Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching

NEW LANGUAGE LEARNING
& TEACHING ENVIRONMENTS
Innovation in Language
Learning and Teaching
The Case of China
Edited by
Hayo Reinders, David Nunan and Bin Zou
New Language Learning and Teaching
Environments
Series editor
Hayo Reinders
Department of Education
Unitec Institute of Technology
Auckland, New Zealand
‘This book contains latest research on key topics in current College English
Teaching innovation in China. Many authors in this book are well-known
experts in the field. I believe ELT teachers will find it both theoretically and
practically beneficial.’
—Youzhong Sun, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
‘This book is both an extensive and in-depth exploration into most of the key
issues in English language teaching in China. Its dazzling array of authors from
home and abroad offers views from both domestic and international perspec-
tives, a sure attraction for Chinese and international ESL/EFL teachers and
researchers.’
—Haixiao Wang, Nanjing University, China
‘Innovation in language learning and teaching in China naturally deserves our

close attention as the country has the largest EFL population in the world. The
innovation in various areas accurately and succinctly documented in this book
provides a panorama of achievements of the Chinese language education com-
munity who have in the past few decades mediated global trends and local needs
strenuously and ingeniously.’
—Liming Yu, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China
New Language Learning and Teaching Environments is an exciting new
book series edited by Hayo Reinders, dedicated to recent developments
in learner-centred approaches and the impact of technology on learning
and teaching inside and outside the language classroom. The series aims
to:
• Publish cutting-edge research into current developments and innova-

tion in language learning and teaching practice.
• Publish applied accounts of the ways in which these developments
impact on current and future language education.
• Encourage dissemination and cross-fertilisation of policies and prac-
tice relating to learner-centred pedagogies for language learning and
teaching in new learning environments.
• Disseminate research and best practice in out-of-class and informal
language learning.
The series is a multidisciplinary forum for the very latest developments

in language education, taking a pedagogic approach with a clear focus on
the learner, and with clear implications for both researchers and language
practitioners. It is the first such series to provide an outlet for research-
ers to publish their work, and the first stop for teachers interested in this
area.
More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14736
Hayo Reinders • David Nunan • Bin Zou
Editors
Innovation in
Language Learning
and Teaching
The Case of China
Editors
Hayo Reinders David Nunan
Department of Education University of Hong Kong
Unitec Institute of Technology Pokfulam, Hong Kong
Auckland, New Zealand
Bin Zou
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
Suzhou, China
New Language Learning and Teaching Environments

ISBN 978-1-137-60091-2 ISBN 978-1-137-60092-9 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60092-9
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947177
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Contents
1 Innovation in China: An Overview 3

David Nunan, Hayo Reinders, and Bin Zou
2 Assessment for Learning in English Language Classrooms

in China: Contexts, Problems, and Solutions 17
Jun Liu and Yueting Xu
3 Learning to Speak in an Exam-Focused World: A Study

of Independent Language Learning in China 39
Don Snow, Olivia Sun, and Xu Li
4 Innovations in Writing Instruction in China: Metasynthesis

of Qualitative Research for the Period 2005–2016 63
Chiew Hong Ng and Yin Ling Cheung
5 Technology-Enhanced Content and Language Integrated

Learning in Chinese Tertiary English Classes: Potentials
and Challenges 89
Ke Zhao and Chunlin Lei
v
vi Contents
6 Debates Around the Orientation of TEFL in Chinese

Tertiary Education 115
Jigang Cai
7 From EAP Teaching to English-Medium Instruction:

Innovation in EFL Curriculum at Tsinghua University
in China 155
Weimin Zhang and Hao Zhang
8 ESP/EAP Through English-Medium Instruction:

Teachers’ Perceptions and Practices 173
Anne Li Jiang and Lawrence Jun Zhang
9 Students’ Perceptions and Practices in L2 Disciplinary

Writing at an English Medium University in Mainland
China 197
Zhoulin Ruan and Jinhua Chen
10 The Implementation of EAP Instruction in a Local

University in China 223
Beibei Zhao and Guoxing Yu
11 Using Corpora to Investigate Chinese University EFL

Learners 245
Bin Zou and Hayo Reinders
12 Facilitating Transformative Learning Toward Productive

Bilingualism: Innovations in Teaching English for
Intercultural Communication in China 261
Xuan Zheng and Yihong Gao
Contents
vii
13 Contemporary Research in Intercultural Teaching in

China: A Critical Review 289
Citing Li
14 Assessing Learner Autonomy: Development and Validation

of a Localized Scale 307
Lilan Lin and Hayo Reinders
Index 329
List of Figures
Fig. 5.1 Log-in interface of the Wikispaces Classroom 96

Fig. 5.2 Webspace for writing and interacting 96
Fig. 5.3 A screenshot of build-on postings centered on “what is
business”97
Fig. 6.1 Taxonomy of EFLT 134
Fig. 7.1 Pathways to achieving a command of the target language 159
Fig. 7.2 The EFL curriculum system at Tsinghua University 162
Fig. 7.3 EAP course series at Tsinghua University 163
Fig. 7.4 EMI course series for general education at Tsinghua
University165
Fig. 7.5 EMI course series for professional education at Tsinghua
University166
Fig. 7.6 EFL environment platform at Tsinghua University 167
ix
List of Tables
Table 4.1 Empirical studies reviewed 80

Table 6.1 Teaching objectives of College English Teaching Syllabus
(CETS), College English Curriculum Requirements
(CECR) and College English Teaching Guide (CETG)
between 1980 and 2015 117
Table 6.2 Elements and teaching goals of EAP 135
Table 6.3 EAP competence scale for college students 136
Table 6.4 Recommended structure of EAT curriculum 142
Table 6.5 Framework for EAP teacher development 149
Table 7.1 Suggested EAP courses for Tsinghua freshmen 169
Table 8.1 Students’ self-assessed ESP/EAP learning needs 176
Table 8.2 Redesign and relocate ESP/EAP in EMI 178
Table 8.3 A framework of the renewed ESP/EAP components
and competence (adapted from Räsänen, 2008) 179
Table 8.4 Demographic information of participants 182
Table 8.5 Themes arising from data 183
Table 8.6 Summary of classroom observations 185
Table 8.7 A quantitative perspective on the themes 188
Table 10.1 College English program 229
Table 10.2 Students’ perception of the importance of micro-skills 233
Table 10.3 Course design 236
Table 10.4 College English program 240
xi
xii List of Tables
Table 13.1 List of the included journals (5 Chinese and 13

international) (2000–2015) 292
Table 13.2 Number of articles published according to the thematic
area (2000–2015) 292
Table 14.1 KMO and Bartlett’s test 318
Table 14.2 Exploratory factor analysis 319
Table 14.3 Modification indices of M1, M2, M3, and M4 321
Table 14.4 Convergent validity 323
Table 14.5 Matrix of loadings and cross-loadings 324
1
Innovation in China: An Overview
David Nunan, Hayo Reinders, and Bin Zou
1 L anguage Education in China:

An Historical Overview
Language is fundamental to China and Chinese identity. With many
different Chinese languages and dialects as well as minority languages,
China is possibly the most linguistically diverse country in the world.
D. Nunan (*)
Anaheim University, Anaheim, CA, USA
University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong
H. Reinders
Anaheim University, Anaheim, CA, USA
Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand
B. Zou
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China
© The Author(s) 2017 3

H. Reinders et al. (eds.), Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, New Language
Learning and Teaching Environments, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60092-9_1
4 D. Nunan et al.
There was no official language of China until after the fall of the Qing
Dynasty in 1911. The new government, on advice from a committee
established for this purpose, named the Beijing dialect as the national
language. Rumour has it that Mandarin, or Putonghua, beat Cantonese
as the preferred language by a single vote. However, people in most parts
of China continued to use their home language or dialect, and Mandarin
was acquired as a second language. Originally, it was planned that within
100 years Mandarin would become the first language throughout the
country, but even in the 1990s, it was possible to hear people claim that
there are no native speakers of Mandarin in China.
The teaching and learning of languages and related policies have a long
history in China. From the seventeenth century, European languages were
introduced and taught by foreign missionaries. After the communist rev-
olution of 1949, close ties were established between the new government
and that of the Soviet Union. Although the relationship did not last, the
Soviet Union provided models for various governmental systems includ-
ing the economy and education, and, not surprisingly, Russian became
the major foreign language taught (Gray, 1991). During the Cultural
Revolution, English was proscribed, and anyone caught speaking it, or
even in possession of a book written in English, was punished.
President Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 led to huge changes
in China’s relationship, not only to the United States, but also to the rest
of the world. Nixon, not known for his excessive modesty, proclaimed it
“the week that changed the world”. Although the Cultural Revolution
would not end for another four years, attitudes towards English and its
use began to soften.
In her history of language education in China from 1949 to the
present, Lam (2005) identifies three principal language policies: the
standardization of Chinese, the propagation of English and the devel-
opment of minority languages (p. 8). In the late 1950s and early 1960s
national English syllabi were drafted, first for the school system, and
then for universities and colleges. English fell into disrepute during the
Cultural Revolution, which did not matter in the long run as most
institutes of higher learning were shut down. In the 1970s it regained
favour with the visit of Nixon to China and the ending of the Cultural
Revolution. It received a further boost in 1978, when Deng Xiaoping
activated the “Four Modernizations” policy announced by Zhou Enlai

some 15 years before.
2 The Contemporary Landscape

Making generalizations about any particular language teaching and learn-
ing landscape is fraught with difficulty. In the case of China, with its vast
and varied landscape, this is particularly true. Those seeking to segment
the landscape typically draw a dividing line between the comparatively
privileged cities clinging to the eastern seaboard and the less privileged
provinces to the west.
At the risk of overgeneralizing, one way of capturing the contempo-
rary landscape would be to compare the language learning experiences
of someone being educated in a western or northern province in the
immediate aftermath of the Cultural Revolution with someone being
educated today. The former learners will have a Chinese dialect as their
first language and will be introduced to Putonghua in primary school. In
secondary school, they will be taught Russian as a foreign language and
will first encounter English at university, if they are lucky enough to get
to university. If they happen to go to a school where English is taught,
the teacher will be Chinese and their English lesson will be taught almost
exclusively in Putonghua. The textbook, if they have a textbook at all, will
have been written and produced in China. Access to spoken English will
be via tapes played on a reel-to-reel recorder.
Contemporary learners being educated in a public school in a com-
paratively wealthy coastal city will be introduced to English some time
during primary school or in junior high school. Their textbook is likely
to be a co-publication between a local and an international publisher. (In
the public school system, textbooks require the Ministry of Education
approval, and to gain such approval, the book has to have the involvement
of a local publisher.) The textbook will be supplemented with brightly
coloured wall charts, flashcards, CDs and DVDs and, increasingly, online
resources. Lessons will be conducted in a mixture of Chinese and English.
In addition to their formal classes, students may have the opportunity
of watching English language programmes on CCTV, China’s national
6 D. Nunan et al.
broadcaster. They may also go to a private language institute after school.

At university, they may have a native-speaking English teacher, and the
class will be conducted exclusively in English. There will be additional
opportunities for language exposure and activation through movies,
English speaking competitions, English-only areas on campus and so on.
Depending on their major, they may have some of their content courses
delivered primarily or exclusively in English. The term ‘English-medium
subject courses’ can be misleading. Depending on the teacher, while the
textbook will be in English, the instruction may be almost exclusively in
Chinese.
In her book on language education in China from 1949, Lam (2005)
presents four case study histories of learners aged between 45 and 25. She
reports that:
The four learning histories reflect changes in policy and variations in policy
implementation in different locations even within the same time period.
First of all, conditions have definitely improved through the years. Younger
learners, like Ling 37 and Hua aged 25, have experienced more favourable
learning circumstances such as portable tape recorders, more books, cam-
pus radio, foreign movies and more openness to speaking English, for
example, at English corners. (p. 109)
There are tensions between official government policy and individual

aspiration. While Lam’s case studies and surveys show that govern-
ment policy in promoting English and emphasizing its importance is
reflected in changing attitudes and practices, there was considerable
variation in experiences, learning histories and motivation. While pass-
ing examinations remained a major motivating factor for learners in
all age groups, for the younger learners, being able to communicate in
English was also seen as important. In other words, learners were com-
ing to see English as a tool for communication as much as a subject to be
studied for the purpose of passing an examination (see, also Benson &
Nunan, 2005). As one of her younger informants reported: “When
I first went to university, I tried going to the English Corner, but I was
too shy. … So after going twice, I stopped. But as a graduate student,
I felt I should go to the English Corner because it was meaningless to
learn English if I could not speak or understand it. So, I went and I
spoke (Lam, 2005, p. 109).
The contemporary landscape as seen through the eyes of Western
teachers is tellingly and amusingly presented in Stanley’s (2013) ethno-
graphic account of English language teaching in China. Stanley looks
at the lived experience of a group of ‘backpacker’ teachers from the
United States, the UK and Canada over a three-year period: their pre-
service training, classroom practices, personal identity, motivations and
local, socially constructed roles. In Stanley’s words, these people repre-
sent the ‘soft underbelly’ of the profession. Under- and more often than
not, unqualified, they exist to fill a yawning gap for communicatively
competent local teachers. Stanley argues that they will continue to exist
“ … as long as there is a demand for English, a shortage of commu-
nicatively competent local teachers, willing to remain in classrooms
teaching for less money than they can make in other jobs, and the dan-
gerous fallacy that proficiency in a language is sufficient qualification
to teach.” (p. 2).
3 Agents of Change in China

Innovation and change have been a part of the language education lit-
erature since the 1980s (see for example, Kennedy, 1987, 1988). Interest
in the topic waxes and wanes, although it never disappears completely.
It was given a boost several years ago with the appearance of a referred
journal devoted to the topics. (‘Innovation’ and ‘change’ tend to be
yoked together, because innovation necessarily entails change, although
not necessarily for the better.) A recent edited collection on the topic
(Hyland & Wong, 2013) has generated renewed interest in the topic. In
addition to two useful overview chapters by two of the key figures in the
field (Kennedy (2013) on models of change and innovation and Markee
(2013) on contexts of change), there are useful chapters on a range of
important topics such as innovation through teacher education, through
action research/teacher-initiated change, and through reflective teaching,
innovation through language planning and policy; innovation in various
8 D. Nunan et al.
sectors of the educational pie, and, not surprisingly, technology as a tool

for innovation.
In policy terms, at the time of writing this chapter, the educational sys-
tem was midway through its ten-year (2010–2020) educational reform
and development plan. The strategic goal of the plan is
… to develop each student as a ‘whole healthy person’ with mental, physi-

cal and social well-being, with an emphasis on values, attitudes, ideology,
cognitive, affective and interpersonal skills. The students’ critical thinking
skills and creativity are also described as one of the strategic goals. (Gong
& Holliday, 2013, p. 45)
The implications for language education in the development plan are clear.
Putonghua (Mandarin) was officially announced as the national language
by Chinese government in 2000 (National People’s Congress Standing
Committee, 2000). English language education can no longer be divorced
from other subjects on the school curriculum. Nor can the time spent on
second or foreign language learning be seen as an investment in the acqui-
sition of a tool for some far-distant, real-world communicative encounters
in the target language. As one of the authors of this chapter argued almost
20 years ago, the real value of acquiring another language is that it “… will
foster the development of cognitive, affective, interpersonal, and intercul-
tural skills, knowledge and attitudes” (Nunan, 1999, p. 155).
3.1 Contact with People from Abroad
Thirty years ago, contact with foreigners was a rarity in China, which
was very much closed to the outside world. This has changed dramati-
cally. Many thousands of foreigners, particularly westerners, now live and
work in China. A good percentage of these are English language teachers,
many, if not most, with minimal, if any, formal qualification to teach the
language. All that is required to obtain a work visa is to have the status of
a native speaker and some form of certification. For many Chinese stu-
dents in both public and private education at school and university, their
English class may be their first encounter with a foreigner. As Stanley
(2013) points out, the English class provides a venue for intercultural
encounters, although these may not be all positive.
[The contact] may be a warm, positive experience in which both sides’

meanings are compared and shared, and everyone leaves the encounter with
a greater understanding and appreciation of each other’s cultures. But it may
not be. … Instead, the employment of foreign teachers [in Stanly’s research
site] appears to reinforce existing stereotypes, prejudices, and barrier to
understanding, among teachers and students alike. (Stanley, 2013, p. 3)
3.2 The ‘Internationalization’ of Education
Education in China has been influenced, not only by the influx of foreign
teachers, but also by the growth of the private sector. This growth has hap-
pened at all levels, from early childhood to adult. Initially, private schools
were small, and privately owned, but corporations were soon buying into
what they received to be a lucrative and massive market. In 2008, the US
entertainment giant Disney Corporation launched Disney English aimed at
young learners between the ages of 2 and 12. In the adult field, Pearson, the
British media and publishing corporation, bought the Wall Street Institute
and began an aggressive campaign of expansion. By the beginning of the
decade, there were an estimated 30,000 organizations or companies offering
private English language classes and drawing in several billion dollars annually.
In addition, to meet the requirements of internationalization, real English-
medium institutions have been established in Mainland China in recent
years, such as Nottingham Ningbo University, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool
University, Shanghai Nork York University. Some top universities also tend
to deliver some courses in English, for example, Tsinghua University.
3.3 The Impact of Technology
The field of CALL has received increasing attention in China in recent

years. The China CALL Association was established in 2012 and holds a
CALL conference biannually. MOOCs and flipped classrooms in par-
ticular are enjoying attention at present, although mobile learning less so
(Chen & Wang, 2016). Interestingly, many papers in Chinese EFL journals
review previous studies in CALL, both inside and outside China, with fewer
reporting original, empirical research. In publications in the main interna-
tional CALL journals such as LLT, CALL, ReCALL and IJCALLT, Chinese
10 D. Nunan et al.
scholars’ papers are rare. Another characteristic is the large amount of fund-
ing from the government to encourage integration of technology into the
EFL classroom. Despite this, it is commonly acknowledged that many EFL
teachers still cannot adopt technology efficiently in the classroom due largely
to a lack of training (Zhang, Gu, Pan, & Shi, 2016). Perhaps one of the
reasons is that CALL has not been implemented as a compulsory course in
MA or PhD TESOL degree courses in Chinese universities. As a result it is
probably safe to say that technology has not played a key role as an agent of
change in China, although it certainly does have the potential to do so.
4 In This Volume

