Artificial intelligence and positive psychology play crucial roles in education, yet there is limited research on how these psychological factors influence learners’ use of AI, particularly in language education. Grounded in self-determination theory, this study investigates the factors influencing Chinese English learners’ intention to use AI for language learning. Utilizing structural equation modeling, this research examines the mediating roles of grit, flow, and resilience in the relationship between basic psychological needs and the intention to use AI. Data were analyzed using AMOS 26 and SPSS 26. The findings reveal that flow, grit, and resilience mediate the relationship between basic psychological needs and the intention to adopt AI tools for language learning. This study provides valuable insights into how educational environments can be designed to fulfill psychological needs, thereby fostering greater engagement and acceptance of AI in language education.

Teacher well-being and work engagement are central to the quality of early childhood education because teachers’ emotional functioning shapes children’s learning, social interaction, and classroom ...

Informal learning has become increasingly important in language learning, yet few scholars have focused on how it is facilitated through Chinese social media. This chapter adopts a mixed-methods approach to explore the situation of 465 Chinese EFL learners engaging in language learning on Chinese social media platforms. Specifically, it investigates the basic situation of informal learning through China’s social media, the influence of participants’ demographic information on usage frequency, and the advantages and disadvantages of informal language learning through Chinese social media. The findings reveal that Bilibili is the most popular platform, followed by WeChat, TikTok, and Xiaohongshu. Secondly, age is not a significant factor, whereas academic degrees, university level, and CET-4 scores are predictors of English learning on social media. Thirdly, informal language learning through social media platforms is a double-edged sword. Its advantages include diverse learning materials, real-world language use, flexibility and convenience, cultural exposure, peer support and interaction, and personalization. Conversely, the disadvantages include inconsistent quality, information overload, lack of a structured learning path, and distraction. This study sheds light on the nuances of informal language learning via Chinese social media, offering insights for language teachers and policymakers in understanding and enhancing digital learning environments. <!----> <!----> <!----> <!---->

Narrative skills are important for communication and everyday interaction. This study examined how Mandarin-speaking children with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) produce oral narratives. Thirty-six Mandarin-speaking monolingual children at the preschool educational stage participated, including 18 children with ASD (mean age = 6;4, SD = 0;11) and 18 typically developing (TD) children (mean age = 6;1, SD = 0;4) who were matched on chronological age and expressive lexical ability. Children completed picture-based storytelling tasks from the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives. Narrative production was analyzed in three dimensions: macrostructure (global organization of the story), microstructure (internal linguistic units), and internal state terms (ISTs). Results showed that children with ASD did not differ significantly from their TD peers in Attempt, IST diversity, or basic productivity measures, including the total number of utterances, the number of different words, and the overall frequency of conjunctions. In contrast, the ASD group showed significantly lower performance on story structure, story complexity, Goal, and Outcome, and produced fewer total words, shorter mean length of utterance in words, and fewer complex sentences. These findings indicate that Mandarin-speaking children with ASD show narrative difficulties in production, with particular weaknesses in macrostructural organization and specific aspects of microstructure. The results add to cross-linguistic evidence on autism-related narrative challenges and highlight the need for interventions in Mandarin that target episode organization, narrative elaboration, and syntactic complexity.