This 23.1 issue of the Taiwan Journal of TESOL brings together four studies that examine language learning and use across educational and professional contexts. Moving from learner beliefs to workplace communication, and from digitally mediated interaction to classroom discourse, the contributions in this volume highlight how language practices are shaped by goals, constraints, and the environments in which they are situated.
The issue opens with Donald Glen Patterson and Mariya A. Yukhymenko-Lescroart’s study on Japanese nursing students’ learning beliefs and behaviors. Through the analysis of interview data, the article shows how learners engage with the demands of both disciplinary knowledge and English learning, with effort and goal orientation playing a central role. The study offers insight into how learners manage parallel domains and how transferable skills can support their development.
This focus on professional context continues in Joan Wan-Ting Huang and Chiou-Lan Chern’s investigation of nurses’ clinical English use in Taiwan. Drawing on an activity theory framework, the study identifies tensions in workplace communication, with a focus on nurses’ reliance on machine translation, inconsistencies in clinical English use, and hierarchical power asymmetries. The findings point to the complexity of English use in real-world settings and raise important considerations for English for Nursing Purposes pedagogy.
The third article, by Sarah H. J. Liu and Wen Chi Kang, shifts to a computer-mediated communication environment and examines how peer feedback supports self-regulated learning among learners of English as a Foreign Language and Japanese as a Foreign Language. The study demonstrates that learners engage with one another through feedback in ways that reflect audience awareness, strategic decision-making, and collaborative knowledge construction. It highlights the potential of digital platforms to support both autonomy and interaction in language learning.
The issue concludes with Wen-Hsien Yang and Li-Zu Yang’s corpus-based analysis of teacher-led questioning in secondary CLIL classrooms in Taiwan. By examining the types and functions of questions in classroom interaction, the study raises important pedagogical questions about how teachers guide participation and shape learners’ cognitive engagement. It also highlights the need for greater awareness of questioning practices in bilingual education contexts.
Collectively, the articles in this issue reflect a shared concern with how language learning and use are embedded in broader systems, from educational and digital to professional contexts. They remind us that language is not only learned, but also negotiated and enacted in context.
We hope this issue contributes to ongoing conversations in TESOL and applied linguistics, and that it offers both insights and directions for future research and practice.
Finally, we will soon update the call for papers to include focused articles alongside full-length research articles and book reviews. Updates will be shared on our website, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
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Siaw-Fong Chung
Editor-in-Chief
 00_Foreword.pdf | [ ] | 125 kB |