As is clear from the chapters included this book, EFL teaching in China
has in recent years been influenced by the desire and the need to inno-
vate. This is not limited to individual schools or scholars; new national
guidelines for College English Teaching (CET) are anticipated to have
been launched at the time of writing of this book (2017), which seek to
provide advice for teaching EFL at universities across China. These guide-
lines cover general English teaching, ESP (English for Specific Purposes),
including EAP (English for Academic Purposes) and Intercultural com-
munication, for students at three recognised levels (primary, intermediate
and advanced) (Wang, 2016). In particular the inclusion of EAP is new
and reflects a growing interest in this area. Below we briefly describe these
chapters and the innovations reported therein.
The second chapter reports on reforms in EFL testing. Liu and Xu
discuss how to use assessment to enhance EFL learning in a variety of
contexts in China. They compare national language assessment inno-
vation with the conventional testing based on the Confucius Heritage
Culture. They then outline the use of assessment for language learning
(AfL), teachers’ perceptions of AfL and their practices, and its impact on
student learning. They provide a number of suggestions on how to use
AfL to develop EFL teaching and learning.
In chapter 3, Snow, Sun and Li report on a study designed to gain a
better understanding of how successful English learners in China develop
their speaking skills—especially in a context where speaking is not often
required and there are limited speaking opportunities in class. One of the
findings was that successful learners engage in a considerable amount of

independent learning and actively look for and create opportunities to
use English outside of the classroom. Snow, Sun and Li argue about the
importance of teachers in encouraging learners to engage in independent
learning and in finding ways to better support them in this.
In chapter 4, Ng and Cheung give an overview of 60 empirical stud-
ies published from 2005 to 2015 related to innovation in EFL writing
instruction in areas as diverse as culture, strategies and motivation in
primary, secondary and higher education. They draw a number of lessons
from these studies and offer recommendations for writing instructors in
China.
The fifth chapter is written by Zhao and Lei and explores blended
language learning in tertiary English classes. More specifically, Zhao and
Lei discuss how technology-enhanced Content and Language Integrated
Learning (CLIL) innovation supports students’ EFL learning based on
two case studies on the use of Wiki spaces and Knowledge Forum. They
draw a number of implications from these studies for other practitioners
interested in implementing technology in the language classroom.
Reflecting important developments in the Chinese context, six chap-
ters report on projects in English for Additional Purposes (EAP). Firstly,
Cai gives an overview of the history of EFL innovation at the tertiary
level in China and in particular the current debate between English for
General and EAP. Zhang and Zhang describe the implementation of
English-medium instruction (EMI) in one university in China and focus
on the teachers’ roles and perspectives on the programme. They use a
combination of classroom observations, focus groups and interviews to
identify the benefits that the teachers experienced in combining content
and English language instruction, as well as the challenges they faced.
Jiang and Zhang also discuss EMI and specifically look at roles of
teachers in its implementation. They argue for a need to better under-
stand teachers’ perceptions and classroom practices in EMI and report on
a case study of tertiary teachers at one university. They make a number
of practical suggestions for engaging teachers in other contexts in which
English is embedded into the curriculum.
Ruan and Chen investigate students’ perspectives on writing instruc-
tion at an English medium university in China. Based on a case study,
their findings suggest that practices in writing for specific disciplines can
12 D. Nunan et al.
help students to reinforce their writing skills. They then provide recom-
mendations on EFL writing within disciplinary practice. Zhao and Yu
explore the possibility of teaching EAP at local universities. One objec-
tion to the use of EAP in China is that it is only suitable for students
at ‘elite’ universities. Zhao and Yu argue that EAP can and should be
implemented for students at local universities too. They identify teacher
training as one of the key prerequisites.
Zou and Reinders discuss how to use learner corpora to enhance
Chinese EFL learners’ English skills. They argue that while the cur-
rent learner corpora are significant to represent Chinese EFL learners’
characteristics in writing and speaking skills, they only emphasize on
weaknesses in writing and speaking components. However, the innova-
tion in the EAP trend may improve Chinese EFL learners’ English skills
and some weaknesses may disappear in the near future. Moreover, these
corpora consisted of a variety of levels. Therefore, they suggest build-
ing up an EAP corpus specific to the advanced level from Chinese EFL
learners.
Intercultural communication has been identified as a key area in EFL
teaching in China for a long time. However, it has also encountered
addressing a call for innovation in this field recently. Two chapters discuss
innovation in intercultural communication. Zheng and Gao conducted
action research and aimed to improve the pedagogical model for inte-
grating intercultural communication into EFL teaching. They found that
critical reflection in the intercultural communication EFL classroom can
significantly develop students’ critical thinking and therefore enhance
their language and culture competence. Finally, they provide innovative
recommendations for the intercultural communication course.
Li also highlights the importance of developing learners’ intercultural
communication competence in the language classroom and provides an
overview based on previous studies on Chinese language teachers’ beliefs
and practices in intercultural teaching. She focuses on four main themes
to elaborate the necessity of emphasizing research into intercultural
teaching and implementation of intercultural teaching in the langauge
classroom. She finally offers suggestions on reinforcing teachers’ under-
standing of intercultural teaching as well as solutions to problems in inte-
grating intercultural communication in langauge teaching.
In the final chapter, Lin and Reinders discuss the development of

learner autonomy and lessons learnt from a local university in China. Lin
concludes that there is a need to create reliable instruments to help learn-
ers to develop their autonomous learning.
5 Conclusion
As is clear from the chapters in this book, EFL teaching in China has
been increasingly influenced by the desire and the need to innovate in
recent years. This is not limited to individual schools or scholars; new
national guidelines for CET were launched at the time of writing of this
book, which seek to provide advice for teaching EFL at universities across
China. These guidelines cover general English teaching, ESP, including
EAP and Intercultural communication, for students at three recognised
levels (primary, intermediate and advanced). In particular the inclusion
of EAP is new and reflects a growing interest in this area, one that is evi-
dent from the contributions in Chaps. 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 in this book
(coverage of general English teaching can be found in Chaps. 2, 3, 4, 5
and 14 and Intercultural communication in Chaps. 12 and 13).
The chapters in this book highlight a number of challenges as well as
possible ways forward for EFL teaching in China. One of the key char-
acteristics is the considerable diversity in needs, approaches and inno-
vations across the country, not surprising given the size of its student
body. This means that a balance will need to be struck by top-down
policies, such as the 2017 CET guidelines, and local implementations
and innovations.
Another challenge remains in improving Chinese learners’ speaking
skills, especially in the face of its reduced importance in the Chinese
National English Test. Perhaps as a direct result, speaking and listening
are not given (as) much attention in EFL classes. A challenge then for EFL
teachers is to find ways to teach subjects that are given more attention in
the exams, such as grammar and vocabulary, through oral skills. These
specialised skills are likely to increase the need for teacher development,
as is the increase in EAP teaching. We estimate that fewer than 1000 EFL
teachers in China have been specifically trained in the delivery of EAP by
14 D. Nunan et al.
the end of 2016. Considering that there are over 1000 universities in the
country, clearly there is a significant and growing need. Of course in the
limited amount of space we have in this book, we have been unable to cover
all aspects of innovation in a country of the size of China. Nonetheless, we
hope that the 14 chapters in this book will provide inspiration.
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and change in language education. NewYork: Routledge.
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encyclopedia of China (2nd ed., pp. 253–254). Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
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cation. NewYork: Routledge.
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(Eds.), Innovation and change in language education. NewYork: Routledge.
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Innovation and change in language education. NewYork: Routledge.
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Cengage Learning.
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Shanghaied in Shanghai. London: Routledge.
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information—Examples from Nanjing local colleges. Technology Enhanced
Foreign Language Education, 168(2), 70–74.
David Nunan is Chair of the Research Committee, Director of the MA TESOL

Programme and Director of the David Nunan Institute for Language Education
at Anaheim University. He is also Professor Emeritus at the University of Hong
Kong where he served as Chair Professor of Applied Linguistics and Director of
the English Centre for several years. Prior to this he was Director of Research
and Development, NCELTR, and Coordinator of Postgraduate Programmes
in Linguistics at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. David has published
over 100 books and articles in the areas of curriculum and materials develop-
ment, classroom-based research and discourse analysis. His recent publications
include What Is This Thing Called Language? (Palgrave Macmillan), Practical
Teaching: Grammar (McGraw Hill) and Learners’ Voices: Difference and Diversity
in Language Teaching (Cambridge University Press, with P. Benson). His text-
book projects include ATLAS, Go For It, Listen In, Speak Out and Expressions, all
published by Cengage Heinle & Heinle. Go For It was selected and adapted by
People’s Education Press as a basal textbook series for middle schools in China.
He was also President of TESOL (1999–2000).
Hayo Reinders (www.innovationinteaching.org) is Professor of Education

and Head of Department at Unitec in New Zealand and Dean of the Graduate
School at Anaheim University in the United States. He is also Editor-in-Chief
of the journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. Hayo’s interests
are in educational technology, learner autonomy and out-of-class learning.
He has published over 20 books, of which the most recent ones are on teach-
ing methodologies, digital games and second language acquisition. He edits a
book series on New Language Learning and Teaching Environments for Palgrave
Macmillan.
16 D. Nunan et al.
Bin Zou received his PhD in TESOL and computer technology from the
University of Bristol (UK) and his MA from the University of York (UK). He
is a senior tutor at the Language Centre, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University,
China, and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Computer-Assisted
Language Learning and Teaching. Zou’s research interests include ELT, EAP,
CALL and Corpus. He has published papers in international journals such
as Computer-Assisted Language Learning, System, the International Journal of
Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching and chapter books. He is
the editor of several books such as Corpus Linguistics in Chinese Context pub-
lished by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015 and Computer-Assisted Foreign Language
Teaching and Learning: Technological Advances published by IGI Global in 2013.
He has also reviewed papers for journals including Computer-Assisted Language
Learning, System and Language Learning and Technology. He is an executive com-
mittee member of the China English for Academic Purposes Association and
an executive committee member of the China Computer-Assisted Language
Learning Association
2
Assessment for Learning in English
Language Classrooms in China:
Contexts, Problems, and Solutions
Jun Liu and Yueting Xu
1 Introduction
This chapter reviews the research on assessment for learning (AfL) in
English language education in China. While AfL is not a new term to
readers home and abroad (Klenowski, 2009), we believe that it needs
some close scrutiny because it has been in use in China for more than two
decades yet issues concerning how it is interpreted by educational policies
and implemented in practice have remained underexplored. A compre-
hensive review is thus needed, based on which we can problematize AfL
implementation in China and identify lines for further research.
J. Liu (*)
Stony Brook University, New York, USA
Y. Xu
Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China
The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

18 J. Liu and Y. Xu
2 ssessment for Learning: Definition, Key

A
Elements, and Principles of Good Practice
For the purpose of clarity, we use AfL as defined by the Assessment Reform
Group (ARG). AfL is “the process of seeking and interpreting evidence for
use by learners and their teachers to decide where the learners are in their
learning, where they need to go and how best to get there” (ARG, 2002,
p. 1). This definition suggests the educational purposes of assessment, in
which there are four key elements that need to be singled out for achiev-
ing such purposes.
First is the essentiality of clarifying achievement goals and sharing
assessment criteria (Pedder & James, 2012). Since the teacher’s decision-
making of the students’ learning progress is based on a clear perception
of what specifically the learning goals are, he/she needs to clarify and
understand learning intentions and to share the criteria for success with
the students.
Second is the validity of the process of seeking evidence of student
learning. Here, validity is used to refer to both the purposes of the assess-
ment, i.e., whether the form of the assessment achieves its purpose; and
the use of assessment results, i.e., how the results of an assessment are
interpreted and used (Stobart, 2012). Since the assessment process is
embedded within classroom talk, questioning and other instructional
activities, teachers need to promote and support effective classroom dis-
cussions on the one hand; and develop assessment-embedded classroom
activities and tasks on the other hand. Teachers need to ensure that these
activities be valid so that evidence generated from such a process could
be used for their own interpretation and decision-making about student
learning.
Third is effective feedback with which students can be assisted to move
from their current level to the desired level. Although the relationship
between feedback form, timing and effectiveness is complex and variable
(Sadler, 2010), it is generally agreed that feedback ought to be carefully
crafted by teachers, and meaningfully understood and deliberately acted
upon by students if AfL is to be effective (Wiliam, 2011).
2 Assessment for Learning in English Language Classrooms... 19
Fourth is the important student role in assessment. AfL needs to acti-

vate students as pedagogic resources for one another and for themselves,
which will empower them to become self-regulated learners (Carless,
2006). Students therefore need to be involved in monitoring and evalu-
ating their own and others’ learning through self- and peer assessments,
suggesting that the feedback source encompasses not only teachers but
also the learners themselves and their peers (ARG, 2002).
According to the ARG, there are ten principles that the AfL approach
needs to be based on (ARG, 2002, p. 1). The ARG argues that AfL
should:
1. be part of effective planning of teaching and learning;

2. focus on how students learn;
3. be recognized as central to classroom practice;
4. be regarded as a key professional skill for teachers;
5. be sensitive and constructive because any assessment has an emo-
tional impact;
6. take account of the importance of learner motivation;
7. promote commitment to learning goals and a shared understanding
of the criteria by which they are assessed;
8. give learners constructive guidance about how to improve;
9. develop learners’ capacity for self-assessment so that they can become
reflective and self-managing;
10. recognize the full range of achievement of all learners. (p. 1)
While these principles have been widely used as guidelines for ensur-
ing the learning benefits, they have remained at the theoretical level, for
which classroom teachers do not know how to operationalize them in
their practice. In the foreground of these principles, inherently, are the
critical role of assessment in classroom practice, AfL’s inextricable rela-
tionship to learning through timely and effective feedback, and learners’
active engagement in assessment for the purpose of learning enhance-
ment. The principles also present a need for teachers to be professionally
prepared in order to turn these visions into classroom realities and to steer
students toward their learning goals.
20 J. Liu and Y. Xu
3 aking Sense of the Chinese Contexts

M
for Assessment: Macro-, Meso-, and
Micro-Levels
By this point in the chapter, AfL has been introduced in a general sense.
Clearly, there are many more contextual issues that have a bearing on
practice, policy, and even perception (Gardner, 2012). These issues not
only exert a significant influence on the kinds of assessment practices
that are feasible (Carless, 2011), but also play an important part in teach-
ers and students’ conceptions of assessment (Brown, 2008a). To further
explore influences from different levels, we distinguish three dimensions
among the contextual issues in China: macro, meso, and micro.
The macro-level issues consist of grander and broader influences from
social, cultural, historical and political factors. Basically, these influences
have two sources— historical and horizontal. Historically China has a
long history of a ‘keju’ testing system which offered a level playing field for
all students who needed to compete against each other in order to move
up along the hierarchical ladder of the society by memorizing and inter-
preting the classic works (Zeng, 1999). Exams which are valued for their
summative purpose continue to influence Chinese education, including
English language teaching and learning (L. Cheng & Curtis, 2009). In
addition to ‘Keju’, some traditional values advocated by Confucianism
also carry relevance for contemporary education. These values are the
acquisition of skills and seriousness about tasks; hierarchical relations;
obligations to family and the group; and giving or preserving ‘face’ (Bond
& Hwang, 1986). These values have exerted an influence on education
by emphasizing effort rather than ability, the transmission of knowledge,
a pragmatic approach to learning, as well as listening to others but not
taking the initiative to speak up in learning.
Horizontally, the contemporary educational policies play an impor-
tant part in constituting the assessment contexts. Relevant national
educational policies covering requirements for English language assess-
ment from primary to tertiary levels include: Nine-year Compulsory
Education English Curriculum Standards (CMoE, 2011), Full-time High
School English Curriculum Requirements (CMoE, 2003), and College
English Curriculum Requirements (CMoE, 2007). All these three policies

emphasize the parallel position of learning and accountability purposes
of assessment and advise teachers to mind the variety and flexibility of
assessment tasks. Although these policies are intended to strike a balance
between AfL and assessment of learning (AoL), English assessment in
China is still dominated by high-stakes exams, especially at the end of
junior and senior high school (zhongkao and gaokao, respectively). To
maximize scores in exams, Chinese students have heavy academic work-
load to ensure mastery of examination materials.
The meso-level issues mainly refer to those contextual influences out-
side of the classroom but with direct influences on the classroom (Fulmer,
Lee, & Tan, 2015). These issues may include school-level policies, school
administrators’ support for assessment, as well as requests and expecta-
tions from parents and the local community. In China, the meso-level
contexts for AfL are complex and even conflicting. First, schools in China
are unexceptionally under the pressure of ‘gaokao’ (the national entrance
examination to colleges) and thus generally have reservations using AfL
and its related methods. Second, institutions may appropriate AfL based
on their own interpretations, and their interpretations and appropriation
of national policies may or may not translate the meaning of national
policies precisely. Wang and Wang (2011) reported that the non-key
universities in China under investigation prioritize helping students
pass College English Test Band 4/6 (CET4/6) in their curriculum while
those key universities sponsored by the central government’s 985 and
211 projects do not. Although Carless (2011) observed that AfL in vari-
ous contexts can range from ‘restricted’ to ‘extended’ forms and should
allow variations encompassing both ideal practices as prescribed by the
international literature and more locally feasible adaptations, cautions
need to be exerted over such interpretation and appropriation (Levison,
Sutton, & Winstead, 2009). Third, specific institutional policies of
assessment and immediate communities’ attitudes toward AfL in higher
education may vary from institution to institution, largely depending
on such sociocultural factors as the specific geographical location of the
institution, its socioeconomic status, as well as the teachers’ and students’
roles and conceptions about English language teaching and learning
(Q. Chen, Kettle, Klenowski, & May, 2013).
22 J. Liu and Y. Xu
The micro-level issues encompass the immediate context of the class-

room. This may include a wide range of classroom-level influences,
such as class size, access to technologies, teacher–student relationship,
and teachers’ and students’ perceptions of assessment. Among them,
although the relationship of teachers to students has been traditionally
presented as hierarchical (Biggs, 1996) with the teacher being considered
as the only credible evaluator or assessor of learning (Hu, 2002), there
are some changes in the teacher–student relationship in Chinese class-
rooms. Contemporary Chinese students are more independent and criti-
cal in their thinking and thus less likely to be satisfied with whatever their
teachers have said (Zhang, 2004). Although research into the micro-level
assessment contexts is also rare, the prevalent fact is that the large class
size might be one significant negative influence on AfL implementation
since smaller class sizes seem to provide more favorable conditions for
teacher and peer dialogues which are central to AfL.
Synthesizing the above leads us to infer two main challenges of
implementing AfL in China. First, innovations to introduce progressive
practices of assessment are unlikely to be fruitful unless there is a corre-
sponding change in the emphasis of high-stakes examinations. Second,
there are potentially some risks of misinterpreting and appropriating AfL
due to contextual constraints at the meso- and micro-levels.
4 AfL Research in China

