SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-17DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103877
Qinghua Chen , Upsorn Tawilapakul , Angel M.Y. Lin
{"title":"Teacherness in the age of GenAI: An ethnographic exploration of pedagogical decision-making and AI integration in English language teaching","authors":"Qinghua Chen , Upsorn Tawilapakul , Angel M.Y. Lin","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103877","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103877","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates how English language teachers maintain and express their professional expertise—\"teacherness\"—while integrating Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) into their pedagogical practice. Through a three-month participatory ethnographic study of an experienced ESP instructor at a Thai university, we examine how teachers' pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) manifests in GenAI-enhanced instruction. Drawing on Shulman's PCK framework and Bakhtin's dialogic theory, we analyze cases of teacher-AI collaboration in materials development and assessment design. Our findings reveal the emergence of \"AI-pedagogical knowledge\"—the specialized ability to translate teaching intentions into AI-actionable instructions. This process requires teachers to deconstruct their typically intuitive PCK into explicit, sequential instructions for GenAI, highlighting both challenges and opportunities in this emerging practice. The study demonstrates that while GenAI can efficiently generate content, it lacks the contextual understanding and pedagogical judgment that characterize effective teaching. The findings suggest that successful GenAI integration requires preserving direct teacher-student interaction while leveraging AI capabilities strategically. This research contributes to debates about teacher professional identity in the AI era, arguing that GenAI integration reinforces the essential nature of teacherness through pedagogical judgment and human insight.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103877"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145323512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-11-02DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103905
Tong King Lee , Li Wei
{"title":"Carnivalesque: Staging postdigital literacy","authors":"Tong King Lee , Li Wei","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103905","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103905","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Technology has revolutionised the concept of learning on social media, where platforms become virtual classrooms and self-made microcelebrities refashion teaching into multimodal performances. This article develops the idea of postdigital literacy through the Bakhtinian concept of carnivalesque. Postdigital literacy refers not merely to the <em>usage</em> of platforms for educational purposes, but to an <em>appropriation</em>, in the sense of leveraging platform affordances in creative ways to articulate online personae around literacy themes—often casting a critical glance at establishment values, such as ‘correct’ English or ‘standard’ Mandarin. Based on Moment Analysis and using examples of short videos from Instagram, <em>Douyin</em>, and RedNote, the article foregrounds ‘literacy shorts’ as an emerging genre at the intersection of language learning and media technology. It argues that underpinning these shorts is the ethos of the carnival, manifest as colloquialisms, vulgarities, parodies, hyperbolic gestures, and theatrical choreography. In staging literacy ‘from below’, as it were, microcelebrities and influencers engage their audience in a ludic and participatory mode of edutainment, transgressing traditional boundaries of education in exchange for views, likes, and shares. In a postdigital age where selves are reflexively curated for consumption, the phenomenon of literacy shorts exemplifies the commodification of literacy on social media and the continual impact of networked technology in shaping how literacy is performed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103905"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145467179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-11-03DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103904
Kyu Yun Lim, Ron Darvin
{"title":"Critical digital literacies, generative AI, and the negotiation of agency in human-AI interactions","authors":"Kyu Yun Lim, Ron Darvin","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103904","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103904","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Drawing on the notion of critical digital literacies (CDL), this qualitative case study investigates the extent to which multilingual secondary school students in Canada exercise agency when they interact with generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technologies. Recognizing how learners have unequal access to resources that involve the use of GenAI, it poses the question: To what extent do learners enact CDL, and what enables or constrains their enactment? Data were collected through interviews, observations of learners' GenAI usage, and digital artifacts, including screenshots of prompts and AI-generated texts. Thematic analysis was employed to understand learners’ dispositions towards these technologies, and their GenAI practices, while multimodal analysis provided insights into how learners negotiated their agency as they interacted with GenAI platforms. Represented by two exemplar cases, findings show how learners who used GenAI primarily through apps in mobile phones or chatbots embedded in social media platforms, tended to adopt a passive stance towards GenAI, accepting generated output without much critical evaluation. In contrast, learners with access to a laptop and multiple GenAI platforms, demonstrated a more critical disposition towards this technology, comparing outputs across platforms, questioning their reliability, and verifying information through lateral reading. By drawing attention to how material conditions of access and platform design can constitute dispositions towards GenAI and CDL, this study calls on educators to support learners in identifying and challenging inequalities and ideological biases embedded in these technologies, to foster more equitable and inclusive GenAI literacy practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103904"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145467180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-29DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103876
Skye Playsted, Damon P. Thomas
