Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc.

(TESOL)

Beyond the Curriculum: A Chinese Example of Issues Constraining Effective English

Language Teaching
Author(s): MINGLIN LI and RICHARD BALDAUF
Source: TESOL Quarterly, Vol. 45, No. 4 (December 2011), pp. 793-803
Published by: Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, Inc. (TESOL)
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 Beyond the Curriculum: A Chinese Example of Issues
Constraining Effective English Language Teaching

MINGLIN LI
Griffith University
Brisbane , Queensland, Australia

RICHARD BALDAUF
University of Queensland
Brisbane St. Lucia , Queensland , Australia

doi: 10.5054/tq.201 1.268058

Studiesschools
schoolsinofAsia
in English Asia - for
- for example, language
China example,
(Adamson, 2004),education
Hong KongChina (Adamson, in primary 2004), and Hong secondary Kong
(Evans, 2000), Japan (Oda & Takada, 2005), Taiwan (Chern, 2002),
Thailand (Wongsothorn, Hiranburana, & Chinnawongs, 2002), or
Vietnam (Le, 2007) - have shown that at different times the orientation
of English language curricula for schools has been adjusted to meet
changing sociopolitical and educational trends. In much of Asia the
emphasis of the objectives set out in the English curricula has shifted
from linguistic knowledge and skills to communicative language
competence. Teaching pedagogies recommended in these English
curricula have changed from a focus on the traditional grammar-
translation, structural approaches, and audiolingualism, to a greater
focus on communicative language teaching (CLT). However, in each of
the educational contexts a variety of factors have been identified that
constrain the implementation of CLT, including: large class sizes,
limited teacher proficiency, insufficient resources and instructional
time, examination pressure, and cultural resistance (e.g., Hu, 2002; Li,
1998; Nunan, 2003; Tran & Baldauf, 2007; Yu, 2001). Thus, if language
teaching is to be more communicative in the Asian contexts, there is a
need to investigate the extent of these constraining factors, because new
curricula and curricular policies alone are not likely to bring about the
desired changes.
China provides one example of how these factors constrain CLT
implementation. The 2001 national English language curriculurh for
primary and secondary schools in China, which was trialed between
September 2001 and September 2005, has as its focus the quality of
students' overall education achieved through task-based, learner-
centered methods and CLT. Furthermore, the 2001 English curriculum

BRIEF REPORTS AND SUMMARIES 793

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mandates that evaluation should be based on the general objectives and
requirements at the respective levels proposed in the curriculum,
focusing on students' competence in language use but avoiding those
items solely emphasizing knowledge of phonology or grammar. For the
purposes of motivating students' learning and developing students'
language competence, various assessment tasks should be employed in
classroom teaching, focusing more on formative assessment than on
summative assessment (MOE, 2001).
In this report, issues that constrain the implementation of the 2001
English curriculum for primary and secondary school classrooms in
China are explored through the analysis of data from interviews with
English teachers from various primary and secondary schools in urban,
suburban, and rural areas in three different cities in one province in
China. Although the study draws on this specific sample, our experience
with in-service MA teacher training programs with teachers from the
region suggests that these issues are ones that are more widely faced.

THE STUDY

Method and Participants

To examine how the teaching of the curriculum has been im

the various factors described above, semistructured focus g
views were conducted with 11 groups totalling 73 English teac
Chinese public schools. Three groups from primary schools of
4 teachers, three junior secondary school groups of 4,
teachers, two senior secondary school groups (5 and 9 tea
one joint group of 6 city-based junior and senior seconda
teachers were interviewed. Finally, two regional grou
teachers) were drawn from either junior or senior seconda
in various regions in that province.
Content analysis was employed to analyze the data (Wilkinso
with the basic unit of analysis being the "theme," which was
recorded systematically in the form of number of "men
procedure provided some indication of the strength of
themes, whereas the discourse in which these "mentions" wer
that is, the representative quotations under each them
(Wilkinson, 2004, p. 185), provided richness of meaning a
theme.
The analytical procedure for this study followed Miles and
Huberman's (1994) flow model for data analysis, which consists of
three concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display, and
conclusion drawing or verification. The analysis process began with data
reduction, which included the following steps: reconstruction of