4.1 Teachers’ Conceptions of Assessment
From the review of the contextual issues for assessment, we understand the
coexistence of two competing assessment discourses constitutes the contem-
porary contexts for English as a foreign language (EFL) education in China.
Despite the long-held dominant examination-oriented traditions, AfL has
been included as part of the curriculum reform agendas in educational poli-
cies across school levels. This inevitably involves teachers who are agents
to implement AfL in their classrooms. Understanding how these teachers
perceive AfL and assessment generally is a prerequisite for understanding
their practices and the (in)effectiveness of AfL in Chinese EFL classrooms.
Teacher conception of assessment is used here as an umbrella term

to refer to an organized belief system that embraces all that a teacher
thinks about the nature and purpose of assessment, encompassing beliefs,
propositions, attitudes, and preferences (Thompson, 1992). Teachers’
conceptions of assessment are formed gradually through their earlier
experiences of both being assessed as learners and implementing assess-
ment as teachers, and become a framework which filters, frames, and
guides teachers’ responses to assessment (Fives & Buehl, 2012). To be
specific, conceptions filter information and experience, frame situations
and problems, and guide intention and action. Our interpretations of
the formation and function of conceptions include three messages. First,
teacher conceptions of assessment seem to be independent of assessment
training. Brown (2008b) has reported that no statistically significant dif-
ferences of the mean scores of teacher conception of assessment were
found among teachers with different degrees of assessment training expe-
riences. Second, ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975) developed
in teachers’ own schooling experiences will greatly influence their atti-
tudes toward assessment (L. F. Smith, Hill, Cowie, & Gilmore, 2014).
Third, teacher conceptions of assessment seem to be an inextricable part
to teacher conceptions of teaching and learning, all of which being guided
by one’s epistemological beliefs and views of learning (Brown, 2008a).
Due to the fact that research into Chinese EFL teachers’ conceptions
of assessment is not available in the existing literature, we then turn to
research of Chinese teachers’ conceptions to make useful inferences.
Drawing upon data from a survey of assessment conceptions and prac-
tice with 300 teachers from 14 primary and secondary schools in Hong
Kong, Brown, Kennedy, Fok, Chan, and Yu's (2009) study concluded
that broader Chinese cultural norms concerning examinations are part of
school culture, which presented a significant barrier to change of practice
to achieve the learning purpose of assessment.
To further understand Chinese teachers’ conceptions of assessment,
Brown and Gao (2015) synthesized eight interview and survey stud-
ies which have examined how diverse samples of practicing teach-
ers in China have described the nature and purpose of assessment.
They identified six major common conceptions of assessment among
Chinese teachers. Assessment is conceived by these Chinese teachers as
24 J. Liu and Y. Xu
the following: (1) functioning to inspect and control schools, teachers

and students; (2) a way of checking whether students have fulfilled the
pre-set learning targets; (3) valid information source to diagnose teach-
ing effectiveness and adjust teaching strategies; (4) a means to boost
students’ learning motivation and to enhance learning abilities; (5) a
way of enhancing the all-around quality as humans; and (6) inaccurate
or erroneous means of measurement. Spreading along a continuum
from positive to negative, these conceptions suggest that teachers may
express different conceptions on different occasions or locations, and
may have a mixture of conflicting conceptions of assessment at the
same time. What is encouraging is that despite the strong macro con-
texts of using assessment for accountability and selection purposes,
these Chinese teachers are still inclined for learning purposes of assess-
ment. Inferences can be made concerning the ‘seeds’ for promoting
AfL in China. Having said this, we cannot be blindly optimistic, as
J. Chen and Brown (2013) caution that it is unlikely that reform-
ist views of assessment are to be adopted as long as students are still
rewarded for their performance on exams.
To conclude, although Chinese EFL teachers’ conceptions of assess-
ment are not known, inferences made from the aforementioned study are
that their conceptions are shaped by teachers’ own schooling experiences
as well as the exam-oriented traditions in China. Thus, their conceptions
about assessment need to be regarded “as an indispensable point of depar-
ture for any further professional development on the matter” (Remesal,
2011, p. 474).
4.2 Teacher AfL Practice
We concur with K. Smith (2011) that a prerequisite for AfL to be success-

fully implemented in the classroom is the teachers’ assessment p ractice
which again relies on their assessment literacy. Sections 4.2 and 4.3 are,
respectively, an overview of research on Chinese EFL teachers’ AfL prac-
tice and their assessment literacy.
A search for relevant research shows that empirical studies on teacher AfL
practices in China are generally lacking. As concluded in H. Wang’s (2009)
finding, out of the 2008 national survey of college English teaching and
teacher qualities, assessment in college English classrooms in many uni-
versities is still dominated by the CET4/6, which suggests an urgent need
for more implementation of AfL. In a more recent large-scale national
survey among 530 universities about current status of College English
teaching, Wang and Wang (2011) reported that most of the universities
utilized a wide range of assessment strategies in their curriculum, among
which there are classroom performance, homework assignments, quiz-
zes, and online self-regulated learning. Although most of the universities
reported that they perceived the ‘day-to-day’ classroom performance of
students as the most important AfL strategy, its actual implementations
in the classrooms have remained underexplored.
The general picture of teacher AfL practice is that, for the vast majority
of teachers in China, AfL is still not a well-developed aspect of practice.
Even in Hong Kong where AfL is one of the top priorities in the English
language education reform agenda (CDC, 2004, 2006), the consensus
from a number of studies was that there was oftentimes a mismatch
between curriculum intensions and school realities, and that teachers
were not enthusiastic about AfL due to the deeply-rooted exam-oriented
culture (Carless, 2005, 2011; Davison, 2007; Hamp-Lyons, 2007).
Several themes emerge as pertinent in teachers’ AfL practices. First
is the complexities of teacher assessment practices which are under the
influence of their prior experiences, power relations in the workplace,
and the particular venues where the assessment activities take place
(Y. Xu & Liu, 2009). Under such circumstances, a wide range of varia-
tions of AfL implementation are found. For example, Q. Chen et al.’s
(2013) study identified major differences in two universities’ localized
adaptations of AfL. While such practices seem to endorse what Carless
(2011) has argued about the locally feasible adaptations of AfL in various
contexts, they present challenges for evaluating the value of such adapta-
tions in achieving the ultimate purpose of AfL, that is, student learning
enhancement. These various forms of AfL adaptations, however, seem
to produce conflicting results concerning how the learning purpose of
AfL is achieved. Some observations of teachers’ questioning as an AfL
strategy (Jiang, 2014) suggested that the learning potential of question-
ing was well tapped because of the teacher’s expertise and experiences,
26 J. Liu and Y. Xu
while others reported that the frequently used questions and tests mostly
encourage memorization and superficial learning notwithstanding the
teachers’ claims that they wish to develop comprehension and deep
learning (Wu, 1993). Moreover, deciding where the learners are in their
learning and how best to get there has oftentimes been misconceived
as an exhortation to teachers to frequently test their students to assess
their attainment levels against curriculum standards in order to fix their
errors and failures in learning. For instance, Gu's (2014) case study
with one Chinese secondary EFL teacher’s practice has revealed that the
high-stakes examinations defined the content and forms of the teacher’s
assessment practice and thus constrained her attempt of translating the
curriculum visions into classroom realities.
Second is the functions and use of different sources of feedback, among
which the review of peer feedback will be deferred until the next sec-
tion. As the main and traditional source, teacher feedback is often found
to serve summative and accountability purposes which overshadow the
learning purpose that it should have mainly served (e.g., Lee, 2007). For
those teachers who have received professional development in assess-
ment and wished to implement feedback innovations in their classroom,
their practices were found to be constrained by a string of factors such
as unsupportive environment of their schools and their perceptions and
responses of community members (i.e., students) (Lee, Mak, & Burns,
2016). In addition, recent studies have started to explore the effects of
automated feedback generated by artificial intelligent essay evaluation
software on student learning. Huang and Zhang's (2014) study inves-
tigated the extent to which students acted on different sources of feed-
back (i.e., teacher feedback, peer feedback, and automated feedback)
and found different degrees of student revisions based on these types of
feedback. Among them, automated feedback was most acted upon due
to its focus on mechanic issues that did not touch upon meaning and
structures of student writing. To note that much of this bulk of research
was conducted in EFL/ESL writing classrooms; oral feedback that teach-
ers utilize in their day-to-day practice is relatively underexplored and thus
warrants more research attention (Y. Xu & Carless, 2016).
Third is the involvement of students in AfL. When teachers involved
students by means of self- and peer assessments of their work, the
ultimate purpose is by no means less marking responsibility on their

part, but rather students’ self-regulated learning through acquiring the
competence of judging the quality of academic work against certain
assessment criteria. Students, therefore, need to be active agents and
useful resources in the assessment process rather than merely playing
a passive role (Gardner, 2012). Although peer assessment has been
widely reported in EFL writing classrooms in China, the general pic-
ture is that students’ engagement and perceptions of peer assessment
tend to be low without the teacher’s careful planning of the activity,
thoughtful training of students as peer assessors, and sustained support
throughout the process (Roskams, 1999; W. Wang, 2014; Zhao, 2014).
In addition, Chinese students’ use of peer assessment was identified
as a problematic task which is closely related to their cultural values.
The traditional teacher-centered pedagogy has led them to have their
favoritism over teacher feedback (Tsui & Ng, 2000; Yang, Badger, &
Yu, 2006), and their concern for face-saving may have refrained them
from giving constructively critical comments to avoid tension and
disagreement (Carson & Nelson, 2006; W. Cheng & Warren, 2005).
In self-assessment studies, although positive motivational beliefs and
acceptance levels of rating consistency were reported (J. Xu, Li, & Li,
2010; Zou & Yang, 2014), regrettably these studies did not connect
these benefits with learning progression. In other words, the learn-
ing gains of self-assessment were not empirically supported and thus
remain speculative.
Several inferences can be made from these empirical studies on teacher
AfL practice. First, it is complex and situated. Thus, it is not easy to judge
the quality of a teacher’s AfL practice without a contextual understanding
of such practice. Second, to maximize the benefits of various sources of
feedback, teachers need to enhance student feedback literacy (i.e., their
competencies of understanding, appreciating, generating and acting on
feedback). Once the students can understand and are willing to engage
with feedback, it is more likely that they will be able to act on it and
improve their work. Third, the introduction of self- and peer assessments
needs to be cautious, as insufficient preparation may lead to students’
negative experiences and misconceptions which bring more harm than
good to their learning.
28 J. Liu and Y. Xu
4.3 AfL and Teacher Assessment Literacy
All these aforementioned studies point to the inadequacy of pre- and in-
service teacher training in the area of assessment in China. Carless (2011)
has pinpointed this problem and attributed it in part to teachers’ con-
ception of assessment as a stand-alone addition rather than something
integral to teaching and learning. It highlights the critical role played
by teacher conceptions of assessment in the implementation of AfL as
argued earlier, and at the same time leads us to think about pertinent
questions concerning why there are such misconceptions of assessment,
who is to blame, and what should be done to help teachers form bet-
ter informed conceptions of assessment. All these ideas necessitate a full
understanding of teacher assessment literacy, with a focus of whether or
not teacher development in assessment has prepared teachers for con-
ducting AfL effectively.
Teacher assessment literacy, conventionally defined as knowledge and
skills in the educational assessment of students (Popham, 2009; Stiggins,
1995), is redefined to embrace three progressive stages of literacy from
a basic mastery of assessment principles through an internalized set
of understandings and skills to a self-directed awareness of assessment
processes and one’s own identity as assessor (Y. Xu & Brown, 2016).
Language teacher assessment literacy, in a narrower sense, refers to teach-
ers’ familiarity with measurement practices and the application of this
knowledge to classroom practices in general and specifically to issues of
assessing language (Inbar-Lourie, 2008; Taylor, 2009). As suggested by
Principles 1, 3, and 4 of the ten principles of AfL outlined in Sect. 2, AfL
needs to be recognized as central to classroom practice, and as a key pro-
fessional skill for teachers. In other words, teachers are generally expected
to be well-versed in both AfL theories and practice.
Most of the contemporary studies on language teacher assessment
literacy published in China are review articles that intend to introduce
the concept and to suggest possible ways to promote teacher assess-
ment literacy (e.g., Lin & Wu, 2014; Sheng, 2014; Y. Xu & Brown,
2016). Among the limited number of empirical studies (Jin, 2010;
Y. Xu, 2016; Y. Xu & Brown, 2017; Y. Xu & Carless, 2016), Jin’s
(2010) study is the first to investigate the quality of assessment courses
by evaluating various course characteristic factors (e.g., instructors,

content, and students) through a nationwide survey with 86 course
instructors. It is found that although the language assessment courses
adequately covered essential aspects of theory and practice of lan-
guage testing, they paid significantly less attention to educational
and psychological measurement and student classroom practice.
Although this study somehow ensured the quality of language assess-
ment courses from the instructors’ perspectives, it is not yet known
whether language teachers are assessment literate enough to deal with
challenges arising from classroom assessment practice. In another
example, Y. Xu and Carless’ (2016) recent study explored the issue of
teacher feedback literacy as part of teacher assessment literacy through
a case study of a university English instructor’s feedback enabling
processes. These important contributions notwithstanding, there is a
pressing need for more empirical studies investigating the nuanced
dimensions of teacher assessment literacy, including the seven compe-
tency dimensions prescribed by the Standards for Teacher Competence
in Educational Assessment of Students (hereafter the Standards) (AFT,
NCME, & NEA, 1990).
1. Teachers should be skilled in choosing assessment methods appropri-

ate for instructional decisions.
2. Teachers should be skilled in developing assessment methods appro-
priate for instructional decisions.
3. Teachers should be skilled in administering, scoring, and interpreting
the results of both externally produced and teacher-produced assess-
ment methods.
4. Teachers should be skilled in using assessment results when making
decisions about individual students, planning teaching, developing
curriculum, and school improvement.
5. Teachers should be skilled in developing valid pupil grading

procedures.
6. Teachers should be skilled in communicating assessment results to
students, parents, other lay audiences, and other educators.
7. Teachers should be skilled in recognizing unethical, illegal, and inap-
propriate assessment methods and uses of assessment information.
30 J. Liu and Y. Xu
Reflecting on this small body of research in relation to the Standards,

we believe that it would be helpful to recommend actions of promot-
ing teacher assessment literacy, first of all, at the level of national policy
and professional standards, for which the Chinese Ministry of Education
needs to take the initiatives. We are well aware that without national stan-
dards for teacher assessment literacy, improvement in teachers’ knowledge,
skills and awareness of AfL is unlikely to be possible. Once established,
the national standards of teacher assessment literacy can be used both as
guidelines for supporting teacher AfL practice and other assessment prac-
tices in general, and as a yardstick against which teacher licensure and
accreditation incorporating assessment literacy can be compared.
5 Problematizing AfL in China

Accumulated experiences of educational change in the past three decades
have suggested that reforms are always a complex and elusive endeavor
(e.g., Fullan, 1999). There is no exception for AfL in China. Because
AfL is an innovative assessment reform to the Chinese education system
which has been exam-oriented, its compatibility and feasibility in Chinese
contexts are undoubtedly full of complexities and uncertainties. In this
section, we attempt to problematize AfL implementation in China based
on the review above. By doing so, we hope to elicit more public and/or
professional discussions on this issue, and thus ideally find solutions to
maximize the learning benefits of AfL in Chinese educational contexts.
The first confronting question we pose is: Is AfL adaptable to Chinese
culture? On a discouraging note, the learning purpose of AfL seems to go
against the accountability purpose of exams which have dominated the
assessment contexts for thousands of years in China. The answer to this
question, as suggested by the wide range of adoptions and adaptations of
AfL by Chinese EFL teachers, is by no means an absolute ‘yes’ or ‘no’. If
certain prerequisites are required for effective adaptation and adoption of
AfL, what exactly are these prerequisites?
The second question is: Is AfL differentially feasible in diverse insti-
tutional and school contexts? As indicated earlier, universities of a lower
ranking in China have favoritism over large-scale tests (e.g., CET4/6) and
thus implement AfL at its face value without thinking critically about the
purposes for implementation. It seems that institutions of different levels
tend to perceive and accept AfL variably. If there are variations in the
acceptance levels of AfL, what are the criteria for evaluating its feasibility
in a particular context? If these contextual variations are acknowledged,
should policies of assessment reforms be multi-layered so that institutions
with different acceptance levels will be allowed to implement AfL at their
own pace?
The third question worthy of careful consideration is: In what ways
can teachers be professionally prepared for effective practice? It has been
widely acknowledged that changes cannot be achieved without actively
engaging the hearts and minds of teachers (Guskey, 2002). Professional
development of teachers, while being central to assessment reforms,
needs to go to more lengths than a top-down delivery package compris-
ing courses, workshops and other one-off training activities. Given that
teacher conceptions of assessment play a filtering and guiding role in their
acquisition of new knowledge, what can teacher education programs do
to elicit teachers’ conceptual change in assessment? In other words, when
planning assessment education, should teacher educators and educational
assessment specialists go beyond the incorporation of essential language
assessment principles to embrace a more holistic framework encompass-
ing both cognitive and affective dimensions of teacher development in
assessment?
6 Conclusions and Implications
Based on an overview of AfL research in English language classrooms
in China, this chapter problematizes AfL implementation in Chinese
educational contexts. We argue that the complexity of contextual issues
at the macro-, meso- and micro-levels needs to be taken into consid-
eration when adopting and adapting AfL in China. Evidence from
teacher conceptions of assessment, teacher AfL practice, and teacher
assessment literacy suggests that effective implementation of AfL can
only be achieved with teachers’ transformations toward assessment
in both their hearts and minds. Support from policy makers, teacher
32 J. Liu and Y. Xu
educators, and institutional administrators is equally essential in facili-

tating teachers’ transformation.
Three directions for future research of AfL are thus suggested. First,
this review makes a plea for a local perspective of understanding AfL or
any other innovative assessment strategies. While AfL is a global trend
and invariably endorsed by many Western countries, its feasibility in the
Confucian-heritage culture contexts (e.g., China) warrants more empiri-
cal evidence and debate. Second, given the central role of teachers in
AfL implementation, future studies need to make connections between
AfL implementation and teacher assessment literacy. Classroom-based
research with longitudinal observations of teachers’ assessment practices
is particularly needed. Third, taking into account the importance of insti-
tutional contexts in shaping AfL practice, another direction for future
research concerns how the institutional rules, power relations among
different stakeholders (e.g., administrators, teachers, students, etc.),
and school culture have impacted the effectiveness of AfL adoption and
adaptation. Studies with an ethnographical stance that listen to different
voices would be most beneficial to probe into the nature of the issue.
Acknowledgment The authors of this chapter would like to acknowledge the

financial support for this study in part by the National Social Science Foundation
of China (grant #12CYY026).
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Jun Liu is Professor of Linguistics, Vice Provost for Global Affairs, and Dean
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in USA. A past president of TESOL, Vice President of TIRF and TCSOL.
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3
Learning to Speak in an Exam-Focused
World: A Study of Independent
Language Learning in China
Don Snow, Olivia Sun, and Xu Li
1 Introduction
One might assume that most students in China are able to speak English
by the time they graduate from university. After all, Chinese students
virtually all begin to study English in primary school and continue
throughout middle school; then those who go on to university generally
study English for at least two more years. All included, Chinese students
have at least 12 years of English study and often more, so it seems quite
reasonable to expect that by the time they finish all these years of required
English courses, many if not most would be able to speak English quite
fluently. However, such is not necessarily the case; in fact, many Chinese
students graduate without being able to speak English very well.
Here, we wish to thank the informants for this study—Chung Tsz Chung, Huang Danjie, Huang
Xinyu, Jiang Heng, Vanessa Leng, Li Jiazhe, Li Xinyi, Liu Jing, Shen Senyao, Wan Zijun, Wang
Siman, Wang Yini, Zheng Zhuoyun, and several others who chose to remain anonymous. We
also thank Leng Junxiao, who served as research assistant for this project.
D. Snow (*) • O. Sun • X. Li

Duke Kunshan University, Kunshan Shi, China

40 D. Snow et al.
Closer examination of the English teaching system in China makes it

easier to understand why. As we will see below, the high-stakes English
tests that Chinese students need to take during their school years gener-
ally do not include an oral skills component, so teachers and students
generally have relatively little incentive to invest significant time in speak-
ing practice. Of course, if students do not often practice oral skills, it is
hard for them to become fluent speakers of English.
However, some Chinese students do learn to speak English quite well;
many even reach a point where they can handle the oral skills demands of
English-medium university programs. This raises the question—how? It
requires considerable practice for students to develop such strong speak-
ing skills, so how do they get enough practice? Through their required
school coursework? Through extra English courses taken outside of
university?
Or, are these successful Chinese learners creating additional prac-
tice opportunities for themselves? In other words, are they actively and
intentionally engaging in independent language learning (ILL)? This is
a claim that has been made by experts in the field; for example, of suc-
cessful language learners Nunan and Richards (2015) write: “They are
highly motivated; they set targets for themselves; they reflect on their
learning progress; and, most importantly, they look for opportunities to
learn language beyond the classroom” (p. xii). Also, studies of successful
learners have sometimes pointed to ILL as a key factor in these learners’
success. For example, in a study of university students at University of
Hong Kong, Wong and Nunan (2011) conclude that: “The more effec-
tive learners in this study were more active and more prepared to take
control of their own learning. They spent significantly more time out of
class practicing their English, and displayed a greater degree of autonomy
than the less effective learners” (p. 154).
The goal of this study is to gain a better understanding of how success-
ful English learners in China build speaking skills—especially in a con-
text where speaking is not often required and there are limited speaking
opportunities in class. More specifically, our goal is to better understand
the degree to which Chinese students who succeed in developing spoken
English skills do so through engaging in ILL.
3 Learning to Speak in an Exam-Focused World: A Study... 41
One reason we focus specifically on speaking skills is that oral English

skills have become a higher priority for the Chinese education system in
recent decades. However, a focus on speaking is also an especially good
vehicle for understanding ILL. To the extent that Chinese students suc-
ceed in building English skills other than speaking, it is relatively difficult
to determine whether this success results from effective in-class instruc-
tion or students’ independent learning efforts because these other aspects
of English generally receive more attention in class. If Chinese students
are engaging in ILL, oral English is where we would see this most clearly.
2 English Learning in China