{"title":"Language teachers regaining a sense of praxis in pronunciation teaching and learning through Exploratory Practice as professional learning in Australia","authors":"Skye Playsted, Damon P. Thomas","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103876","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103876","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The development of oral language skills is a focus in adult migrant English as an additional language (EAL) education. However, teachers receive little training to teach pronunciation, a key area of oral language pedagogy. To address this gap, we designed an Exploratory Practice study with four teachers of pre-level students to discuss, experiment with, deliver, and reflect on pronunciation pedagogy over a six-month period in an Australia adult migrant EAL program. This paper reports on findings from the final phase of the study, drawing on data gathered in semi-structured interviews, an observation of classroom teaching practice, and a focus group session. Teachers and a doctoral researcher engaged in reflective discussions that enabled praxis-oriented approaches to researching and teaching pronunciation. Using the lens of the theory of practice architectures, the study shed light on how praxis developed in and through sharing understandings. Findings revealed a shift from a technicist-to a praxis-orientation in teachers' pronunciation pedagogical practices, as seen in their accounts of practices (<em>sayings</em>), actions and use of physical resources (<em>doings</em>), and in the nature of the roles and relationships (<em>relatings</em>) between teachers and the researcher during the study. The study has implications for EAL pronunciation pedagogical research, teacher education and professional learning practices.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103876"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145418741","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-28DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103895
Da (Alex) Yan , Feng Tian , Haitao Li , Yu Gao , Jinhui Li
{"title":"A GenAI-supported dialogic model to enhance the functions of peer feedback in EFL writing: a mixed-method interventional study","authors":"Da (Alex) Yan , Feng Tian , Haitao Li , Yu Gao , Jinhui Li","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103895","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103895","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study explores how a GenAI-supported dialogic model of peer feedback (PF) affects EFL writers' writing performance, self-efficacy, and self-regulated learning (SRL). Drawing on recent conceptual insights into dialogic and hybrid intelligent feedback, the proposed model integrated GenAI into PF processes to assist students in generating, discussing, and re-formulating feedback comments. A total of 74 Chinese EFL undergraduates participated in this mixed-methods experimental study, which was embedded within a 17-week writing course. Thirty-six students from a class were assigned to the experimental group (using the GenAI-supported dialogic model), while thirty-eight from another class were assigned to the control group (engaging only in dyadic dialogic PF). The study adopted a three-pronged data collection technique: (1) feedback-informed performance improvements were measured based on draft and revised versions of writing products across three writing tasks; (2) pre- and post-questionnaires were administered to assess changes in PF and writing self-efficacy beliefs; and (3) semi-structured interviews were conducted after the intervention to gather students' reflections on how the new PF model influenced their SRL. Findings revealed that the intervention promoted performance improvements, enhanced PF self-efficacy, and activated SRL at various stages of dialogic PF. However, no significant effects were observed on writing self-efficacy. The evaluation of the model's impact across three key functional areas of feedback highlights the potential of GenAI to systematically enhance PF in an EFL writing context. This study contributes meaningful implications for educators and researchers aiming to incorporate advanced technologies in formative PF.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103895"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145418740","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-24DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103880
Taehyeong Kim , Tove Larsson , Henrik Kaatari , Ying Wang , Pia Sundqvist
{"title":"The effects of extramural English reading on phraseology in L2 writing: A key phrase frames approach","authors":"Taehyeong Kim , Tove Larsson , Henrik Kaatari , Ying Wang , Pia Sundqvist","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103880","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103880","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Foreign/second language (L2) learners worldwide are increasingly exposed to English outside the classroom through self-initiated, extramural English (EE) activities. Among the diverse types of EE activities, reading stands out as a particularly important activity for students. In particular, it has been shown to foster L2 learner's phraseological knowledge (e.g., phrasal verbs and collocations). This study explores whether the effects of EE reading extend to longer multi-word units by examining discontinuous four-word sequences with a variable slot occupied by fillers (e.g., <em>the most ∗ aspect</em>), known as <em>phrase frames</em> (p-frames). The present study used the Swedish Learner English Corpus (SLEC), which comprises L2 English texts written by junior and senior high school students, to extract texts from learners who read in English every week vs. those who do not. Subsequently, we used a novel method for identifying p-frames that are <em>key</em> to the reading and non-reading groups, respectively, and examined the variability of fillers and structural characteristics of the identified key p-frames. The results show that key p-frames of the reading group are characterized by higher variability than those in the non-reading group. There were very limited differences between the groups at the level of the structural categories, but specifically for the function word frames, the reading group are characterized by p-frames that involved a noun phrase with a post-nominal modifier (e.g., <em>the</em> ∗ <em>of a</em>). In contrast, the non-reading group included more embedded clauses in their texts. Pedagogical implications for the role of language exposure through self-initiated reading are discussed.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103880"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145364406","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-24DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103874
April S. Salerno , Amanda K. Kibler , Elena Andrei