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interview tapes, coding of textual data, searching for relationships in the
data, cross-checking findings, and synthesis (Miles & Huberman, 1994,
p. 92). Each of the 11 groups of teachers was considered as a
nonoverlapping "case group." Common themes were sought, categor-
ized, and coded and were developed within and then across each case
group. Quotations are presented that elaborate on what the theme
represents. To identify the source of the quotes, primary school teachers
were identified as TP1 to TP11, teachers from the junior secondary
schools were identified as TJ1 to TJ31, teachers from the senior
secondary schools were labeled TS1 to TS16, and TJS1 to TJS15 was used
to identify teachers in the joint junior and senior secondary school
groups.

FINDINGS

Table 1 indicates that five main themes with a total of 398 mentions
emerged from the interviews with the 11 groups of English teachers ( n =
73) concerning the implementation of the 2001 English curriculum, and
these themes are: (1) teaching materials, (2) teachers, (3) educationa
system, (4) teaching methodology, and (5) assessment. Other themes
which were not directly related to curriculum implementation, such
issues related to language education policy, classroom teaching
techniques, and regional differences because of unbalanced econom
development, were not counted or analyzed because they were not th
focus of this study. Although mentions were coded under their
dominant themes, the analysis shows that many of the mentions ha
implications for assessment (e.g., new textbooks were a problem because
they were not congruent with assessment) , giving that particular them
greater impact than the nine direct mentions associated with it wou
suggest.

TABLE 1

Main Obstacles to the Implementation of the 2001 Curriculum in China (n = 73)

Theme Frequency of mention Percent

1. Teaching materials 178 44.72
2. Teachers 102 25.63
3. Educational system 70 17.59
(Examination orientation)
4. Teaching methodology 39 9.80
5. Assessment 9 2.26
Total mentions 398 100

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Teaching Materials

A new curriculum requires new teaching resources, and the theme

mentioned most frequently by the in-service English as a foreign
language (EFL) teachers is related to teaching materials, accounting for
44.72% of the total mentions. This theme focused on two problems: the
nature of the new textbooks (n = 150) and how the texts relate to
assessment (n = 6). Most of the mentions were concerned with the
nature of the new textbooks used in the implementation of the 2001
English curriculum, although different series of textbooks had been
selected for use in schools in different cities. Textbooks were judged to
be too difficult for students to learn from and for teachers to use in their
teaching. The difficulties reported by the interviewees included: too
large a vocabulary load, too much information in each unit, and
inconsistent grammar explanations.
Inconsistencies between the series of textbooks for primary and
secondary schools were claimed to lead to variation in the English levels
of students entering the next level of schooling. In addition, teachers felt
that the adoption of new textbook series was occurring too frequently
for them to become familiar with the contents, and this made it more
difficult for them to prepare lessons. These textbook factors caused
difficulties in using CLT in their classroom teaching, as many
interviewees commented that "Every teacher is crazy busy in explaining
the new words, expressions and grammar to help students understand
the text. There's no time for students to COMMUNICATE."

A second issue was that the new textbooks were reported not to
congruent with the current testing system.

Teaching materials have been reformed, but the testing system has stay
unchanged. Teachers have to teach for students to pass examinations, so the
new textbooks (which consist of much more content and richer information
only mean a heavier burden for both students and teachers, because only if
we finish everything in the textbooks can we feel safe. (TJS1)

However, teachers in one primary school, one of the best in th

province, reported that the textbooks they were using were good f
students' learning, with interesting cartoons and pictures. The textbook
were seen as being helpful for improving students' communicativ
competence in English, but this attitude towards the teaching materials
and communicative competence training was viewed as problematic
some secondary school teachers, because they were more concerne
with the language proficiency required by secondary school testing.