Since the 1980s, the Chinese education system has devoted considerable
resources to English and has required that students invest a significant
portion of their school time in it (Wu, 2001; Chen & Goh, 2011). It is
a required subject in elementary, secondary, and tertiary education, and
also on major standardized examinations.
In the 1980s and 1990s, special emphasis was placed on students’ read-
ing skills, and intensive reading courses were the backbone of the English
program in secondary schools and universities (Rao, 1996). However, as
a result of reforms between 2004 and 2007, the development of students’
oral English skills became a higher priority. As Yang, Gu, and Liu (2013)
note: “The overall teaching objective shifted from developing students’
ability to exchange information in English with reading as a priority […]
to developing students’ ability to use English in a well-rounded way with
special emphasis on listening and speaking….” (p. 307; see also Chen &
Goh, 2011; Zhao, 2013).
Despite a shift in the curriculum toward greater emphasis on oral
skills, however, classroom practice has not changed very much, and in
many Chinese English classes speaking is not emphasized. Many students
have few opportunities to engage in oral English practice in class, and
classroom assessment of oral skills tends to be rare (Zhao, 2013). While
this gap between curriculum goals and classroom practice might initially
seem puzzling, there are in fact quite a number of reasons why teachers
42 D. Snow et al.
tend not to emphasize oral skills in class. One reason is that when many
teachers were first learning English, speaking skills were not emphasized,
so their own oral skills are weak and/or they lack confidence in their spo-
ken skills (Chen & Goh, 2011). Another reason is that class sizes are often
very large, so it is difficult to give each student opportunities to speak;
it is also difficult to manage in-class speaking activities and ensure that
students stay on task and speak in English (Chen & Goh, 2011). A third
problem is that speaking practice tends to be rather time-consuming, and
teachers already need to cover a considerable amount of material in class
(Zheng & Borg, 2014). Other problems include difficulty in motivating
students to practice speaking (Chen & Goh, 2011), uninteresting topics
in textbooks (Wen, 1999), and lack of funds for “the audio-visual equip-
ment, photocopiers or sources (such as a wide range of authentic print
materials) that are required to support the dynamic teaching necessitated
by communicative methods” (Rao, 2002, p. 97).
However, one of the most compelling reasons why teachers tend to
devote less attention to speaking skills is that major standardized English
examinations generally do not test speaking. The most important of these
examinations is the English portion of the College Entrance Examination
(gaokao高考). When this test was first designed “…it was decided that
an oral English subtest was not feasible […] All that could be incorpo-
rated […] that had anything to do with speaking English was a word
pronunciation subtest, a situational response subtest involving conversa-
tional situations, and a reading aloud subtest. The first two were paper-
and-pencil subtests while the third was required only of a small fraction
of the [College Entrance Examination participants]” (Li & Wang, 2000,
p. 160–1). As a result of this, even middle school teachers who are favor-
ably disposed toward the idea of building students’ oral English skills “…
tend to place more emphasis on grammar and language form than speak-
ing….” (Zhang & Liu, 2014, p. 195).
Another important examination for university students in China is the
College English Test—Band 4 (CET-4), which most students take during
the fourth semester of university study; a more advanced CET-6 exami-
nation is also offered, though this is less often required and fewer students
take it. The current internet-based version of CET-4, put into use in
2009, does include an item requiring students to listen to sentences and
repeat them aloud (Pan, 2011; Wang, Yan, & Liu, 2014), but the exami-
nation does not test students’ ability to converse in English.
The absence of an oral skills component on these examinations is not
an oversight; in fact, it has long been recognized by educators in China
that this is a major problem, causing “a negative washback effect” and
leading to “the widespread neglect of spoken English in China” (Li &
Wang, 2000, p. 161). As a result, attempts have been made to improve
the situation by incorporating speaking more into the high-stakes stan-
dardized examinations. For example, as early as the 1990s, an oral subtest
was designed for the College Entrance Examination; it was piloted in
1991–93 and then offered in Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan starting
in 1995. However, initially this oral subtest was optional and only given
to a few thousand candidates per year in the three provinces (Li & Wang,
2000).
Similarly, in 1999 an oral skills test, the Spoken English Test (SET),
was added to the CET. “The CET–SET is a carefully designed and highly
structured test that provides important information about candidates’
proficiency to communicate effectively in oral English in terms of mak-
ing presentations, discussing topics of general interest, and interacting
in a peer group” (Zhang & Elder, 2009, p. 304). Test centers have been
set up in provincial capitals to administer the CET–SET, and tens of
thousands of students are now given this test each year. However, the
CET–SET is not a required component of the CET, and only students
who pass CET-4 or CET-6 with a very high score are eligible to take it.
Thus, the eligible population is fairly small (Ren, 2011).
For Chinese students, success on examinations like the College
Entrance Examination and CET-4 is very important because it can have
a significant impact on their education and career opportunities. The
College Entrance Examination determines which universities students
can go to—and whether they go to university at all—and the English
test is a very significant component of this examination. Similarly, test
success on the CET-4 is important because “…many colleges and uni-
versities set a pass in the CET-4 as one of the requirements for gradua-
tion, and employers also like to use CET to evaluate college graduates’
English proficiency” (Yang et al., 2013, p. 305). Because of the impor-
tance of these tests, many learners in China tend to set their learning
44 D. Snow et al.
objectives primarily in terms of passing tests. For example, in a 2011

study of Chinese university students, Ren found that learners’ goals were
almost always stated in terms of passing tests such as CET-4, CET-6,
IELTS and TOEFL, or of doing things such as memorizing vocabulary
which were directly related to test success. Very few students set objec-
tives that were not test-related. As Ren (2011) concludes: “…English
learning at the tertiary level is largely test-oriented and utilitarian and it
seems that [students] have very little incentive to learn anything that is
not on examination papers” (p. 254–5).
All of this shows that the washback effect of these tests on English
teaching and learning is quite substantial, and the fact that the major stan-
dardized English examinations in China do not test oral proficiency, at
least for the great majority of students, means that investing class time in
oral skill practice is generally not a top priority. So, even though national
curriculum guidelines emphasize speaking skills, in practice speaking is
not given so much attention. As Chen and Goh (2011) note: “Most of
curriculum time is spent on reading, writing and listening, all of which
are required in the exams. Oral English is always put at the bottom of the
teacher’s priority list….” (p. 340; see also Zhang & Liu, 2014).
Despite all of this, however, some Chinese students do develop sub-
stantial speaking skills. One obvious question is—why? If students’
speaking skills are not often tested, why invest substantial time learning
to speak? However, there is a second important question—how? How
do some learners get enough practice to enable them to function at high
levels in spoken English? To what extent are they building oral skills by
engaging in ILL?
3 Independent Language Learning

For the purposes of this chapter, “independent language learning” will be
defined as language learning activities that learners undertake primarily on
their own—in other words, setting their own goals, choosing their own meth-
ods and materials, evaluating their own progress, and so forth. For students
in the Chinese context, ILL is essentially anything they do to learn English
that goes beyond the requirements of their English language courses.1
As we see, according to this definition ILL has two important elements.

First, it is a mode of learning in which learners make most or all decisions
for themselves. In contrast to studying in formal language courses where
most key decisions are made by teachers, textbooks, curriculums, and
examinations, ILL requires learners to make their own decisions about
goals, methods, materials, and assessment, and independent language
learners need to be not only able but also willing to make such choices for
themselves (Pemberton, 1996; Crabbe, 1999; Littlewood, 1997). This
point is important because, as Nunan (1997) notes, “most learners, at the
beginning of the learning process, do not know what is best” in regard
to approaches to language learning (p. 194; see also Thomson, 1996;
Reinders, 2010). While breaking free of the classroom and setting out
to learn on their own can initially be quite exciting, novice independent
language learners sometimes make less-than-ideal choices in the design
of their independent learning efforts, for example, setting unrealistic
goals, choosing methods or materials that do not fit the goal, and so forth
(Snow, 2007). This, in turn may lead to problems as learners attempt to
carry out of their plans. Such problems are especially likely when learners
who have previously made few language learning choices for themselves
move into a new independent mode of learning where they need to make
most of the choices (Nunan, 1997; see also Benson, 2007).
Second, ILL is a context in which learners are outside language courses
and do not face external requirements/pressure to keep learning. One of
the key attributes of language courses is that they provide what might
be called an “external motivation skeleton” for learners, a framework of
scores, grades, deadlines, and teacher pressure that ensure students will
continue to study whether they feel like doing so or not. In contrast, ILL
takes place outside this framework and requires learners to rely on an
“internal motivation skeleton” because it is largely up to them to decide
whether to continue their efforts or not. Here the problem is generally
not so much one of being initially motivated to try out ILL; as Hedge
(2000) points out: “It would be a mistake to assume that all adult students
need persuading to adopt independent approaches. Many come to classes
with every intention of using the class as one resource among several to
be exploited in learning English” (p. 100). The problem is, rather, gener-
ally one of sustaining motivation over time (Dörnyei & Ushioda, 2011).
46 D. Snow et al.
This is especially true if/when independent learners encounter problems

in their language learning efforts, and also when they feel they are not
making much progress. Unlike learners in a course who have to keep on
studying whether they feel they are making progress or not, independent
language learners who do not feel that their efforts are generating much
progress can easily quit—and are often tempted to do so (Snow, 2007).
With regard to Chinese students, it seems reasonable to expect that
many would attempt at some point during their English learning careers
to improve their speaking skills through ILL, and this would be especially
true for learners who have reason to believe that speaking skills would be
important to them in the future. After all, many Chinese teachers and
parents encourage students to practice their speaking skills outside class.
Also, despite widespread stereotypes of “passive Asian students,” some
research suggests that Chinese students generally have “an overall posi-
tive attitude towards self-directed learning, reflecting a desire to engage
actively in their own language learning” (Gan, 2004, p. 404).
4 Methodology
4.1 Research Questions
This study looks at Chinese university students who have been unusu-
ally successful in developing their oral English skills, and explores how
they were able to achieve high levels of oral proficiency in an education
system where oral skills are generally not emphasized. The main research
questions are:
• How much speaking practice did these students get in their required
middle school and university English courses, and how much were
their speaking skills tested? Is the literature accurate?
• Is there evidence that successful learners achieve high oral skill levels
simply by taking advantage of the opportunities normally available in
required English courses? In other words, do we see evidence that for
some learners the normal opportunities—presumably combined with
strong motivation and high willingness to communicate—are
adequate? Or do most of these successful learners supplement their

speaking practice opportunities in some ways?
• For the learners who do supplement their speaking practice opportu-
nities, is this most often done by taking extra language courses? In
other words, do they supplement their learning primarily by taking
advantage of other ready-made opportunities that do not require them
to make many decisions about their own language learning and rely on
their own internal motivation?
• To what extent do successful learners supplement their speaking prac-
tice opportunities through forms of ILL in which they need to make
many or most of their own language learning decisions and rely heav-
ily on self-motivation?
4.2 Design of the Study
Data for this study was gathered through semi-structured retrospective

interviews conducted with students enrolled for one semester in a special
English-medium liberal arts study program at a joint-venture university
in China. Admission to this program was based, to a considerable extent,
on the performance of candidates in an interview conducted entirely in
English, so all students admitted to the program have relatively strong
oral English skills. Informants were recruited through a general notice
that invited volunteers to be interviewed for a project studying how
Chinese students learn to speak English.
Sixteen students volunteered and were interviewed, including four
whose university major was English, one who had attended a foreign
language middle school, and one whose home university was an English-
medium university. However, for this study, it was decided to focus on
data provided by the ten interviewees who were not English majors and
had not come from a university or middle school that conducted classes
predominantly in English.
Most of the informants were in their junior year, but two were sopho-
mores and three were seniors. They came from a fairly wide range of
majors: Computer Science, Education, Film and Video, Finance,
Geology, Industrial Engineering, and Public Administration. All had
48 D. Snow et al.
grown up and gone to primary and middle school in urban areas, gener-
ally in or near provincial or prefectural capitals. Finally, the great major-
ity—nine out of ten—were female.
These ten students were not assumed to be typical of Chinese univer-
sity students in general; precisely, the opposite. It was assumed that these
were Chinese students who had been relatively successful in building their
oral English skills, as demonstrated by the fact that they were recruited
from a pool of students who had all passed an oral interview conducted in
English. It was also assumed that these learners had relatively high moti-
vation to build strong oral English skills; in fact, the decision to rely on
volunteers was made partly because this tended to ensure that informants
were relatively confident of their oral English skills. It should also be noted
that all of the informants had plans to study abroad after graduation.
The process used for this study consisted of semi-structured interviews
of approximately 30 minutes in length. The same set of basic interview
questions was used for all informants. However, after the interviewer
asked the set questions, he/she had freedom to ask follow-up questions as
appropriate to the answers given by informants. Interviews were recorded,
transcribed, and then analyzed.
Each interview was conducted face-to-face with one informant by one
member of the research team. Informants were told at the beginning of
the interview that while the questions would initially be asked in English,
they could respond in either English, Chinese, or a mixture of both. (All
three of the interviewers are bilingual.) In the event, all interviewees
used English during most of the interview, but many occasionally used
Chinese words or phrases, and a few chose to respond to one or more of
the questions primarily in Chinese.
4.3 Interview Questions
Each interview followed a script with the following questions:
• You passed an oral interview to get into the Global Learning Semester
program, so your spoken English skills are obviously above average,
and you must have found some ways to practice your speaking. Tell me
the story of how you learned to speak English.
• Tell me about how much speaking practice there was in your middle
school and university English classes, both in-class and homework.
• Tell me about how your speaking skills were tested and how much.
• Have you ever tried to improve your English speaking skills by doing
something that wasn’t required by your English courses?
–– If so, what did you do, and when?
–– Why did you do it?
• If you learned to speak just by taking English courses (and haven’t ever
tried doing some extra speaking practice on your own), how did you
find enough speaking practice opportunities?
• Is there anything else you want to tell me about how you learned to
speak English?
5 Findings and Discussion
5.1 ow Much Is Speaking Practiced and Assessed
H
in Required Courses?
In general, the findings of this study confirm that speaking skills are
not frequently practiced or tested in required English courses in China.
Granted, evidence from our study reminds us that in some Chinese
middle school and university English classes speaking is in fact practiced;
virtually, all of the informants (nine out of ten) mentioned at least some
speaking practice in their required middle school or university English
courses. The most common forms of practice mentioned were presenta-
tions (mentioned by five informants), early morning reading (zaozixi早
自习) (mentioned by three), and various kinds of computer-mediated
speaking practice (three). Also mentioned were pair-practice conversa-
tions, reciting memorized texts aloud, and even an in-class performance
of the movie Titanic. Similarly, most informants—seven out of ten—
were able to recall at least one occasion on which their speaking skills
were tested as part of the required English program in their schools.
Sometimes, such testing only involved reading or reciting texts aloud, but
other forms of testing included responding to questions from a teacher
50 D. Snow et al.
or computer program, doing role plays, having a conversation with a

partner, or telling the teacher a story.
Here, it is worth noting that changes in testing do at times lead to
changes in teaching. For example, several of the informants were from
Guangdong province, where an oral skills component in the College
Entrance Examination is now required, and they explicitly noted that
at least some of the oral skills practice they got in middle school English
courses was intended to prepare them for that test.
However, reports from the informants also suggested that oral skill
practice in required middle school and university English courses was
generally minimal: during the interviews nine of the informants made
at least one comment to the effect that there was not much speak-
ing practice in middle school, university, or both. Typical comments
included:
• Brenna2: “Actually in my home university or high school I had no

chance to talk in English. We learned English just in order to take
exams.”
• Marilyn: “Not so much speaking practice.”
• Sara: “In my university or high school, we focused on listening and
reading, so we didn’t speak so much. Almost none.”
• Laurie: (Of speaking practice) “Very little. I think almost none.” “So it
depends more on ourselves, after class, to improve English.”
Similarly, while most informants reported that their speaking skills were
tested at least a little in their required courses, such tests did not play a
major role. Often, these tests of spoken English were relatively easy; for
example, one informant commented that “before the gaokao we had a
spoken English test but I think it was very easy. We just read some articles
aloud, and we all passed.” Another mentioned that there was an oral skills
component on the final exams for her university English courses each
semester, but that she only spent one week preparing for this. And, some
informants never had their speaking skills tested at all; as one informant
commented: “There were no oral examinations I could recall when I was
in middle school, high school, or even in university.”
5.2 o What Extent Did Informants Supplement

T
Speaking Opportunities by Taking Additional
Courses?
Some Chinese students develop especially strong spoken English skills

primarily—or at least in part—because they study in schools or programs
that place special emphasis on English. (As mentioned above, 6 of the
16 students who volunteered for this study fell into this category.) Such
students get substantial oral English practice as part of their required
programs, so presumably they are able to build strong oral skills even if
they do not supplement their speaking practice opportunities through
ILL. (However, as we will see below, this does not mean that they do not
engage in ILL.) In contrast, as discussed above, most Chinese students
do not have many opportunities to build spoken English skills as part of
their required English courses; therefore, students who want to learn to
speak English often need to find ways to get extra English speaking prac-
tice, to supplement the meager speaking practice opportunities provided
in most required courses.
One way for learners to get extra practice is by taking additional
English courses of various kinds; in other words, by supplementing their
required English courses with additional study under conditions similar
to those of required classes, that is, little need to make decisions or rely
on self-motivation. Of the informants in this study, the great m ajority—
nine out of ten—took additional courses at some point during their
English learning career, often for a year or more. Five of the informants
took courses in commercial language schools like New Oriental 新东方,
Sesame Street English 芝麻街英语, New Channel 新航道, and Rising
Star 启明星. Many of these courses consisted of study of textbooks from
the ubiquitous New Concept English series, or preparation for tests such
as IELTS and TOEFL, but other courses taken by informants focused
on subjects such as oral translation, simultaneous interpretation, and
even oral English. Other informants participated in after-class tutoring
with teachers from their primary or middle schools (two), or studied
with private tutors (four). Also, three informants explicitly stated that
one main reason why they came to the joint-venture university program
52 D. Snow et al.
where the study was conducted was that they felt this would be good for
their English—in effect treating the program as a very advanced English
course.
This may be a good place to note that two of the informants also
participated in overseas experiences as a way to improve their spoken
English. One informant participated in a summer-long volunteer experi-
ence in Tunisia, and another not only studied for a semester in Australia
but also had several shorter overseas study and volunteer experiences.
While participating in such programs is obviously quite different from
taking courses at a school like New Oriental, we should note that there
is one important similarity—the primary choice students make is to sign
up for the program and place themselves in an environment where they
are essentially forced to practice English, in other words, an environment
where they do not need to make many choices about language learning
or rely heavily on self-motivation.
Should we conclude that taking additional courses is the key to success
in building oral English skills? No doubt some of the courses mentioned
above did give informants additional opportunities to practice their oral
English skills. However, it is also important to remember that many of
these courses did not focus mainly on oral skills—in fact, the teaching
approach used in many of these cases was not too different from that found
in required English courses, and did not involve much more speaking
practice. This was most obviously true for courses built around intensive
study of New Concept English texts, and for many of the test preparation
courses. It should also be noted that the strategy of going abroad so as to
be in an English-speaking environment did not guarantee improvement
in oral skills; for example, one informant who participated in a volun-
teer experience abroad did not actually need to speak English very much
because much of her daily interaction was with other Chinese volunteers.
6 Supplementing with ILL
Here, we should pause to remind ourselves that the informants in this
study already had between 12 and 14 years of English study in required
primary school, middle school, and university English courses,3 and
most of them had taken additional English courses of various kinds. It is
therefore fairly significant that virtually all of them—nine out of ten—

chose to work further on their oral English skills by engaging in some
form of ILL, that is, study and practice efforts in which they made some
or most of the decisions about their own learning.
For many of the informants—six out of ten—one form of ILL con-
sisted of signing up for standardized tests such as IELTS and TOEFL
which had an oral skills component, and then practicing their speak-
ing to prepare for the examination. In some ways, this might be consid-
ered an intermediate step between course-based language learning and
ILL. When informants did this kind of study on their own, rather than
in an organized test preparation course, we have chosen to classify it as
ILL because it requires learners to make more choices for themselves than
would be true in a test prep course—they needed to choose their own
study materials, devise their own study methods, and rely heavily on self-
motivation. However, we should also recognize that when learners’ ILL
efforts focus on passing a test, making choices about learning materials
and study methods is relatively easy; also, the upcoming test provides an
external source of pressure upon which learners can rely to sustain their
motivation.
An interesting question here concerns the degree to which test-focused
ILL builds learners’ autonomy and ILL skills. On the one hand, for many
learners, this is one of the first forms of ILL they will engage in, and
through it they can learn how to build language skills by studying on
their own. This is particularly true if the test they are preparing for has
many direct items, that is, those which require learners to use skills in
ways similar to the ways they would be used in real life. With regard
to oral skills, the interview component of tests like IELTS encourages
students to build conversational English skills, and devising and carrying
out one’s own strategies for building such skills is no doubt good experi-
ence in learning how to go about ILL. On the other hand, test-focused
ILL may also reinforce habits that are not so desirable in ILL, such as a
tendency to set language learning goals mainly in terms of test success
rather than actual proficiency, or a tendency to rely heavily on external
motivation.
Most of the informants—again, nine out of ten—also did other kinds
of ILL in which they had to make more of their own choices and rely
heavily on self-motivation. Granted, it is likely that these informants at
54 D. Snow et al.
times saw these other ILL strategies as increasing their chances of success
on the tests they would have to take in order to study abroad; however,
in the interviews these activities were described as general strategies for
building oral skills rather than as strategies for test success. The following
list suggests the wide range of strategies used by the informants:
• Listening to recordings and mimicking (five informants).

