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This study investigates the challenges faced by Pakistani and Chinese English language instructors in developing communicative competence among senior high school students, and highlights the fundamental loopholes. Employing a thematic analysis within a qualitative comparative case study, the findings reveal learners’ substandard prior knowledge as the biggest loophole in both Pakistan and China, which causes instructors to overuse local languages. There exists misalignment in curriculum, instruction, and assessment; consequently, the instructional practices are drastically examination-oriented producing rote-learners, and significantly hamper the development of communicative competence. Pakistani syllabi appear to be outdated. There is unavailability of modern linguistic resources in Pakistan while the Chinese instructors evade using them despite their availability. Chinese teacher-student interaction and Pakistani parental involvement are bleak. Findings suggest that respective governments should pay attention to their junior high school systems for developing students’ prerequisite knowledge and implement leaner-centered instruction. Pakistani senior high school syllabi should be modified.

This study investigated the role of internet sources in depicting China's cultural soft image in Pakistan. Using mixed-method approach, it examined six Chinese culturally-oriented web sources and employed the conceptualization of Hartig (2016). Chinese cultural diplomacy in Pakistan was found engaging a wide range of actors, allowing for local actors to play active role, using modern media, and promoting cultural content interactively. The results suggest positive contribution of China Xinhua Urdu, Youlin Magazine, China Radio International Urdu and Pakistan China Institute internet sources. The Culture & Arts page of Chinese Embassy in Pakistan and Nihao-Salam websites were found dormant. The results found females, older and more educated individuals to be more likely to perceive positively-oriented experiences about Chinese culture than their counterparts. The study highlights that more enriched means and improved content on the internet sources should be brought to attract more male, younger, ordinary, and less educated internet users.

Corona Virus Disease (COVID-19) was declared a worldwide pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on mid of March 2020. Globally, most governments - including Pakistan - approved extraordinary social control measures to stem the tide of this pandemic disease. These actions required social segregation and a temporary suspension of education. As with all other institutions of higher education, public and private universities will also be required to offer distance learning to students by the end of the academic year 2020–2021. Universities suspended physical classes and implemented online teaching for university students. And, this spontaneous, quick, and uncertain nature of the teaching created difficulties for students. Data on accepted procedures for directing such sudden transitions to university education were scarce, and there was no consensus on the best way to proceed. Students at public and private universities have been impacted by a shift to distance education. Studying students' academic difficulties and the unexpected benefits of distance education, and then using that information to develop strategies that could be used in emergency situations in university education, was the goal of the study.