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 The oral English of the students from top primary schools is ok. But in spite
of that, they know nothing. It is very difficult to help them to catch up with
those students from other schools where communicative competence was not
emphasized in order to get high marks in the exams". (TJ6)

Teachers

A total of 102 mentions (see Table 1) concerned teachers, focus

mainly on teacher training, teacher proficiency and competence,
the shortage of teachers.
In-service teacher training for implementing the curriculum
reported not to be effective. Two main reasons were given by th
teachers. First, for those teachers who had already taken or were taki
training lessons, the programs themselves were not useful. During mo
of the sessions, "experts" in curriculum design or in material wri
came to give lectures on the new ideas found in the curriculum
materials, but these were "not practical at all" (many teachers
comments) . During some sessions, some university lecturers were inv
to teach lessons, which they did by highlighting the structural sequen
of the textbooks for primary and secondary schools. This focus
textbook sequence was not helpful for improving teacher proficiency
communicative competence, which they felt was their real need.
afraid I can't learn anything from this program. I don't think I can t
my students using CLT if my English remains this poor" (TP4) . Durin
other sessions, teachers were organized to observe model classes, "
you can only teach this way (using CLT) on this special occasion! T
can never happen in our normal class teaching!" (TS10). Second, f
many in-service teachers, there was no time to take any training cou
"You have no time even to be sick, not to mention to be out for one d
to participate in any training activities!" (TP1).
Some teachers lacked a positive attitude towards the 2001 curriculum
and this was another factor that influenced the effectiveness of in-service

teacher training. As a teacher in one group pointed out:

Few teachers actually understand the curriculum. There are two reasons. One
is insufficient training for implementing the curriculum, the other is that
teachers themselves do not take it seriously. Many teachers have not read the
document at all. They haven't studied the curriculum document to learn
what the requirements are for students and what the requirements are for
teachers! A few teachers may have read it, but just "bolting" it without
digesting it. No point at all. Whatever in the curriculum, teachers know that
they will have to teach the materials unit by unit to make sure that students
know everything in the texts. (TJS10)

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This lack of teacher proficiency meant that many teachers had difficulty
in employing the new, more difficult textbooks to implement the new
curriculum. However, an additional problem related to proficiency was
identified, which was a lack of financial support from the government
for recruiting new teachers. Teachers in one school noted that: "Our
school is one of the best schools in our province, and we are lucky to be
able to attract the best teachers" (TJS2). However, teachers in other
schools, those in suburban and rural areas in particular, said that "we
need qualified teachers, but the government has no money to provide
any more positions" (TJ14). Therefore, with English becoming increas-
ingly important in school education, more teachers majoring in other
subjects like Chinese and History were being asked by school leaders to
change to teaching English. "If you don't accept, then you'll lose the job
in this school" (TP9). The situation was even worse in rural areas in one
city. Because there was no financial support from the government, but
English still had to be taught, some schools had to employ people who
knew some English but could not find other jobs. Generally speaking,
these teachers did not meet the English language proficiency or
professional training requirements for English teachers.

Educational System

There were 70 mentions (see Table 1) of systemic issues related to the

quality-oriented nature of educational reform in China. It was reported
that the examination-oriented educational system remained unchanged,
although the new English curriculum emphasized the overall quality and
communicative English competence of students. Under this new English
curriculum, there was meant to be a shift from an examination-oriented
to a quality-oriented education. However, as the examination system was
not changed, in practice, the shift did not occur in most schools, and the
goal of school education remained learning for examinations, rather
than for communication. The factor most frequently mentioned by the
teachers interviewed was that "the only purpose of teaching and learning
in our school is for students to pass exams to enter top senior secondary
schools/universities!" (TJS11).
"Marks, marks, students'/teachers' very life!" (TJ2) was a very popular
saying in schools, particularly those in suburban and rural areas in less
developed regions. This had led to the serious problem that "has ruined
all the students in junior and senior secondary schools, because they
study nothing else except those few textbooks all the time!" (TJS2). The
stereotypical examination-paper design, which has remained unchanged
for so long, has made the style of teaching and learning extremely rigid.
A teacher provided the following example:

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 The writing section in the testing paper is typically stereotyped, and creative
writing is not "allowed." So teachers would tell students not to write long
complex sentences with clauses. Although students know how to use so that ,
teachers would tell students not to write I got up so early that I caught the first bus
this morning , but write two simple sentences instead. I got up early this morning I
caught the first bus. It is easy not to make mistakes in examinations if you write
this way. But is it the way of learning a language?! (TJS3)