• Watching movies or TV shows and mimicking or shadowing (three).
• Watching movies or TV shows (without mimicking) (two).
• Participating in organized oral English activities such as Toastmasters
clubs (one).
• Participating in speech contests (one).
• Seeking to make friends with foreigners (three).
• Studying TED talks (one).
• Listening to English songs (two).
• Talking to oneself in English (two).4
• Keeping a diary in English (one).
Of course, all of the informants reported using a number of different

strategies over time, rather than relying on one alone, and this is best
captured through the five vignettes we offer below:
Barbara was very interested in English even as a little girl, and got good
grades in English through primary school. During junior middle school,
she went through a period where her interest in English was dampened by
heavy emphasis on dictation, which she did not like. However, in senior
middle school, she became the “English representative” (kedaibiao课代
表) for her class, and in order to lead her classmates in morning reading
(zaozixi早自习), she invested an hour or so each day listening to record-
ings of the target text and repeating after them.
In university, Barbara continued to invest extra time working on her
spoken English. Some of this effort was directed toward passing the
IELTS examination, and for one semester, she spent an hour or more
each day in the library speaking English to herself to prepare for the
IELTS interview, much to the amusement of classmates who would
laugh at her and say “Here you are—speaking English with yourself!”
However, she also invested substantial time in other strategies such as
intensively studying TED talks and watching TV series such as House

and The Good Wife.
Rita also enjoyed English and did well in it during primary school
and middle school, and supplemented her required English courses with
additional private English classes; she also participated in an English
speech competition. In university, she had the opportunity to take some
English major courses as electives for her program, and she also took
courses on interpretation at a private school; additionally, she prepared
for TOEFL using an online program in which she would respond to
TOEFL-like speaking prompts, record her response, and then study how
to improve it. On top of all this, she worked on her spoken English by
doing shadowing practice with TV series such as Friends and also BBC
news programs. Finally, she made a point of meeting foreigners and prac-
ticing her spoken English with them.
Marilyn did fairly well in English in primary and secondary school,
and also took one year of extra tutoring, studying New Concept English,
during her primary school years. However, it was only after she entered
university and decided that she wanted to study abroad that she began to
work more strategically on her oral English skills. She searched online for
websites related to language learning, and after finding one that seemed
reliable began trying out some of the strategies it suggested. One such
strategy was taking advantage of the time she spent walking from her
classroom to her dormitory to speak English to herself, talking about
what she had done during the day, how she felt, and so forth. Another
strategy involved watching an episode of Modern Family and memoriz-
ing it, down to mimicking the voices and intonation of the actors. While
she only did this with one episode, she found it “really helpful.” She
also started keeping a diary, an output strategy which she intended for
improving both her writing and speaking skills.
Rebecca never studied in a private English school. However, her father
is an English teacher, and when she was in junior middle school he
encouraged her to speak English more and suggested that she practice by
talking to the mirror in the morning before going to school. She found
this practice a little difficult to sustain, but did it at least once or twice a
week during her middle school years. While in middle school, she worked
on her oral skills by getting an MP4 player—in violation of school
56 D. Snow et al.
regulations—so that she could do extra listening practice with materials

suggested by teachers. (MP4 players were prohibited for fear that stu-
dents would play video games.)
In university, Rebecca decided her goal was to study abroad, so she
began preparing for the IELTS examination. Sometimes, this involved
practicing by herself, taking IELTS prompts and then “making a story
in my mind.” Sometimes, she worked with other classmates to practice
speaking and improve her test responses. Currently, she continues to use
the speak-to-yourself strategy, taking advantage of her workout time in
the gym to think of her recent experiences and “retell the story” to herself
as she exercises.
Brenna had relatively little oral English practice during her primary
and middle school years, and before coming to the joint-venture uni-
versity program had not had much oral English practice in university.
She did, however, go to New Oriental English classes during her junior
middle school years to study New Concept English.
With regard to ILL, Brenna spent some time watching movies and
listening to songs in English. However, she engaged in a more sustained
effort for two summers in junior high school, during which she worked
every day alone in her room, listening to New Concept English recordings,
repeating after them to practice pronunciation and intonation, memoriz-
ing them, and then reciting them aloud. While she found it hard to make
herself do this, she had the dream of going abroad for study, so she per-
sisted for two summers. At present, she plans to prepare for the TOEFL
examination in the coming summer vacation.
As these vignettes suggest, there is quite a bit of variation in every
aspect of ILL. Some of the informants had an interest in speaking English
from early on; others only began to pay special attention to oral English
after they decided to study abroad. Some informants supplemented their
required English courses significantly with additional English classes; oth-
ers spent little or no time in English courses outside the courses required
in school. What they all had in common was that they chose to supple-
ment the spoken English “diet” provided in their required courses, and
that the supplement consisted at least partially of ILL.
This point is driven home by evidence from the students interviewed
for this study who were English majors, and who were therefore not
included in the focus group. Despite the fact that these four English
major informants had considerably more speaking practice as part of

their required coursework than non-English majors, all of them still
supplemented their oral skills diet by engaging in multiple forms of ILL:
• Lisa watched television programs in English, organized a speaking

practice group among her classmates, and studied for and took an oral
interpretation test.
• Edna watched videos in English, and organized a speaking practice
group with her roommates.
• Carmen worked on her speaking by listening to recordings and repeat-
ing, watching many movies and television programs, and seeking
opportunities to make friends with international students.
• Jennifer began watching English-language TV shows mainly because
she wanted “something interesting to do in my spare time,” but gradu-
ally she began using it more intentionally as a strategy, focusing on
particular accents, taking notes, and so forth. She also developed
friendships with the foreign teachers at her university, partially to be
helpful and friendly, but also mindful of the additional English prac-
tice opportunities this afforded her.
In short, even learners who had relatively rich practice opportunities in

their English courses still supplemented these by engaging in ILL.
It is not possible to determine precisely how large a contribution ILL
made to informants’ success in building their oral English skills, and it
is certainly not possible to claim that ILL was more important to their
success than the English practice informants got in their required English
courses or additional courses they chose to take. However, it is quite clear
that the informants in this study generally did engage in ILL, that they
did so consciously and strategically, and that they invested a significant
amount of time and effort in it.
7 Challenges
We will conclude this section of the chapter with a few words on how
challenging it is for Chinese students to design and sustain ILL efforts
like the ones described above. Actually, this study was not primarily
58 D. Snow et al.
designed to explore the challenges of ILL because the pool from which
informants were drawn consisted of relatively successful and motivated
learners; in other words, those who were generally able to overcome any
challenges they encountered. However, in the stories told by this group
of informers, we still get occasional glimpses of the difficulties involved
in sustaining ILL.
For example, both Marilyn and Rebecca sometimes worked on their
oral skills by speaking to themselves—Marilyn while walking home from
class and Rebecca speaking to a mirror at home. Both also mentioned
in the interviews that they were only able to do this intermittently, and
berated themselves for being too “lazy” to do this more.
In describing her two summers of self-imposed recitation practice with
New Concept English texts, Brenna is candid about the fact that she would
much rather have been outside enjoying herself with her friends, and that
it required a considerable amount of willpower to “control herself to stay
in my room to study.” She also noted that it was rather hard in the end
to see how much this study effort had helped her spoken English because
there was no one around for her to speak English with.
Problems with seeing progress were also mentioned by Bob when talk-
ing about a study strategy in which he watched Game of Thrones, first
reading the subtitles silently to himself, then hiding them, and finally say-
ing the lines aloud. While he loved working with this particular series, he
was often frustrated by the lack of people to practice with. As he noted,
“I cannot see the outcome of this practicing. You know, if your speaking
skills are very good or excellent, there is no one to say ‘Wow, you’re good!’
And also if your speaking is not very good, there is no one to criticize you
and say ‘Wow, he’s bad.’”
The comments above remind us that building speaking skills by work-
ing on one’s own is at times quite challenging, especially in settings where
learners have relatively few chances to speak the target language with
others. It is also harder for learners to sustain their ILL efforts when they
cannot readily see the progress they make. As Macaro (2001) notes, “the
excitement of learning a language” comes in no small part from learners’
“estimation that real progress is being made” (p. 3), so it is quite impor-
tant to the sustainability of ILL study strategies that plans be designed in
such a way that progress is as easy to see as possible.
8 Conclusion
In this study of Chinese learners who were relatively successful in build-
ing oral English skills, several important patterns emerge. First, they have
a strong pattern of choosing to supplement their spoken English practice
opportunities in various ways. Second, this often involves various forms
of ILL—creating and carrying out plans in which they need to make their
own choices and rely on their own motivation. Granted, such efforts are
not always easy to sustain. But the results of this study suggest that they
often play an important role in successful mastery of oral English skills,
and presumably other English skills as well.
What are the implications of this study for language teachers? One is
that part of our role as teachers consists of helping students learn how
to engage in ILL, especially helping them learn how to design effective
learning plans and sustainable plans in which progress is readily visible. A
second implication is that we should prepare learners for the challenges
of ILL. ILL strategies of the kinds informants described above are not
always easy to sustain, and learners who are forewarned of the challenges
are less likely to be thrown by them and give up than learners who know
that such challenges are a normal part of ILL. A final implication is that
teachers need to convey to students the clear message that if they want
to learn to speak English, relying on in-class practice opportunities will
probably not be enough. Students will need to supplement their in-class
speaking opportunities in various ways; in short, they will need to engage
in ILL.
Notes
1. For other definitions of ILL, see Morrison, 2011; White, 2008; and
White, 2011. ILL is generally treated a sub-field within the broader field
of learner autonomy (Benson 2011).
2. This and the following names are fictitious.
3. One informant only had 10 years.
4. Several more students mentioned talking to themselves as a strategy they
used in preparing for tests like IELTS.
60 D. Snow et al.
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4
Innovations in Writing Instruction
in China: Metasynthesis of Qualitative
Research for the Period 2005–2016
Chiew Hong Ng and Yin Ling Cheung
1 Introduction
This study adopts the method of qualitative metasynthesis to exam-
ine 60 empirical studies published during the period of 2005–2016
on innovations in writing instruction for English as a second language
(ESL)/English as a foreign language (EFL) and the impact on students’
writing outputs in terms of culture, strategies, and motivation. It aims to
provide an in-depth and comprehensive analysis of types of innovations
in writing instruction (see Sect. 1.2 for definition) for primary, second-
ary, and higher education for students from China to draw lessons and
suggest future directions.
C.H. Ng • Y.L. Cheung (*)

Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore

64 C.H. Ng and Y.L. Cheung
1.1 Issues and Pedagogies Related to Teaching

Writing to EFL/ESL Students in China
Writing requires a great deal of knowledge and cognitive activities

such as strategies for composing, linguistic knowledge, and knowledge
about rhetorical conventions of the target language (Xiao, 2007). Kim
(2012) has identified issues in teaching writing to ESL learners as stu-
dents not having understanding of basic elements of academic writing,
such as paragraph, topic sentence, thesis statement, synthesis, and sup-
porting details, limited vocabulary and knowledge of its correct usage
as well as problems that arise from different cultural thought patterns.
This is because learner’s conception and understanding of the target genre
(Hyland, 2003) and the influence of the primary culture in which the
learner was brought up and the target culture that is associated with EFL
(Hayes, 1996; Weigle, 2002) shape what the EFL learner learns to write,
how the learner writes, and for whom the learner writes.
There are three main approaches in writing instruction, that is, the
product approach focusing on the final written product and correction of
grammatical errors, the process approach (emphasizing the writing pro-
cess) and the genre approach. Traditional L2 writing classrooms focus
primarily on formal aspects of language which has resulted in the prepon-
derance of a form-focused and product approach to writing, where writ-
ten accuracy is given the greatest emphasis. In contrast, process writing
emphasizes “the developmental nature of student writing and how peer
feedback and teacher feedback and guidance can scaffold its develop-
ment” (Li & Edwards, 2014, p. 93) and a process pedagogy typically
refers to formative classroom practices, including multidrafting, reflec-
tion, revision, and self- and peer assessment (O’Brien, 2004). As for the
genre approach, writing is “dominantly linguistic, and it considers con-
text, writer–reader relationship, and purpose at the same time. It also
makes a point of practising explicit teaching and providing model texts
in L2 classes” (Wang, 2013, p. 2128).
According to Zeng (2010), with the development of English teach-
ing and educational reform, more attention has been paid to the study of
English writing in China. English writing reform in Chinese universities
experienced a shift from a product-oriented approach to a process-oriented
4 Innovations in Writing Instruction in China: Metasynthesis... 65
approach. Still, the teaching culture is perceived as traditional, strategies

fairly limited, and motivation for writing is not strong in general accord-
ing to Xiao (2007). The majority of EFL writing teachers in China,
including those teaching in colleges and in high schools, teach between
30 and 60 students in one writing class, which very often discourages
teachers from assigning enough practice, notice learners’ errors beyond
sentence level, or conduct individual writing conferences. Both the teach-
ers in college and those in high schools teach EFL writing the way they
have learnt to write in L1 and sometimes in L2: writing down a topic on
the blackboard and students completing the composition on their own.
Ning (2010) describes teaching at tertiary level as such:
At the tertiary level in China, English is a compulsory course and is based

on a rigorous curriculum typically with two sets of textbooks, one for lis-
tening and speaking and the other for reading and writing. English is usu-
ally taught in large classes, and widely used English teaching methods are
characterized by teacher-fronted direct lecturing, which mainly involves
text explanation, vocabulary illustration, grammar instruction, and inten-
sive drills on language forms (Jin & Cortazzi, 2004). These methods place
emphasis on linguistic accuracy and rote learning, with little attention to
communicative fluency and actual use of English. Students are treated as
passive recipients of teaching rather than active learners. (pp. 60–61)
Though process writing has been advocated since the 1980s, according to Lee
(2011a), there is still a prevalence of the traditional product-based instruction
in most Hong Kong writing classrooms because in “some contexts (such as
Hong Kong), process pedagogy tends to be perceived as a Western methodol-
ogy that does not necessarily suit the exigencies of local situations, especially
where the examination culture prevails” (Lee, 2013, p. 436).
1.2 hat Constitutes Innovations in Writing

W
Instruction in China
Innovation is defined as “an idea, practice, or object that is perceived as

new by an individual or other unit of adoption” (Rogers, 2003, p. 12).
Washor (2011) suggests that innovation means a different way of doing
things that results in considerably better, and different, significant and

substantial outcomes and innovating are “actions that significantly chal-
lenge key assumptions about schools and the way they operate” and to
both “question the ‘box’ in which we operate and to innovate outside of it
as well as within”. In this study, innovations in teaching culture, strategies,
and motivation for writing is defined as investigating and adopting non-
product-based approaches and strategies to writing to better motivate
students such as process writing, the genre approach, writing strategies,
e.g., metacognition in writing, application of theories such as sociocul-
tural activity theory, as well as the use of technology. Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) (Warschauer, 1996) has indicated a
number of benefits from incorporating collaborative writing technology
into L2 writing procedures: increased learner participation, the role of
the teacher becoming less focal, and the teacher transforming at times to
another voice in the online discussion.
2 Methodology
This study focuses on findings from 60 studies on the teaching of writ-
ing to students from China (see Table 4.1). These studies investigate dif-
ferent types of innovative practices, that is, use of ICT in teaching and
different writing instruction methods beyond just mere product-based
(such as process writing, genre approach, and activity theory) at differ-
ent levels (novices through near-experts and children through adults)
engaged in different contexts (primary, secondary, and tertiary) from
2005 to 2016. The primary goal of our analysis is twofold: first, to
identify trends in innovative practices in writing instruction to students
from China across contexts and learner groups, and second, to sug-
gest future directions for teaching and research in innovative writing
instruction.
We worked together to identify the journals to be surveyed. Eighteen
journals pertaining to the teaching of writing were shortlisted. As the
intention of the review is to arrive at a general overview of the innova-
tive practices in writing instruction, journals devoted to specific subfields
of ELT such as Language Learning and Technology or Assessing Writing
were also included. After the shortlisting, articles were identified using
the keyword search procedure available on the on-line library system of
the National Institute of Education, Singapore. The search criteria were
as follows:
1 . The article must be published between 2005 and 2016.