{"title":"Using short-story narrative analysis to understand tensions in language education practitioner-research","authors":"April S. Salerno , Amanda K. Kibler , Elena Andrei","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103874","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103874","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>As language teacher educators and practitioner-researchers who support pre-/in-service teachers as they undertake classroom-based research in graduate programs, our work is poised between two ecologies: the classrooms where our students research their practice and the university-based programs where they study. At this research-practice nexus, a key problem includes the persistent gaps between these two ecologies. We ask: What do a language teacher educator's narratives about her students' practitioner-research tell us about the ecological nature of barriers and supports to pre-/in-service K-12 teachers' practitioner-research? How can these narratives inform our understanding of these barriers and supports at local, institutional, and societal levels? We employ critical collaborative autoethnographic approaches and Barkhuizen's scales of context framing. Data include narratives from April's 10 years of teaching graduate students who learn and conduct practitioner-research. We identified ecological tensions spanning supports and barriers: (1) Various constraints of university research do not always fit the realities of K-12 teaching. (2) Practitioner-research generally lies outside the responsibilities of any one position, but it can only be done because of the unique responsibilities that individuals have as K-12 practitioners and as university-based researchers. And (3) the aspects of practitioner-research that make it successful across K-12 and university settings can also contribute to its invisibility or marginalization. Learning how to bridge these ecologies is invaluable not only to practitioner-researchers themselves but also to the larger language teacher-education field. By better understanding these tensions between ecologies, the field can work toward systemic and institutional changes to truly sustain this work.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103874"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145364592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-29DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103897
Francesca Marino
{"title":"“We don't say ‘To-r Ó-nto. We say ‘To-r Ó-no.” Language ideologies on TikTok","authors":"Francesca Marino","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103897","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103897","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates English pronunciation teaching videos on TikTok, focusing on how content creators, both first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers of English, present and teach pronunciation. The research aims to examine if and how these videos embed and contribute to discursively perpetuating language ideologies of nativeness that promote the native speaker model as the ideal standard. Sixty TikTok videos were collected, with 30 created by L1 English speakers from two inner circles, the US and UK, and 30 by self-identified L2 speakers of English. Multimodal critical discourse analysis was employed to compare the discursive strategies used by both L1 and L2 speakers in teaching English pronunciation. The analysis revealed that both L1 and L2 speakers tend to embed ideologies of nativeness through various multimodal discursive practices, including presenting native-like pronunciation as highly desirable, and constructing non-native speaker identity as deficient. The study emphasizes the need to critically evaluate educational content on social media and develop learners’ critical digital literacies through varied pedagogical strategies, including providing them with tools for analyzing and engaging with texts in the digital wilds.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103897"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145467181","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A dynamic network analysis: Temporal interaction of individual differences and its effect on oral language development","authors":"Hanjing Yu , Hongying Peng , Marjolijn Verspoor , Man Ding","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103894","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103894","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This longitudinal study with a time-relation intensive approach investigates the dynamic interactions among four ID variables—engagement, teacher autonomy support, learning interest, and foreign language enjoyment—in L2 oral language development. We employed a dynamic network analysis (DNA) to construct a network model based on the four ID variables and tested whether the network structure, specifically the centrality of these ID variables, predicts students’ oral language performance as measured by complexity, accuracy, and fluency. Data were collected among 422 university students with four questionnaires of ID variables and monologic oral tasks over one semester. The findings showed that the network structure of ID variables exhibited relatively high temporal stability, with strengthened connections among these four ID variables over time. The centrality measure, emotional engagement, was found to have a positive relation with accuracy and syntactic complexity, a negative relation with lexical complexity, and no significant relation with fluency. Theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical implications of this study are provided.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103894"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145418737","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
SystemPub Date : 2026-01-01Epub Date: 2025-10-22DOI: 10.1016/j.system.2025.103892
Heath Rose , Kari Sahan , Minhui Wei , Ikuya Aizawa , Sihan Zhou , Christopher Shepard
{"title":"A systematic review of English medium instruction in higher education: An update of Macaro et al. (2018)","authors":"Heath Rose , Kari Sahan , Minhui Wei , Ikuya Aizawa , Sihan Zhou , Christopher Shepard","doi":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103892","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.system.2025.103892","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper updates Macaro et al.'s (2018) widely cited systematic review of English Medium Instruction (EMI) in higher education, synthesising research published between 2016 and 2023. With EMI research expanding exponentially, this review assesses global trends, language and subject learning outcomes, and language-related challenges in EMI contexts. Due to the growth in research, this update only addresses a subset of the original review questions, namely those focusing on language and content issues. A total of 196 empirical studies were systematically selected and analysed. Findings indicate continued growth in EMI research, with Asia and Europe as the most studied regions. Evidence on language learning outcomes suggests that EMI contributes positively to receptive skills and vocabulary, though productive skills yield mixed results. Regarding content learning, EMI appears not to negatively impact subject attainment, with some studies reporting comparable or even superior outcomes compared to L1 instruction. Language challenges persist, particularly in academic writing and transitions from L1 instruction, though they tend to subside with increased EMI exposure. Research gaps include limited longitudinal studies, underrepresentation of postgraduate EMI, and a lack of qualitative insights into sociolinguistic and pedagogical dimensions. The review highlights the need for a broader research agenda, incorporating EMI's impact on employability, sociolinguistic equity, and long-term academic success. It concludes with recommendations for future research and methodological advancements in EMI studies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48185,"journal":{"name":"System","volume":"136 ","pages":"Article 103892"},"PeriodicalIF":5.6,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145364589","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}