Many teachers said with helpless sighs that "It is difficult to be a teacher;
more difficult to be a senior secondary school teacher; and nothing is
more difficult than to be a teacher of the last year secondary school
students!" (TS1). The reason is very clear: "under the examination-
oriented education, any educational reform will be in vain if the testing
system does not change. And no matter how the curriculum reform is
promoted, you are a loser if your students cannot get high marks!"
(TS3). Some other teachers commented dejectedly that "Education is
approaching a dead-end!" (TP2) and "Educational reform is a failure!"
(TJS6).
The link between the success of systemic curricular reform and
examinations can be seen at one top primary school, where teachers
reported in the interview that quality-oriented education was being
rigorously implemented because students in primary schools do not
have any examination pressure; this is because entry to junior secondary
schools is automatic because there are nine years of compulsory
education in China. In English classes, teachers did not emphasize
test-taking skills training, but rather concentrated on communicative
competence. The pupils' interest was aroused and cooperation with
peers was encouraged.
In other primary schools, however, English teaching and learning
were not so communicative, but remained significantly examination-
oriented in order to better prepare students for their secondary school
study. This suggests that the more general systemic focus on exams
affects teaching even when it need not do so. However, no matter how
English was taught and learned in primary schools, many of the teachers
interviewed in junior secondary schools said that their students had not
learned anything in primary school, and so were not ready to enter
secondary school, indicating possible systemic problems in the imple-
mentation of English language primary education.

Teaching Methodology
The teaching methodologies proposed in the 2001 English curricu-
lum were designed to increase the communicative competence of
English language learners, but they were reported to be difficult if not

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impossible to implement in practice. EFL teachers interviewed reported
that CLT was only employed by a few teachers on some special occasions;
for instance, when it was observed by teachers from other schools or
when their superiors came for inspections. They provided the following
explanations for not using CLT:

First, large class sizes made it impossible to implement communicative

language teaching. The numbers of students in each class normally ranged
from 40 to 80, a figure which is similar in each city. Second, over-loaded
teachers had no time to design tasks or classroom activities for training
students' communicative competence in English language. Third, teachers'
lack of English language and curricular competence made it difficult to
adopt CLT in classroom teaching. Fourth, examination-oriented external
assessment made it risky for teachers to use new methods.

They judged that their best strategy was to try their best to help students
learn as much as possible from their textbooks in order to achieve
higher marks on the examinations. Some teachers thought the new
methods - rather than duck-feeding - might work, but "Who would dare
to try? How could you explain to the school principal, to the students
and their parents if they fail in the exam?! " (TS3) . Finally, most students,
with the exception of a few of the most able, resisted the new methods.
One reason was their very explicit priority in achieving higher marks,
which made them think it was a waste of time to engage in activities
other than the study of texts during the limited class periods. They also
resisted because they were often confused about what was being learned
through the new methods, because they were used to the traditional
"the sage on the stage" approach, where the teacher talks and the
students take notes and rote memorize them after class.

Assessment

Although only nine direct mentions related to the assessment of

student learning emerged from the interviews, the four previous theme
all had implications for assessment. All teachers agreed that the
recommendations in the curriculum for assessing students' outcomes
sounded appropriate for students' overall development in Englis
language learning, but that there were problems of application i
practice because they were not in accord with the national testing
system. No matter how the students were evaluated in their formative
classroom teaching situations, the summative entrance examination
played a decisive role in how the curriculum was delivered and studied
This can be seen from the interviewees' comments such as "A paper will
decide a student's fate!" (TJS5) and "Students will finally be evaluate

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based on the result of the examination, and teachers will be evaluated
according to students' marks" (TS4). Therefore, many EFL teachers had
the same opinion: "There's no point to do the overall evaluation"
(TJ17).
Thus, although the number of mentions from the thematic analysis
suggested that assessment did not appear to be a very important topic, as
the discussion has shown, assessment issues are central as they are
actually interwoven among the comments on the other four topics. For
example, EFL teachers thought that the new series of teaching materials
were not suitable for both teaching and learning, because they would
not lead to students achieving high marks in their English tests. They
claimed that the EFL teachers themselves were not ready for the new
changes created by the curriculum reform, given that student
performance was still evaluated through examination. Therefore, they
firmly believed that the methods they selected needed to help students
with their testing skills.

DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATIONS

As the results from elsewhere in Asia have shown (see

2002; Li, 1998; Wongsothorn et al., 2002), changing the c
more communicative one does not provide a solution
language teaching problems. Despite efforts to refor
materials for implementing the new English curriculum
are not following the new ideas in the curriculum in th
teaching. One of the major constraints on change found th
data is the unchanged examination-oriented educational s
dictates teachers' attitudes toward the reform and their selection of
teaching methodology. This is particularly problematic, because it
matter of national policy and not something teachers can cha
themselves. Thus, the current testing system has actually hindered
effective implementation of the 2001 English curriculum in China,
this is evident from the following two perspectives.
First, it can be seen from the interviewees' overemphasis on studen
test scores created by the current testing system that high score
examinations are the foremost priority of students, parents, teach
and school principals, because this is seen as the only equitable wa
assess their achievement, because places in tertiary education
limited. Thus, test scores are treated by most teachers as the on
purpose for student learning and teacher instruction, because sc
decide a student's future. This priority has actually rigidified the pro
of foreign language teaching and learning, placing the focus o
linguistic knowledge while creating resistance to language compet

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training. This was evident from the teaching methods adopted in
participants' classroom practice. Teachers chose not to take the risk to
try the recommended teaching methods in the new curriculum (student-
centered, task-based CLT), but, rather, they stuck to the experience-
proven duck-feeding procedures, characterized by rote memorization
and drilling. In this way, the least possible amount of the limited
instructional time would be wasted in nonlinguistic knowledge-related
tasks that are not needed for examinations.
Second, teacher comments focused on the impracticability of almost
everything related to their classroom teaching, including the recom-
mended teaching methodology, the means of assessment in the new
English curriculum, the various series of new teaching materials, and the
current in-service teacher training programs. These attitudes occur
despite the fact that the new curriculum was designed in line with the
international trends in its standards and norms. It emphasizes learner-
centeredness and English language competence training. Teaching
materials were required to be compiled based on the objectives and
teaching recommendations set out in the curriculum, and must be
approved by the National or Provincial Evaluation Committee for
Primary and Secondary School Textbooks before they are used. In
addition, various teacher training programs have been provided to help
teachers to effectively implement the new curriculum. However, these
programs were reported to be impractical, because they were not
congruent with the current testing system. Thus the implementation of
the new curriculum was regarded to be useless and time- and manpower-
inefficient by both teachers and students.
Given the current conflict between curriculum and assessment policy,
it is hard to test the extent to which the objectives and recommendations
in the 2001 English curriculum can benefit English language teaching
and learning in Chinese schools, because the participating teachers
would not dare to implement them; it is also hard to explain how various
textbooks would help the implementation of the new curriculum,
because data are not available. However, the findings of this study show
that teachers have been resistant to a change in their ideology. This is
obviously due to the testing system where students are accepted by
universities according to their entrance examination marks. One of the
implications of this study is that, for real change to occur, it must go
beyond the curriculum. Unless other related issues, including national
educational policies for testing for entering higher education and
effective measures for implementing these policies, are addressed, EFL
teachers' attitudes, ideas, and teaching methods are only likely to be
changed around the edges.

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THE AUTHORS

Minglin Li is Senior Lecturer of TESOL in the School of Education and

Studies at Griffith University in Australia. Her research interests ar
teaching and learning, TESOL teacher education, and TESOL curriculu
language education policy and planning.

Richard B. Baldauf, Jr., Professor in the School of Education, Un

Queensland, is executive editor of Current Issues in Language Planning a
with Zhao Shouhui of Planning Chinese Characters: Evolution, Revolution
(Springer, 2008). Interests include TESOL, curriculum, and language p
planning.

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