2. The article has any of the following words in its title:
a. teaching of writing/writing instruction in EFL/ESL

b. children, students
c. innovation
d. China, Chinese
3. The journal is available in the library of National Institute of Education,

Singapore.
From the keyword search, keeping in mind the research focus,

we narrowed to 60 relevant articles for the review (see Table 4.1 in
Appendix).
The review includes works whose main focus is the empirical study
of writing instruction in the context of teaching English Language to
students in China or students from China learning English Language. To
narrow down the scope of our study, we restricted ourselves to research
conducted on the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including Hong
Kong Special Administrative Region. We have also excluded relevant
works that do not offer a sufficient description of data and/or data analysis
to support the given conclusions, as well as research reports which reiter-
ate data and findings from a study already included in the corpus. Lastly,
we have to acknowledge that our final list of studies has been influenced
by our own resource availability as we have mainly examined only articles
published in English Language in peer reviewed journals subscribed to
by our institution, though we have made an effort to include a few rel-
evant articles from other peer reviewed journals available from the web
to ensure comprehensive coverage. As such, works published in local or
national journals in China that were difficult to locate or obtain have
been excluded.
3 Results
Zhang, Yan, and Liu (2015) review research presentations on EFL
writing instruction and research in China at the Seventh International
Conference on English Language Teaching 2014, and they highlight the
following trends in writing instruction: (a) EFL writing at the college level
focusing on writing instruction: (1) pedagogy (i.e., how teachers experi-
ment with writing instruction), (2) feedback (i.e., ways of responding to
student writing), and (3) technology (i.e., how teachers incorporate com-
puters and technology into instruction to help students write more effec-
tively); (b) rhetorical and linguistic features of written texts; (c) writer’s
voice, identity, and strategies and in this category, plagiarism and textual
borrowing has become a popular topic among L2 writing researchers in
China for academic writing; and (d) classroom-based and standardized
writing assessment. Though they have mentioned specific examples, as the
details of the presentations are not available as journal articles, these stud-
ies were not included in the analysis of this study. The trends highlighted
provide a useful reference point for the analysis and discussion of findings.
3.1 F indings on Non-product-based Approaches

to Teaching Writing (Pedagogical Innovations)
3.1.1 Pedagogical Innovations in Primary Education
There were only two published studies in pedagogical innovations for

primary schools: implementing process writing and assessment for learn-
ing (AfL). After the turn of the century, owing to larger curricular reform
initiatives in Hong Kong, attempts to implement process writing at the
classroom level as an innovative practice in contrast to product-based
approach have been revived. Lo and Hyland (2007) examined the imple-
mentation of a new ESL writing program involving process writing for
children aged between 10 and 11 designed to enhance 40 students’ moti-
vation and engagement through taking account of the socio-cultural con-
text through writing about topics related to their lives and social world
and by providing a genuine audience and a real purpose for writing. Their
study showed that the new writing program could bring about enhanced
primary-level students’ engagement and motivation (an aspect of meta-
cognitive knowledge) in writing, although the results show only the less
able students benefitted significantly while it resulted in lower writing
scores for accuracy and organization among the more able students.
Drawing on interviews with administrators and classroom observa-
tions of four Hong Kong primary school elementary teachers’ attempts to
foster change in assessment by implementing AfL in the Hong Kong L2
writing classroom dominated by the examination culture over the course
of one year, and using activity theory as the theoretical framework. Mak
and Lee (2014) concluded that AfL innovation in writing could be inhib-
ited unless the contradictions in the activity systems can be resolved.
3.1.2 Pedagogical Innovations in Secondary Education
Pedagogical innovations in the secondary school context concern inno-

vative practices in assessment such as the introduction of AfL and new
marking rubrics, looking at types of feedback to enhance writing motiva-
tion in process-oriented classrooms, the impact of teacher training, and
implications for remedial instructional materials.
In terms of assessment, in Hong Kong, where school curricula are pri-
marily examination-driven and assessment of learning (AOL) is the main
mode of assessment, the implementation of AfL through strategies such as
process pedagogy, formative feedback, teacher–student conferences and
peer response/assessment represents innovation in assessment practices
for writing. Using data from four Secondary 1 (i.e., Grade 7) classrooms
in a Hong Kong school, Lee (2011b) showed that the implementation of
AfL resulted in a significant change in teachers’ instructional and assess-
ment practices, and the EFL students improved their motivation in writ-
ing. However, another study by Lee and Coniam (2013) suggested some
tension between innovative and traditional assessment practices when
they implemented AfL for EFL writing within an examination-driven
AOL system in Hong Kong. Data from 167 secondary one students
revealed mixed impact on students’ motivation and writing performance
though pre- and post-tests indicated some improvement in students’
writing performance. While teachers strengthened planning and pre-

assessment instruction, shared learning goals with students, provided
feedback to them and aligned assessment with instruction, they were
unable to engage students in multiple drafting and peer evaluation on
a regular basis because of the need to adhere to conventional assessment
practices that required detailed attention to errors and summative scores.
In another study on assessment, Stapleton and Wu (2015) developed an
integrated assessment framework and analytic scoring rubric for argu-
mentative writing based on a modified Toulmin model as a general guide
for classroom use, taking into account both argumentative structure and
substance for use by high school students.
In the area of feedback in process-oriented classrooms, Lee (2008)
investigated the reactions of 76 students in two Hong Kong second-
ary classrooms to their teachers’ feedback. The results suggest that the
teachers’ feedback, mostly teacher-centered, made students passive and
dependent on teachers and students of lower proficiency were less inter-
ested in error feedback than those of higher proficiency. Thirty Chinese
junior secondary students in Hong Kong participated in Lee’s (2015)
intervention study which revealed that though teacher comments were
rated more positively, some participants indicated their preference for
having both intra-feedback (a peer feedback-on-peer-feedback reviewer-
centered task) and teacher feedback. Drawing on mediated learning expe-
rience theory and informed by activity theory, Lee (2014) emphasizes the
need for more effective practices in process-oriented writing classroom
for feedback to mediate student learning when teachers “provide forma-
tive feedback to help students improve learning, to motivate them, and to
make them autonomous writers in the long run” (p. 208) through mul-
tiple drafts. Lam (2013) implemented two writing portfolio systems as a
way to facilitate process writing and peer review. He studied two groups
of Hong Kong EFL pre-university students to find that some students
tended to focus on the writing product (grades) rather than the writ-
ing process (self-reflection) and how a feedback-rich environment in the
working portfolio system could facilitate writing improvement whereas
a showcase portfolio group was less effective in the promotion of auton-
omy in writing. Lee, Mak, and Burns (2016) looked at the attempts of
two secondary school teachers in Hong Kong to implement feedback
innovation (e.g., a focused approach to error feedback, the use of peer

feedback, and the use of rubric-based feedback to provide diagnostic
information to students in a process-oriented classroom) after receiving
some professional development input. They found that the two teach-
ers were unable to fully translate into practice the feedback principles
acquired from teacher education because of factors such as unsupportive
school environment and unfavorable reactions of the students.
Li and Edwards (2014) examined the impact of a large-scale UK-based
teacher development program on innovation and change in English lan-
guage education in Western China within a knowledge management
framework by collecting data from 229 returnee middle school teach-
ers. The response to an open-ended survey question provided evidence
regarding a participant’s writing pedagogy being ‘enriched’ by integrating
the process writing approach. Chan (2010) studied the lexicogrammati-
cal error types of 387 Hong Kong Cantonese ESL learners—65 univer-
sity students and 322 secondary students so as to inform teachers of the
levels, nature, sources, prevalence, and gravity of learner errors for the
design of appropriate remedial instructional materials.
3.1.3 Pedagogical Innovations in Higher Education
The studies relating to innovative practices were richer and more diverse
in the teaching of writing in higher education. There were studies focus-
ing on the application of non-product approaches such as explicit
instruction, metacognition, process approach, task-based approach,
genre approach, literature-based approach and activity theory. Studies
also looked at innovative practices for teaching academic writing in areas
related to argumentative writing, giving feedback, and plagiarism.
In terms of innovation in not following prescribed textbooks, Zhang
(2012) and Grabe and Zhang (2013) investigated whether direct explicit
instruction in synthesis writing, combined with extensive practice in the
task would lead to significant differences in comparison with a control
group that followed a standard textbook curriculum for ESL reading and
writing instruction. They found that the experimental group significantly
outperformed the control group on overall quality of a synthesis writing
task, better organization in writing, and better use of text information

from reading resource materials. Shao, Yu, and Ji (2013) investigated 68
non-English major freshmen in a university in Hangzhou, China, for the
use of literature-based activities to raise EFL students’ emotional intelli-
gence and their findings revealed that there was a relatively strong positive
relationship between emotional intelligence and writing achievement.
For studies on innovative pedagogical practices in terms of process writ-
ing, Zhang (2005) found the process-centered writing model was more
effective than traditional model of product approach in an EFL college in
China. Hu (2005) implemented peer review and conducted practitioner
research into its productive use in an academic writing course for Chinese
ESL learners who were freshmen from several major Chinese universities
for tertiary education over a period of three years. In Rao’s (2007) study,
two-thirds of 118 sophomore students in the foreign languages college at
Jiangxi Normal University were taught brainstorming strategy to activate
students’ thinking and creating ideas for a writing task. The results demon-
strated that explicit instruction of brainstorming strategy had a measurable
influence on writing performance and these students felt positive about the
brainstorming strategy. However, when Zeng (2010) investigated 225 sub-
jects from Zhejiang Normal University on the status quo of English writ-
ing teaching mode among English majors of normal universities in China,
the finding revealed that the product approach is still relatively dominant.
For the genre approach, Wang (2013) did investigate the effects of
Systemic Functional Linguistic-based genre approach in a Chinese col-
lege writing classroom for 64 participants after 16 weeks of genre instruc-
tion in a state-run college in China. The results reveal that the genre
approach sensitized the writers’ genre awareness, improved holistic writ-
ing quality, and enhanced lexical density. In Xu’s (2015) opinion, Chinese
college students are likely to face many new writing situations that ask
them to write in a specific and appropriate way for a specific discourse
community. Teaching writing skills to undergraduates is urgent because
of students’ inadequate experience in writing in English for the genres
required for college education and in future work situations. Though Xu
(2015) has advocated the genre approach for college students in terms of
teachers guiding the students to identify the purposes in writing, model-
ing, analyzing the linguistic features of models, discussing the knowledge
related to the topic, and producing the text independently, there was no
actual teaching of students.
There were studies pertaining to the application of diverse theoreti-
cal frameworks to writing instruction as a form of innovation. Firstly, in
terms of metacognition, Wu (2008) studied 118 freshmen from a Chinese
university in Beijing for about 10 months to assess the extent formal class-
room instruction enhance students’ awareness of metacognition in writing
and improve their writing performance in terms of Flavell’s (1979) theo-
retical framework of metacognition: metacognitive knowledge and meta-
cognitive experiences. While Flavell’s theoretical framework could not be
proven by the study, there were obvious improvement in the writing per-
formance of the experimental group. Wu (2008) has thus suggested that
in teaching writing, students be given repeated opportunities to “monitor
and regulate their cognition as they gradually pass from novice status to
semi-expert status in microdomain after microdomain” (p. 91) and that
teachers in schools to model as well as teach and encourage metacognitive
activity. Lam (2015) investigated how explicit strategy instruction may
shape students’ use of metacognitive knowledge and ways this knowl-
edge promotes self-regulation in the learning of writing through teaching
diverse composing strategies ranging from planning to revision to four
two-year associate degree program participants undergoing a 15-week
writing course in Hong Kong. Lam (2015) concluded that explicit strat-
egy instruction in writing was likely to make students more self-regulated,
strategic, and resourceful in coping with diverse writing tasks, although
not all four writers enjoyed the same level of success throughout the course.
Secondly, in terms of activity theory framework, Lei’s (2008) study
explored two proficient English majors in a Chinese university for EFL
learners’ writing strategy use based on the framework, in contrast to the tra-
ditional cognitive view of writing strategies. The study identified four types
of writing strategies, namely, artifact-mediated, rule-mediated, commu-
nity-mediated, and role-mediated strategies in the two writers’ mediation
of their writing processes. Lin’s (2013) three-week intervention program
for task-based EFL writing for a class of Year 1 English majors in a teacher
university in China examined how learner agency and group work function
amidst the activity system of EFL writing, especially how they influence
and are influenced by the operations of the components of the activity
system, how they impact learners’ learning and the outcome of the learning
activity and how the roles of learner agency and group work are shaped by
the cultural context in which the learning activity takes place. The negoti-
ated writing task was found to “better motivate students, to foster learner
autonomy, or to adopt a student-centred approach to teaching EFL writ-
ing” (Lin, 2013, p. 649). To understand students’ processing in source-
based academic writing, Li (2013b) used activity theory as an analytic tool
for three ESL students’ writing of a policy paper assignment at a Hong
Kong university. Li proposes using activity theory as a heuristic to study
literacy activities in academic contexts as an innovative practice in writing
instruction. Likewise, Yu and Lee (2016) looked at of four Chinese uni-
versity EFL learners’ peer feedback strategies as a socially mediated activity
from an activity theory perspective.
For studies related to improvement of academic writing, for teaching
of argumentative writing, Liu (2005) studied six websites to compare
instructional materials on teaching argumentative writing for American
and Mainland Chinese school writers to derive assumptions and beliefs
that underlie rhetorical conventions or textual features as part of Chinese-
English contrastive rhetoric study. Liu and Braine (2005) also investigated
the use of cohesive devices in 50 argumentative compositions created by
Chinese undergraduate non-English majors. They found that lexical devices,
references and conjunctives were used and that the quality of writing was
significantly co-varied with the number of lexical and cohesive devices
used. Qin (2009) carried out a study of argument writing from two source
texts among 242 university EFL students in China. She found that most
of the students could explain the conflicting arguments from each of the
two texts, but the more skilled writers used counter arguments and rebut-
tals, indicating more sophisticated use of text information in their synthesis
writing. Qin and Karabacak (2010) analyzed the essays of 133 second-year
English-majors in a Chinese university using Toulmin’s model of argument
structure. They found that average papers had at least one claim supported
by four pieces of data and very few uses of counterargument claim, counter-
argument data, rebuttal claim, and rebuttal data. Liu and Stapleton (2014)
looked at the test results of 125 participants at a Chinese university to
assess the significance of teaching counter-argumentation. They pro-
posed the inclusion of counter-argumentation in the writing prompts
and rubrics of high-stakes English tests, and classroom instruction on argu-

mentative writing in future. Wan (2014) experimented with teaching seven
Chinese MA students to construct personal writing metaphors to represent
their beliefs about ESL writing, and then engaged with peers’ metaphors
in a set of group discussions for an academic year. The results show that
metaphor-oriented intervention “can be a useful pedagogical tool in help-
ing students improve their writing in at least three ways: broadening their
conceptions and understandings of various aspects of academic writing;
practising thinking critically about their own writing, and leading to posi-
tive changes in their beliefs about academic writing and their own writing
practices” (p. 53). In terms of innovative practices for professional develop-
ment, the study by Shi and Yang (2014) explored the concept of ‘a teacher
group’ as a community of practice for the practice of collective lesson plan-
ning involving one expatriate and five Chinese instructors as they taught
English argumentative writing at a university in Mainland China to both
sustain a community coherence of pedagogical practice and accommodate
a diversity of individual practices among teachers with unequal statuses and
experiences: old-timers or newcomers, expatriate or local teachers.
In relation to academic writing, the importance of helping students
understand what constitutes plagiarism and learn to use source texts appro-
priately in their own academic writing has led to studies to understand
why students plagiarize and to search for ways to address this concern. Shi
(2006) interviewed 46 ESL students at a Canadian university and found
that the students from China, Japan, and South Korea did not practice cita-
tion and quotation skills in their own countries. Li and Casanave (2012)
studied two first-year students at a university in Hong Kong doing the same
writing assignment that required the use of sources to explore the students’
understanding of plagiarism, their strategies for composing, the similarity
between their texts and source texts, and the lecturer’s assessment of their
work. They have suggested innovations in terms of changing university pla-
giarism policies, distinguishing intentional plagiarism versus unintentional
misuse of source texts, and exploiting the educational potential of Turnitin.
Li (2013b) used activity theory as a heuristic to understand processing in
source-based academic writing of three ESL students writing a policy paper
assignment at a university in Hong Kong. Hirvela and Du (2013) stud-
ied two mainland Chinese students’ engagement with paraphrasing in an
undergraduate academic writing course to reveal a multilayered relation-

ship between the students and paraphrasing. They highlight the need to
teach academic writing by taking into account students’ perspectives of
paraphrasing. Hu (2015) wrote on three strategies to prevent plagiarism:
punitive, use of honor codes and academic socialization through teaching
of skills and strategies. Hu and Lei (2016) compared views regarding exem-
plars of unacknowledged copying and unattributed paraphrasing of 142
Chinese university EFL teachers and 270 undergraduate students to show
how understandings of plagiarism are complex and nuanced and advocate
for the need for academic socialization in shaping knowledge of and atti-
tudes toward plagiarism.
As for innovative practices in terms of ways to improve the provision
of feedback in writing, researchers have looked at teacher feedback, peer
feedback, and models for feedback. Data from two groups of 38 students
at a Chinese University writing essays on the same topic, with one receiv-
ing feedback from the teacher and one from their peers, led Yang, Badger,
and Yu (2006) to conclude that students used teacher and peer feedback
to improve their writing but that teacher feedback was more likely to be
adopted and led to greater improvements in the writing. In studying 18
second-year English majors at a university in south China, Zhao (2010)
found that learners used more teacher than peer feedback in their redrafts
without understanding its significance or value. Han and Hyland (2014)
looked at written corrective feedback of four non-English major students
in a Chinese tertiary EFL classroom to explore how learners cognitively,
behaviorally, and affectively engage with written corrective feedback. Min
(2013) reported on her beliefs and practices and the four guiding prin-
ciples underlining her beliefs about how to provide written feedback to
sophomore English majors as an EFL writing teacher/researcher in terms
of probing/clarifying writers’ intentions, identifying problems, explain-
ing problems, and making specific suggestions.
In the area of peer feedback, Yu and Lee (2014) investigated the use
of L1 and L2 in peer written comments and revealed that EFL learners
tended to used L1 to give peer feedback on content and organization
rather than L2. Wang (2014) found that 53 Chinese EFL university
learners’ perceived usefulness of peer feedback decreased over time due
to students’ knowledge of assigned essay topics; limited English pro-
ficiency; attitudes toward the peer feedback practice; time constraints
of the in-class peer feedback and students’ concerns with interpersonal

relationship. Yu and Lee (2016) looked at four Chinese university EFL
learners’ peer feedback strategies as a socially mediated activity from an
activity theory perspective to find them adopting five major strategies:
Using L1 (Mandarin Chinese) (artifact), employing L2 writing criteria
(rule), adopting rules of group activity (rule), seeking help from teachers
(community), and playing different roles (division of labor).
To study the effectiveness of an alternative model for feedback, Yang and
Zhang (2010) examined ten students for the effects of reformulation and
model text in a three-stage writing task (composing–comparison–revising)
in an EFL writing class in a Beijing university. The finding suggested that
the students exerted more effort in finding the proper language to express
their ideas at Stage 1 and applied the noticed native-like language use in
their revision at Stage 2.
3.2 Findings on Use of ICT in Writing Instruction
To the best of our knowledge, there was no report of writing innovations

for the primary school level with regard to ICT. There is an attempt to
introduce a wiki writing project at the secondary school level and a peer
writing evaluation model for various levels. There were more studies for
higher education in terms of the development of corpuses for data analy-
ses, development of an automated writing evaluation tool, mobile learn-
ing systems and computer-mediated collaborative writing.
3.2.1 ICT in Secondary Education
Mak and Coniam (2008) introduced a web-based wiki project to promote

writing skills among 24 Grade 7 students who became more confident in
writing and had better text production in terms of quality and quantity.
3.2.2 ICT in Higher Education
In the area of corpus for writing instruction, Chang and Kuo (2011) devel-
oped a corpus consisting of 60 research articles from three major journals
of computer science as discipline-specific online teaching materials to

showcase academic computer science discourse in lessons, learning tasks,
discussion topics, and online writing models. Lu (2011) evaluated 14
syntactic complexity measures as indices of college-level ESL writers’ lan-
guage development using large-scale college-level ESL corpus data from
the WECCL corpus consisting of 3,678 essays written by English majors
aged 18–22 years from nine Chinese colleges. Jiang (2015) reported on
the development of a corpus consisting of essays from at least 10,300,814
students from 463 colleges in 30 provinces (as of 10 May 2014) to inves-
tigate and survey the overall Chinese EFL learners’ writing proficiency at
the college level and as an educational resource for Chinese EFL students
and educators in terms of linguistic and pedagogic study. A study using
corpus-based textual analyses of the essays of 886 Year 2 undergraduate
students from a university in South China showed that defensive writers
achieved significantly higher scores. They wrote longer essays and com-
mitted fewer linguistic errors (Xie, 2015).
Shen, Wang, and Pan (2008) and Wang, Shen, Novak, and Pan (2009)
reported on the use of a mobile learning system delivering real-time
classroom teaching to online College of Shanghai Jiaotong University
students in a blended class of 1000 students to teach Comprehensive
Social English, including use of grammar, vocabulary, reading, and email
writing. Wang, Harrington, and White (2012) reported on how CTutor,
an automated writing evaluation tool, was able to detect local coher-
ence breakdowns with moderate accuracy when applied to the writing
of the experimental group among the 52 Chinese L2 second-year stu-
dents majoring in English at a Chinese university. Guo, Zhang, and Zhai
(2012) looked into forming groups for peer writing evaluation according
to vector space model. They suggested that computers, using term fea-
tures of compositions, would be able to assess writing styles objectively.
For computer-mediated collaborative writing, Li and Zhu (2013)
reported on the wiki-mediated collaborative writing project of nine college
students from a Chinese university to reveal three distinct patterns of online
interaction: collectively contributing/mutually supportive, authoritative/
responsive, and dominant/withdrawn with the collectively contributing/
mutually supportive group reporting the most learning opportunities. In
terms of the collaborative wiki writing process of a small group of Chinese
EFL students, Li (2013a) talked about how students scaffolded each other’s
writing efforts during co-construction of the product via five types of writ-
ing change functions: addition, deletion, rephrasing, reordering, and cor-
rection. Li and Kim (2016) looked at networked writing pedagogy of two
ESL groups (mixed cultural groups with students from China) working on
identical tasks in the same wiki space where students’ discussion and writ-
ing processes were automatically recorded to highlight different patterns
of interaction which changed within each group across two tasks. They
suggested that instructors give careful thought to group formation, leader
selection, L1/cultural backgrounds, students’ language proficiency levels
and learning abilities to create more opportunities for task and language
negotiations, and intercultural communication skills.
4 L essons Learnt and Future Directions

for Innovations in Writing Instruction
As shown in this research review, there were more studies of teaching
culture, strategies, and motivation for writing related to higher education
than primary and secondary in both pedagogical and ICT innovations for
writing instruction. It has also revealed interesting trends in innovative
practices in the teaching of writing to students from China or students
in China. There have been attempts to introduce non-product approach
to teaching writing such as process writing, the genre-based approach,
the activity theory, metacognition, more so for higher education though
process writing is strongly advocated for primary and secondary students
in Hong Kong because of government initiatives. The studies related to
tertiary students show the application of a range of non-product writing
approaches such as explicit instruction, metacognition, process approach,
task-based approach, genre approach, literature-based approach and
activity theory. These studies also looked at innovative practices for teach-
ing academic writing in terms of argumentative writing, giving feedback,
and dealing with the issue of plagiarism.
In terms of innovations in using ICT for writing instruction, stud-
ies were mainly for higher education in the area of feedback and online
collaborative writing. While more studies can still be conducted, studies
into the use of ICT for primary and secondary students had been lacking,
especially for primary students.
The present review points to the rich potential for future research in
writing instruction especially for primary and secondary school students.
Even though there are many existing studies at the tertiary level, there
is room for further research. For instance, on the issue of plagiarism in
higher education, Hu (2015) expresses the view that there is a clear and
urgent need for more research on policy and pedagogical strategies for pre-
venting L2 student plagiarism as effectiveness of these approaches has not
been proven for L2 learners. There is also the need to “propose alternative
methodologies to address the research-practice divide, explore pedagogical
approaches that suit specific contexts, and study individual teachers and
learners in their own contexts” (Lee, 2013, p. 436). In fact, Lee (2013) has
advocated ecological studies, ethnographic case studies, and longitudinal
qualitative research to study the “situatedness of the learning and teaching
of writing … [and] to accept ungeneralizable research as sound research
in the field of L2 writing” (p. 436) or non-replicable research that studies
individual teachers, students, and contexts (Casanave, 2012).
Appendix
Table 4.1 Empirical studies reviewed

