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This paper reports on the results from a multiple-case study of how EFL school teachers in China coped with online assessment for 10 weeks caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. We looked into the online assessment practices of seven teachers from seven regions of China, through individual interview, teachers’ journals, instructional designs for online teaching, and online classroom observation. The findings reveal that the participants went through a transition from neglecting assessment to overdoing assessment in their online teaching process. Whilst they used a range of online assessment methods, they did not systematically incorporate online assessment into their online curricula. Analysis shows that this issue is most likely to result from teachers’ lack of understanding of the nature of online assessment as an intrinsic component of curriculum and a major means of enhancing students’ learning. Implications will be discussed.

This historical study investigates the concept of learner autonomy in the national English language curricula for Chinese universities. It seeks to understand the meaning of learner autonomy in China and the intentionality of promoting this concept through the curricula from 1978 to 2007. By adopting Quentin Skinner’s intentionalist approach to analyzing the history of ideas, this study conducted a systematic document analysis of three national curricula in relation to their linguistic and practical contexts constituted of 169 Chinese academic articles in total. The study revealed that learner autonomy mainly referred to students’ motivation and ability to work hard on their own outside the classroom in the Chinese context. Importing this concept, however, caused ideological confusion and exacerbated the disempowerment of teachers within the dynamics of China’s English language education at the tertiary level. The study raises awareness for borrowing concepts across different cultural contexts and has implications for research, policymaking, teacher development, and pedagogical practice in second language education in China.

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