture. Based on questionnaire surveys and interviews of university foreign language teachers, it then proposes specific implementation routes from the aspects of textbooks, teaching methods and teachers, focusing on promoting the sublimation of students' Chinese cultural awareness from recognition to identification and ultimately to confidence. The study contributes to the cultivation of new-era talents with rich culture and the realization of the grand vision of a culturally strong China.

To build a strong nation, education must be prioritized, and to strengthen education, the quality of teachers must be enhanced in the first place. This paper, in the context of building a strong nation in education, elaborates on the “five-in-one” competencies of college foreign language teachers. It addresses how college foreign language teachers should enhance digital literacy and utilize artificial intelligence to promote the digital transformation of college foreign language education. It calls on college foreign language teachers to consciously model themselves after exemplary educators, uphold moral character, diligently pursue academic excellence, and continuously enhance their own competencies, in order to advance education modernization, deliver education meeting people's expectations and build a strong nation in education.

From the perspective of learning engagement, and with 714 translation major undergraduate interpreters as the subjects, this study drew on the “I-E-O” theoretical model proposed by Astin, applied structural equation modeling to the questionnaire data, and constructed a path model of the interpreting process with “Input-Environment-Outcome” variables to explore the influence mechanism of learning engagement on interpreting competence. It was found that: (1) the environment variables including classroom environment, institutional support, interpersonal interaction and learning engagement had significant positive effects on interpreting competence; (2) learning engagement had the strongest effect, followed by institutional support; (3) learning engagement mediated the relationship between other variables and interpreting competence; (4) classroom environment, institutional support and interpersonal interaction were significantly correlated. It is thus crucial to optimize students' learning engagement for interpreting competence development by increasing environmental support and promoting effective classroom interaction.

By using the CiteSpace software to visually analyze 356 journal papers themed on financial English included in CNKI from 2002 to 2021, this paper surveys the development of financial English research in China. The results are as follows: (1) the research institutions of the core literature are mostly finance and economics academies; (2) the research focuses are mainly language ontology and translation of financial English, talent training system, and innovative teaching reform; (3) the research trend has developed from scattered studies to macroscopic, systematic and diversified studies, but there are still such problems as the shallow research level, dominant speculative research methods, unbalanced research objects, homogeneous research perspectives and unidirectional kinetic energy of research. In the future, financial English researchers should improve the research level of financial English teaching reform, deepen verifiable information-aided empirical research, balance research fields and themes, enrich the interdisciplinary nature of financial English research, and explore the path of international financial English communication.

This paper introduces the background of virtual teaching & research centers, and sketches foreign language virtual teaching & research center projects approved by the Ministry of Education in 2022. It then gives an overview of the development of the Virtual Teaching & Research Center of College English Curriculum Development. Based on the proposed virtual community of practice model, the paper further illustrates its intended implementation from the aspects of theoretical basis, organizational management and community of practice.

Although recent years have witnessed a blooming scholarly interest in emotions in second language acquisition, little attention has been directed to the arousal of foreign language classroom emotions. Drawing on the Control-Value Theory, the present study investigated the predictive effects of foreign language (FL) learning control-value appraisals on foreign language classroom anxiety (FLCA) and foreign language enjoyment (FLE) among 251 Chinese FL learners. The results indicated that: (1) the participants experienced a medium level of FLCA and FLE, and had a medium to upper-medium level of control-value appraisals; (2) the participants' control and positive (intrinsic and extrinsic) value appraisals of FL learning jointly predicted their FLCA and FLE; (3) the participants' negative (cost) value appraisals of FL learning, while interacting with control appraisals, significantly predicted their FLCA. The results offer insights into the arousal of FL learning emotions, and provide implications for the intervention of foreign language classroom emotions.

Through questionnaires and background data mining, this study explores the level of English reading flow state, its influencing factors and the relationship between flow experience and reading performance of 101 English major freshmen. Descriptive statistics, correlation and multiple linear regression analyses find that: (1) the overall level of reading flow is low, and nearly two thirds of the students have no flow experience; (2) the learner factors affecting reading flow include reading interest, reading confidence and reading skills, among which reading interest has the greatest impact; (3) flow experience is significantly correlated with reading achievement, amount of reading and reading speed, and there are significant differences in these three aspects of reading performance between the students with and without flow experience. Flow experience is an important predictor of reading achievement, but there is no correlation between flow experience and reading duration.

In order to solve the puzzles and problems encountered by college English teachers in moral education through courses for students, this paper clarifies the connotations of courses, course design and moral education through courses, and sorts out the general principles in implementing moral education through all courses. In line with the requirements of the Guidelines for Integrating Moral Education into College Foreign Language Teaching, and in light of the basic features of college English courses, the paper focuses on the four aspects of teaching objectives, teaching content, teaching methods and teaching assessment in teaching design of integrating moral education into college English, emphatically expounding on the key issues and directions in moral education through college English courses.

The xu-argument, a newly emerging view on language learning, has received considerable attention largely because it offers a new approach to enhancing pedagogical and methodological efficiency in L2 teaching and learning. In order to make better use of the approach, this paper sets out to reveal the rationale for its high efficiency in promoting L2 learning, and highlight its four key features facilitative of L2 learning efficiency. Specifically, the xu-argument i) addresses a fundamental issue of L2 learning, ii) capitalizes on the asymmetry between language comprehension and production, iii) gives full play to the role of context, and iv) maximizes the alignment effect arising from interaction.

This paper first probes into the evolution of Blended Language Learning (BLL), focusing on the debate over the legitimacy of BLL, the broad versus narrow BLL, and the concept of BLL versus CALL. Then it analyses the multi-layer BLL construct from such dimensions as physical space and time, technology application, SLA and pedagogical theories. It proposes that BLL involves developing a language learning ecology which expands from blending space-time to integrating multiple SLA theories and building communities of inquiry. By adhering to systematic epistemology and integration of multiple research methods and theoretical models, future BLL research needs to adopt an evidence-based approach to address three key issues of learning mechanism, evaluation and system design from the perspective of blended learning ecology, aiming at promoting the development of blended foreign language teaching theory and practice with Chinese characteristics.