Studies in non-product-based Studies in use of
approaches to teaching writing ICT for teaching
(pedagogical innovations) writing
Primary school Lo and Hyland (2007) –
students Mak and Lee (2014)
Secondary school Chan (2010) Mak and Coniam
students Lam (2013) (2008)
Lee (2008)
Lee (2011b)
Lee (2014)
Lee (2015)
Lee and Coniam (2013)
Lee et al. (2016)
Li and Edwards (2014)
Stapleton and Wu (2015)
(continued)
Table 4.1 (continued)
Studies in non-product-based Studies in use of

approaches to teaching writing ICT for teaching
(pedagogical innovations) writing
Undergraduate and Grabe and Zhang (2013) Chang and Kuo
postgraduate Han and Hyland (2014) (2011)
students Hirvela and Du (2013) Guo et al. (2012)
Hu (2005) Jiang (2015)
Hu (2015) Li (2013a)
Hu and Lei (2016) Li and Kim (2016)
Lam (2015) Li and Zhu (2013)
Lee (2013) Lu (2011)
Lei (2008) Shen et al. (2008)
Li (2013b) Wang et al. (2009)
Li and Casanave (2012) Wang et al. (2012)
Lin (2013) Xie (2015)
Liu (2005)
Liu and Braine (2005)
Liu and Stapleton (2014)
Min (2013)
Qin (2009)
Qin and Karabacak (2010)
Rao (2007)
Shao et al. (2013)
Shi (2006)
Shi and Yang (2014)
Wan (2014)
Wang (2013)
Wang (2014)
Wu (2008)
Xiao (2007)
Xu (2015)
Yang et al. (2006)
Yang and Zhang (2010)
Yu and Lee (2014)
Yu and Lee (2016)
Zeng (2010)
Zhang (2005)
Zhang (2012)
Zhao (2010)
Studies to do in Hong Kong schools or by Hong Kong students are in italics
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5
Technology-Enhanced Content
and Language Integrated Learning
in Chinese Tertiary English Classes:
Potentials and Challenges
Ke Zhao and Chunlin Lei
1 Introduction
Research interest into content and language integrated learning (CLIL)
beyond Europe has been enormously aroused over the last two decades,
particularly in China (Hu, 2008; Wei & Feng, 2015). In response to
the ongoing initiative of advocating “Chinese–English bilingual edu-
cation” at Chinese universities, CLIL, as “a dual-focused educational
approach” in which English is used for the learning and teaching of
both content and language (Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010), has been
widely adopted across disciplines (Chang, 2015; Yuan & Yu, 2008).
K. Zhao (*)
Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China
C. Lei
Shanghai University of International Business and Economics,
Shanghai, China

90 K. Zhao and C. Lei
Despite much endeavor made by Chinese government, higher insti-

tutions, and English educators in implementing CLIL in tertiary
classrooms, its educational benefits remain controversial, especially per-
tinent to its effect on both content learning and language development
(Mi & Yuan, 2015).
Recent developments in information technology provide poten-
tials for enhancing student learning in CLIL. Use of technology has
transformed the context of language learning in classroom settings
by engaging the learners in contact with professional linguistic com-
munities, wide repertoires of authentic resources, authentic com-
munity discourse, and collaborative interactions with peers and the
broader community (Warschauer, 1998). Increasing research evidence
suggests that technology-enhanced CLIL (TECLIL) helps promote
students’ technological literacy, language production (Lund, 2006),
oral communication (Laborada, 2009), and collaborative writing (Li,
2013). However, while the potential role of technology in promoting
language learning has been proposed (Chapelle, 2004; Lund, 2006;
Warschauer & Healey, 1998; Warschauer & Kern, 2000), not much
integrative use of technology have been applied in CLIL instruction
in business education in China. Moreover, while most of the current
studies focus on the effect of the technology-enhanced design, there
remains a paucity of studies investigating students’ actual engagement
in and their perceptions of the TECLIL learning innovations.
In sum, this chapter sets out to investigate student learning with dif-
ferent designed TECLIL environments for Chinese tertiary business stu-
dents. It reports on two studies delving into Chinese business students’
learning experiences in two TECLIL environments mediated by Wiki
and Knowledge Forum, respectively. More specifically, three research
questions were to be addressed:
1 . How were students engaged in the designed TECLIL environment?

2. Was student engagement in the online environments related to their
concept learning and language development?
3. How did students perceive the designed TECLIL environment?
5 Technology-Enhanced Content and Language Integrated... 91
2 Literature Review
2.1 Theory and Practices of CLIL
CLIL, with its dual focus on language and content, has been recently
advocated as an effective educational approach in Europe, where
European multilingual language education policy and the impact of
English as a lingual franca play a significant role (Dalton-Puffer, 2011).
Emphasizing the teaching of content knowledge through a medium of a
foreign language, CLIL shared similarities with other forms of bilingual
education, such as immersion and content-based instruction. However,
as the wording of CLIL suggests, it stresses more a dominant use of a
foreign language (in most cases, English as a lingual franca) and devel-
opment of the language as well as content learning as dual teaching and
learning objectives (Dalton-Puffer, 2011; Lyster, 2007).
Under the premise of current theories in second language acquisition,
such as Krashen’s comprehensible input (Krashen, 1985), Swain’ output
hypothesis (Swain, 1995) as well as social constructivist learning theories
(e.g. Lantolf & Thorne, 2006; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Long, 1996; Vygotsky,
1978), CLIL provides learners with an opportunistic learning environment,
where the processes of cognitive engagement, content knowledge inquiry as
well as foreign language acquisition and language use are likely to be inter-
woven and deepened through social interactions. However promising an
education model it seems in EFL or ELF contexts, more exploration has to
be made into the complex interplay between this innovative model and the
distinctive specificities of the context where it is to be implemented, includ-
ing multiple layers of language policy, social cultural contexts, institutional
practices as well as individual characteristics of teachers and learners.
Use of CLIL has started to garner increasing research attention in
Chinese tertiary EFL settings (Chang, 2015; Mi, 2015; Sheng, 2012,
2015). The last three decades witness China’s prolonged economic boom
and her successful transition into a global economic and trading power.
This unprecedentedly rapid development gives rise to a pressing demand
for competent English users in a wide spectrum of professions in the
job market. In response to such a great demand from the rapid social
and economic development, the State Ministry of Education released
a revised version of Syllabus for English Majors in Higher Education
in China in 2009 (Chen & Wang, 2009). The new syllabus aimed to
cultivate all-around and competitive graduates equipped with proficient
English competence, expertise in diplomacy, foreign trade, law, journal-
ism, and other disciplines as well as generic skills, such as critical think-
ing, collaboration, and knowledge creation. This spurs the development
of English for Specific Purposes and enhances the use of CLIL at a ter-
tiary level in China.
A brief review on current research in CLIL in China reveals that a
majority of studies are exploratory in nature, mainly focusing on two
strands—constructing a conceptual model of CLIL for college English
teaching reform (Li, 2014; Mi, 2015; Sheng, 2015) and outcome-oriented
studies focusing on evaluating the effect of CLIL on the language out-
comes of learners (Chang, Liu, & Deng, 2009; Guo & Wu, 2013; Li,
2014) and critical thinking capabilities (Yuan, 2010). For example, Li
(2014) identifies three functions of CLIL, including developing language
skills, enhancing higher-order thinking and learning as well as promot-
ing cross-cultural capabilities. Chang et al. (2009) detects the positive
effect of CLIL on student reading comprehension. Despite the advances
of theoretical explorations of the current studies, more empirical studies
are called for to investigate the actual implementation of CLIL models in
Chinese tertiary classroom (Mi & Yuan, 2015) and to understand how
students perceive and experience with these models. Such understanding
may provide insights into how to transplant CLIL models in Chinese ter-
tiary English education settings to better serve the purpose of enhancing
both language use and concept inquiry.
2.2 Use of Technology in CLIL
With the unparalleled development of information technology and

informed by the theoretical advances in language learning and learning
theories, use of computer technology has been widely used in language
education to facilitate the process of making meaning and knowledge
construction (Swain, 1995; Warschauer & Kern, 2000) through trans-

forming individual learners into a target discourse community by
emphasizing authentic language use (Barson, Frommer, & Schwartz,
1993). TECLIL, drawn on different theoretical perspectives, may take
various forms, such as project-based CALL (Debski & Gruba, 1999),
computer-mediated collaborative learning (Warschauer & Healey,
1998), strategy-based computer-mediated communication (CMC),
and computer-supported collaborative inquiry (Zhao, 2013). Recent
studies on integrative computer-assisted language learning (CALL)
report that Internet-based tools, such as WebQuest, Whiteboard,
computer games, and Wiki, facilitate learners’ interaction and col-
laboration, and improve students’ language learning and language use.
Several studies examine the effectiveness of the technology-mediated
instruction in improving oral communication (Abrams, 2003; Sarimah
& Hilary, 2006), second language vocabulary acquisition (Thomas,
Helen, & Antonella, 2002), and reading and writing strategies (Cabot,
2000; Schultz, 2010).
Despite much progress in technology-enhanced language learning,
more recent research in higher education seems skeptical about the
educational benefits of use of technology as innovative instructional
design (Goodyear, Jones, Asensio, Hodgson, & Steeples, 2005) to scaf-
fold English language development (e.g. Li, 2013) as well as knowledge-
building inquiry (Zhao, 2013), particularly in EFL and ESP education
(Chapelle, 2009; Warschauer, 2007).
Use of technology in CLIL in China appears to be a growing research
area (Jiang & Ding, 2012; Kong, 2013; Zhao, 2013). Much research
interests have been spurred in exploring the potentials of utilizing social
media and clouding technology in ESP education (Kong, 2013). Other
studies, based on social constructivist learning models, proposed an
instructional model of integrating Internet collaborative project learn-
ing with classroom multimedia teaching. Despite the noticeable research
progress in exploring and constructing technology-enhanced integra-
tive models, these assumptions and hypothetical models call for more
empirical support from classroom-based research. Moreover, a limited
number of empirical studies have focused on evaluating the design effect.
Very few studies have investigated the processes of ESP/EIB learning and
collaboration beyond the effect evaluation. What’s more, there appears a

pressing necessity to understand how students perceive and learn in the
TECLIL collaborative inquiry.
In sum, this chapter aims to explore how TECLIL pedagogical
approaches were transplanted and implemented in Chinese tertiary
language classrooms to scaffold students’ concept inquiry and English
language development. Specifically, this chapter reports on two case stud-
ies of how Wikispaces and Knowledge Forum can be utilized as virtual
knowledge construction space via use of English for two different cohorts
of business English students at a Chinese university.
3 Study One
3.1 Research Context
This study was conducted in a joint “3+1” educational program, co-

sponsored by a Shanghai university and a British university. The stu-
dents are supposed to have three-year study in Shanghai and then a
final year study in partnered British university in order to obtain a BA
degree. Joint educational programs are commonplace in China now
and they differ in terms of educational levels and student composi-
tion. The student participants in this program had failed the Chinese
Matriculation (Gao kao) and a majority of them have relatively lower
English language proficiency level than college entry level required by
Gao kao.
Specifically, the participants were two classes of Year 2 students, with a
total number of 63 aged from 19 to 22 (Female = 34, Male = 29). With
the first foundation year of English language preparation, in Year 2, the
students were provided five franchised British modules in which CLIL
was adopted to strengthen students’ business content knowledge, language
use competence and critical thinking abilities.
This study was conducted within a British module entitled Introduction
to Business, which covers a number of business themes and topics. It is
a typical content-based module and delivered mainly in English. For a
16-week long semester, the module focuses on concept inquiries into
business environment, basic management theories, and management

functions. While CLIL was adopted in the module, it was new and chal-
lenging to the students. Considering the majority of the students were
not strong enough in language foundation, a technology-based learning
environment was designed to facilitate students’ learning and under-
standing of this module and their use of English as well.
3.2 Design of the Wiki-Based Learning Environment
According to the course curriculum, the students had two lessons

(1.5 hours in length) per week. The in-class lessons were usually fea-
tured by the teacher’s delivery of content knowledge, analysis of business
cases and students’ follow-up discussion. However, to enhance students’
knowledge construction via use of language after class, a wiki-based
learning environment was designed to extend classroom discussion and
writing by posing questions and offering explanations.
The Internet-based learning platform Wikispaces Classroom is a free,
open-source platform, which provides students and teachers great oppor-
tunities to interact and communicate toward learning goals (www.wiki-
spaces.com). After logging in, teachers can make announcements, share
resources, and create assignments, while students can form communities,
write down questions, edit pages, make comments, etc. On the web space
(called Page), students and teachers can write computer entries, com-
ment, and foster discussion (Figs. 5.1 and 5.2).
The module teacher invited all the students (N = 63) to join in the
Wikispaces Classroom and explained to them that wiki is a useful tool
to assist the module learning. In his welcome address, the teacher wrote:
I hope in this space, we can communicate and share ideas! This will be a good
supplementary to our classroom learning. Every student shall contribute …
writing down your understanding, doubt, and questions about the course
learning … We can build an online learning community!
To facilitate students’ understanding of this message, the teacher put a

Chinese version there. As the course went by, the teacher usually initiated
one or two broad questions that are pertinent to the course curriculum
Fig. 5.1 Log-in interface of the Wikispaces Classroom
Fig. 5.2 Webspace for writing and interacting
for the students’ inquiry. Forum discussion topics include “What is your
understanding of business?”, “What are the most important qualities of a
good manager?” and other broad relevant topics. All these questions were
posted every one or two weeks. Students were supposed to answer these
questions and write down their ideas; meanwhile, they can put forward
their own questions or establish a “(topic) Page” for exploration as did by
the teacher (Fig. 5.3).
It is expected that through such a technology-supported platform, stu-
dents would be able to speak out their opinions, articulate their conjec-
tures, and work together for understanding and solutions. Simultaneously,
when students use English to conduct these forum activities, their
Fig. 5.3 A screenshot of build-on postings centered on “what is business”
language skills will also be enhanced. Since all the wiki activities, includ-
ing each of the postings, can be recorded precisely by the platform, all
the data were retrieved at the end of the instruction to unfold students’
online learning processes and answer the following research questions.
1. How were the students engaged in the wiki-supported learning

environment?
2. Was there a relationship between student engagement and their con-
ceptual understanding and language use?
3. How did the students conceive of the designed learning environment?
Did they benefit from it?
3.3 Data Sources
Multiple data sources were employed as follows to answer the research

questions.
Students’ wiki log-on information. The wiki platform can record students’
online activities precisely, including the number of note entries posted
and build-on note entries. These records represented students’ online
participation.
Students’ report writing. The assessment for this module included a report
writing, which was designed to assess students’ understanding of a key
business model (PEST, a political, economic, social and technological

analysis of a business undertaking) and their ability to apply the model
in authentic business situations. In the year of this study, students were
asked to write a 700-word PEST report on “Uber, a taxi-finding ser-
vice company’s entry into Chinese market”. In preparation for the
report writing, students needed to search for information, formulate
hypotheses or arguments, provide evidence, and consciously use
English language. Therefore, students’ report writing reflects students’
academic achievement, especially in terms of business concept under-
standing and English language use.
Students’ reflective journals. During the last session of the course, the
teacher asked all the students to write a reflective journal in which he/
she should reflect on his/her experiences with the wiki environment.
The reflection task was open-ended and the teacher provided a few
scaffolding questions to encourage the students to write about (with
examples) their learning difficulties, their likes and dislikes, their over-
all learning gains, and the assistance needed in learning. Analysis of the
reflective journals discerns students’ perceptions of and their experi-
ences in the technology-enhanced learning environment.
3.4 Results
3.4.1 S
tudents’ Participation in the Wiki-Based Forum
Discussion
The course teacher and the students worked on the wiki environment
together, aiming at better understanding the course content (e.g. busi-
ness concepts, cases, and phenomena) and improving students’ language
competence. After all the forum entries were downloaded and students’
log-on files were tracked, it was found that students’ participation and
engagement in the forum activities were uneven. First of all, among the 63
students registered in the course, eight of them failed to work on the wiki-
based forum from beginning to the end of the instruction. Although the
teacher sent invitations to every individual student via the Forum links,
eight students ignored the invitation and made no attempt to work addi-
tionally outside the classroom. As wiki-based platform is not compulsory
(but supportive) for the course, the teacher found it extremely difficult to
engage such a small number of students whose motivation and attitude to
study were problematic.
When the eight non-participants were excluded, it was found that the
remaining students’ contribution (or entries) to the Forum was uneven as
well. In total, the students and the teacher generated 332 postings during
the instructional period, among which 291 entries were produced by the
students and 41 entries were posted by the teacher. A further examination
revealed that the most and the least productive students contributed 16
and 2 postings to the forum, respectively. The mean score and standard
deviation of the entries done by the students were 5.29 and 3.13, respec-
tively. Although there is no such a norm to determine the effectiveness of
a forum discussion by a set number of entries/postings, the mean score
in this study did not show a very positive tendency. A typical discussion
thread usually included a few participants, building on each other’s ideas
around a certain business topic.
According to Hewitt study (2005), discussion threads in the computer-
supported collaborative learning environment appeared to be short and
hard to sustain in higher education. He referred to a few common prob-
lems, including students’ being unaware that important discussions have
stopped growing; drifting off topics; avoiding difficult questions; and
not engaging in synthesis and summarizations, etc. It seemed that sim-
ply putting students together and providing them a collaborative tool
may not guarantee their engagement for sustained discussion and effec-
tive collaboration. In this study, students took advantage of the wiki-
supported platform, interacted among one another, and articulated ideas
on the forum, though in a limited manner. It was therefore more useful
to further investigate how students felt about the learning environment
and what they have actually gained from the learning experience.
3.4.2 R
elationship Between Student Engagement
and Conceptual Understanding and Language Use
After students submitted their reports, the module teacher blind marked
them in terms of two key aspects: content (weigh by 50%) and language
(weigh by 50%). As a rule of the program, 30% of the reports were
double-marked by a second module teacher. Discrepancies were discussed

and resolved by agreement reached by the two teachers. Consequently,
we obtained three marks on students’ report writing, namely, content,
language and overall.
Person correlation analyses were conducted to explore the relationship
between the number of entries students contributed to the wiki forum
and their report writing scores. The results indicated a significant cor-
relation between the number of entries and students’ overall report score
(r = 0.50, p < .001); furthermore, significant correlations were identified
between the number of entries and the content of the report (r = 0.52,
p < .001) as well as the language of the report (r = 0.47, p < .001). In
other words, the more the students are engaged in the Forum, the more
likely they have a better understanding of the key business concepts and
a better use of English language.
3.4.3 S
tudents’ Perceptions on the Wiki-Supported Learning
Environment
The analyses of the students’ reflective journals showed a few patterns in

regards to students’ views toward wiki-supported learning environment.
First of all, about 60% of the students expressed a general accep-
tance of the wiki-supported learning tool. They expressed that “wiki
platform is useful for our learning”. Specifically, the benefits reported
by the students primarily included the following areas: First, wiki is a
supplementary tool for communication. Quite a number of students
mentioned that wiki offered an additional way (online) to communicate
with the teacher and other students; and it was convenient and good to feel
staying with the teacher and classmates even after class; sometimes, when
they were reluctant to pose a question to the teacher face-to-face, they
could raise the question on the wiki forum. Secondly, working on wiki
might increase students’ examination scores. Some students held the
view that wiki-writing could help them consolidate the knowledge from
the book and efforts on wiki could be in exchange for a higher score dur-
ing final examination. Although the exam had not been held when the
students wrote their reflection, the exam results afterwards did show
a relationship between students’ wiki engagement and their academic
outcomes. Thirdly, the wiki platform, to some extent, assisted students
in learning English. Some students claimed that they learned a number
of business vocabularies through wiki, and sometimes when they were not
sure about the spelling of a particular word, they would resort to online
dictionaries for help. However, only a few students mentioned the wiki
environment helped in other aspects of language learning, for example,
grammar, organization of ideas, or logics in developing a piece of writ-
ing, etc.
On the other hand, about 25% of the students showed a general skep-
tical view on the employment of the wiki-based platform. Their argu-
ments mainly included: postings on the wiki platform are not marked
and calculated into students’ final score of the course, so they did not feel
very much motivated; perhaps, asking the teacher a question face-to-face is
easier and more direct to get an answer and they feel a bit disappointed
when the teacher cannot respond to all the students’ postings; and in one
particular case, a student reported that reading others’ postings on wiki
might restrict his own ideas, so there is no need to do so. Several students
reported honestly that they found it hard to control themselves once they
are connected to the network. “I would play computer games and that is
more interesting, so I forgot to work on the wiki assignment”.
Additionally, about 15% of the students clearly expressed that they dis-
liked the wiki environment and did not benefit from the system. To this
small group of students, the major problems were Internet connection
and a related learning attitude problem. They reported: “I feel discouraged
and unhappy when I could not log in!”; and “I wrote in a half way and then
was offline suddenly and everything disappeared, I don’t like the wiki system.”
As a matter of fact, the Wikispaces Classroom is not so difficult to log onto
as described by these students. The system might occasionally encounter
some technical problem. But if the student could make another try at
a different time, more often than not, they would succeed in logging
in. Whatever a technical or attitude issue were involved, it reminds the
course developers or practitioners that availability and stability of the
technical system are important.
4 Study Two
4.1 Research Context
The second study was conducted in the same educational setting as

reported in Study One. Participants were 52 Year 1 English for inter-
national business (EIB) students from two intact classes with similar
achievement levels. The research was conducted in a 16-week core mod-
ule of EIB to develop students’ understanding of concepts in total quality
management (TQM), and business language use. This module was origi-
nally featured by a group project investigating TQM implementation in
businesses in Shanghai. The student groups mainly did project work after
class and present their research in both oral and written forms in English.
4.2 Design of the Learning Environment
4.2.1 Computer-Supported CLIL Environment
A TECLIL environment informed by knowledge-building theories was

designed for instructional groups to scaffold deep processing, and col-
laborative inquiry. Knowledge-building pedagogy was considered in the
instructional design, as it has been evidenced to promote communal con-
ceptual understanding as well as social-cognitive and social literate skills
(Zhao & Chan, 2014). Considering the domain, cultural and instruc-
tional specificity of this study, we adapted four of knowledge-building
principles (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003) as design guidelines as follows:
Collective cognitive responsibility: creating social structures or dynamics

for collective knowledge advancement with intentional use of English;
Epistemic agency: focusing on ideas, problems and co-construction of
knowledge and deep understanding, rather than on completion of
project tasks;
Authentic problems, improvable ideas: identifying authentic problems and
progressively improving ideas in connection with the broader business
community; and
Knowledge-building discourse: integrating concept learning, collaborative

inquiry, use of English, and authentic business community practices
into knowledge-building discourse.
The designed learning environment requires all group members

to exhibit a high level of collective responsibility, advance communal
knowledge and understanding, identify authentic problems, and provide
plausible explanations and workable solutions valued by the broader com-
munity (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003). At the same time, they appro-
priate the social norms, practices, and language in knowledge-building
discourse.
Knowledge Forum, a second-generation, computer-supported inten-
tional learning environment (Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2003), was used
to facilitate the process of knowledge-building inquiry through engaging
students’ in co-constructing a collaborative workspace. Using Knowledge
Forum to write notes helped students to articulate and reframe ideas,
raise high-level inquiry questions, and design projects; reading and build-
ing-on others’ notes deepened the inquiry discourse. Summary note writ-
ing enhanced reflection and synthesis.
One of the striking features of Knowledge Forum is its embedded scaf-
folds or thinking prompts (e.g. “I need to understand”, “My theory”,
“New information”, “A better theory”, “Putting our knowledge together”,
etc.), which effectively execute metacognition and social metacognition
in the process of collaborative inquiry. The design of these scaffolds, how-
ever, is usually based on the tutor’s conceptualization and experiences of
collaborative meaning-seeking.
To sum up, this study was designed to examine the role of the
principle-informed computer-supported CLIL environment and further
to investigate how students perceived and experienced in this designed
environment. Three questions were addressed:
1 . How were students engaged in the designed TECLIL environment?

2. Was student engagement in the designed environment related to their
concept learning and language development?
3. How did students perceive the learning innovation in this designed
environment?
4.3 Data Sources
To address the aforementioned research questions, data were obtained

from multiple sources, including students writing, group learning port-
folios, online interactions as well as focus group interviews.
Students’ writings: Students were required to write an essay on TQM. Essays

were analyzed using two rubrics; conceptual understanding examined
TQM concepts and academic literacy including argumentation, orga-
nization and mechanics of language. Inter-rater reliability coefficients
were 0.80 and 0.82, respectively.
Group Learning Portfolio: Group portfolios document students’ reflection
and collaborative learning process. The portfolio was rated on a six-
point scale ranging from fragmentary responses to deep collaborative
reflection; the inter-rater reliability was 0.86.
Knowledge-Building Participation: The Analytical Toolkit (Burtis, 2001),
a software developed by the KF team, provided an overview of student
online participation. We employed the quantitative indices of notes
created, notes read, scaffold use and note revision as an index of stu-
dent participation.
Focus Group Interview: Project groups were participated in a 40-minute
interview. Interview questions were designed adapted from Bielaczyc’s
social infrastructure framework (2006) focusing on their perceptions
of the designed learning environment, pedagogical practices, and
learning innovation.
4.4 Results
4.4.1 Student Online Engagement
To investigate KF participation, the use of quantitative indices derived

from Analytic Toolkit on Knowledge Forum has been established in stud-
ies on knowledge building. Four participation indices were employed as
follows: notes read (M = 27.91, SD = 28.91), notes created (M = 3.84,
SD = 3.01), scaffold use (M = 1.00, SD = 1.61), and note revision
(M = 3.50, SD = 3.71).
4.4.2 R
elations Between Student Online Engagement
and Understanding
To investigate the relations of student engagement in KF with learning

outcomes, correlation analyses were conducted. The analysis indicated
that scaffold use (metacognitive prompts) was correlated with conceptual
understanding (r = 0.33, p < .05) and argumentation of writing (r = 0.36,
p < .05). These results suggest that students who employed more meta-
cognitive prompts also scored better in conceptual understanding and
development of argumentation via use of English.
4.4.3 S
tudent Perceptions of the Designed Environment
and Learning Innovation
Analysis of student group interview data revealed that students’ per-

ceptions of the designed environment varied. Nine out of 13 groups
(N = 36) indicated their positive views of using online Knowledge Forum
as extended learning space after class. Three groups (N = 12) expressed
more their concerns over quality of English discussion online. One group
(N = 4) reported on limited learning gains either in language learning or
business concept learning.
In-depth analysis of their positive perceptions identified two
themes, viewing the designed online environment as (1) extended space
intertwining concept learning and project inquiry via use of English; and
(2) shared space for peer scaffolding and collaborative writing.
Extended Space Intertwining Concept Learning, Project Inquiry, and
Use of English.
Students perceived Knowledge Forum as extending knowledge-
building space intertwining concept learning as well project inquiry via
use of English. One typical excerpt is provided below.
Our KF discussions centered on the problems from reading, lectures and

project-investigation, and solutions could be provided after the discussions
… The project investigation could deepen our understanding of TQM,
though we had read and discussed quite a lot … One big challenge in
working online is that we had to use English. This forced us to read English,
think in English and write in English all the time. I think it was effective,
though very pressing, due to our initial poor language proficiency level.
Our progress in English writing manifested in our performance in essay
writing and business report writing. (Student# 2, Group #1)
This project group reported how their project investigation and online
discussion facilitated the group communal understanding of TQM. They
viewed Knowledge Forum as a beneficial knowledge-building space using
English after class, beyond the constraints of time and space of traditional
language learning in EFL settings. They emphasized the scaffolding role
of student-generated online discourse on communal concept inquiry,
including their discussions over readings and project investigation as
well as their reflection over the inconsistencies and problems. In addi-
tion, they reflected upon their progress in English language use through
discussions over the project inquiry. There is no denial that the use of
technology might provide the Chinese students an after-class English
language learning environment. Unlike Study One, the instructional
design guided by knowledge-building principles and the functionalities
of Knowledge Forum (e.g. scaffold use) in this study were conducive to
creating progressive knowledge-building discourse linking concept learn-
ing and project investigation mediated by use of English.
Shared Space for Peer Scaffolding and Collaborative Writing.
Student groups recognized the Knowledge Forum as a shared space
to execute their social metacognition in group concept inquiry as well as
in writing. Some excerpts from Group Two are reflective of such typical
perceptions.
We also viewed other groups’ discussions on KF. We sometimes saw differ-

ent perspectives and understandings. We did find strengths in other group
discussion, for example, the heated and lively discussion over TQM prin-
ciples and implementation. (Student #4, Group #2)
Reading others’ notes and responding to others, though sometimes
difficult, is what we did on Knowledge Forum…Despite different per-
spectives, we learned from others’ persuasive writing, especially from oth-
ers’ responses to our challenging questions … Sometimes we need to
write build-on notes to strengthen or refute others’ points. (Student # 2,
Group# 2)
The two excerpts indicated that Knowledge Forum demonstrated

great potentials for collective learning as students read others’ notes and
responded by raising good questions and providing elaborations with
supportive evidence. Their discussions guided by scaffolds may execute
students’ epistemic agency for deep inquiry and writing building-on
notes. This may facilitate deep inquiry and collaborative writing.
While most students held optimistic views about the designed CLIL
environment using Knowledge Forum, negative perceptions and expe-
riences were also reported. Students complained about the unstable
Internet accessibility, unfamiliarity with functionalities of Knowledge
Forum, unwillingness of online participation due to low English lan-
guage proficiency level and heavy pressure from cognitive overload of
project work as well as their reluctance to group work. Therefore, they
seemed to see limited learning gains from the innovative learning model.
5 General Discussion and Conclusion

This chapter aimed to address the key issues of implementing TECLIL
in authentic Chinese tertiary business English classrooms from students’
perspectives. Two reported studies designed and implemented TECLIL
environments for Chinese business English students using Wiki and
Knowledge Forum, respectively. They investigated student engagement
and learning outcomes in the designed environment as well as their per-
ceptions of the learning innovations. The contrastive analysis of the two
studies reveals the challenges and possibilities of using TECLIL among
Chinese business English students.
The two studies share similarities in instructional design, though dif-
ferent online platforms were selected. The overarching design objective
was to engage the students toward deep understanding of business con-
tent and to enhance their capabilities of using English in authentic busi-
ness project learning contexts. Both studies provide evidence of student
participation in online discussions and their contribution to commu-
nal understanding, though the degree varied. While the online activi-
ties (e.g. note reading, note creation, and note build-on) may not be as
dynamic and active as had expected, student online engagements were
evidenced to be related to deep conceptual understanding and English

writing outputs. These preliminary findings suggest the great potentials
of use of technology and CLIL in promoting Chinese business English
student concept learning and use of English, particularly in written dis-
course. Such findings are consistent with current literature in technology-
enhanced collaborative learning on English language production (Lund,
2008) but provide additional promising evidence on the advancement in
concept learning.
In contrast, Study Two adopted clearly defined design principles of
creating social structures or dynamics for collective knowledge advance-
ment with intentional use of English, executing epistemic agency, and
constructing knowledge-building discourse (Scardamalia & Bereiter,
2003) via use of English. The design foci lie in collaborative construc-
tion of content knowledge, deep inquiry and use of English, which ran
well aligned with CLIL theoretical underpinning. The intentional use of
Knowledge Forum with functionalities of scaffolds, informed by collab-
orative knowledge-building principles, have been reported to show great
potentials in enhancing the student engagement in knowledge building
and developing English writing capacities.
When implementing TECLIL in China, it is also important to con-
sider the contextual factors of students, teachers, and other institutional
issues. It is always useful to adopt new methods of teaching and learning,
but certain adaptations from both teachers and students are vital to guar-
antee successful implementation. How to prepare the students, especially
those who are not highly motivated and at a limited language proficiency
level, for deep conceptual understanding and knowledge building poses
a great challenge for using TECLIL in higher education. It seems that
gradually nurturing a collaborative learning culture is more important
than an abrupt introduction of new technology into the classroom. Only
when students realize their shared responsibility for advancing knowledge
in the communal space will they take up the new models and become
more actively engaged and willingly contribute more. Therefore, student
preparation or training appears crucial before they are to learn and col-
laborate in TECLIL environment (Kern, 2006; Lund, 2008).
TECLIL may also impose some heavy workload on the teachers.
For example, the teacher in Study One posted 41 entries as compared
to an average of 5.29 student postings in the instructional period.

However, some students still felt teachers’ responding rate was not
adequate. Teachers need to adjust according to the specific situation,
giving timely feedback to students yet not overworking themselves. A
future research direction might be how to foster students’ agency (so
that they will not heavily rely on teachers) under TECLIL conditions.
In both studies, some students complained about the instability of the
networked technology. Therefore, the infrastructure construction in
higher education deserves continuous attention from the policy makers
to make sure technology serves a facilitating role instead of a hindrance
in students’ learning.
The contrastive analysis of the two studies reported in this chapter
highlighted the potential role for technology, informed by collabora-
tive knowledge-building dynamics and CLIL theoretical perspectives,
in facilitating both concept inquiry and actual language use. It was not
technology alone, but technology aligned with underlying principles
emphasizing the collaborative knowledge-building culture via intentional
use of English language that will secure a TECLIL model as an after-class
shared work space integrated concept learning, project English language
development in Chinese EFL educational settings.
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Prof Ke Zhao (Coco) is associate dean (in teaching and learning) at the School
of Foreign Studies, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. She com-
pleted her PhD study at the University of Hong Kong in June 2010. Her main
research interests include technology-enhanced CLIL, English for international
business, intercultural education, and English academic literacy. Her current
research projects are mainly premised at the interface of applied linguistics
and the sciences of learning. Her articles have appeared in international SSCI
Journals and in domestic CSSCI Journals. She has also worked as a manuscript
reviewer for IJCSCL, TAPER and Systems (SSCI). Currently, she serves on the
IJCSCL editorial board.
Chunlin Lei is an associate professor at the School of Foreign Languages,

Shanghai University of International Business and Economics. He completed
his PhD study in Learning Science at the University of Hong Kong in 2013.
He has been teaching in higher institutions in China over 20 years, with a focus
on improving students’ academic literacy, especially collaborative inquiry and
English writing skills. He has published his research studies on Content-Based
Instruction (CBI), computer-supported knowledge building, peer feedback and
writing performance, and so on, domestically and internationally.
6
Debates Around the Orientation of TEFL
in Chinese Tertiary Education
Jigang Cai
1 Introduction
Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) to non-English majors at
tertiary level in mainland China is popularly known as college English
teaching (CET). Since 1978, when the national recruitment of higher
education was implemented after the Cultural Revolution (1966–1978),
the development of the CET has been accompanied with controversies
as to its orientation to English for general purposes (EGP) vs. English
for specific purposes (ESP), as evidenced in the five CET policy docu-
ments released by China’s Ministry of Education (MOE) between 1980
and 2015 to guide tertiary CET in mainland China. Lack of a clear
orientation of CET which targets the overwhelmingly large number of
undergraduates has produced a whole generation of Chinese scientists
and engineers who are unable to extract information in their disciplin-
ary literature in English, nor to effectively communicate their research in
international journals and conferences (Cai, 2017). Hence to explore the
J. Cai (*)
Fudan University, Shanghai, China

116 J. Cai
debates regarding to the nature and orientation of TEFL at tertiary level

might be of great national and international significance.
Hutchinson and Waters (1987) classify English for foreign language
teaching (EFL) into EGP and ESP according to whether students learn
English merely for the improvement of their language proficiency or
acquire English for specific needs in their academic studies or in their
future careers. ESP can be further distinguished by the nature of the
learners’ specialism: English for occupational purposes (EOP) and
English for academic purposes (EAP) which is usually defined as “teach-
ing English with the aim of assisting learners’ study or research in that
language” (Hyland, 2006, p. 1). As the orientation of CET is consistently
connected with the debates as to whether it should satisfy the needs of
students’ disciplinary studies or to simply improve students’ English lan-
guage proficiency, it is necessary to put the controversies in a perspective
of the ESP theory. The chapter first provides a detailed account of four
major debates which have taken place in the history of CET reforms, and
then explores the underlying causes for the hindrances to the ESP imple-
mentation in mainland China.
2 nglish for General Purposes vs. English

E
for Science and Technology (1978–1996)
English for science and technology (EST) in mainland China was initi-
ated almost simultaneously with EST in the world as there was a strong
demand for sharing the fruits of the development of international sci-
ence and technology after its Cultural Revolution (1966–1978). In a
national symposium on foreign language education hosted by the State
Department of RPC on August 28–September 10, 1978, Liao Chengzhi,
a past vice chairman of the National People’s Congress, expressed the gov-
ernment’s determination to compensate for the time lost in the Cultural
Revolution and to facilitate the development of foreign language educa-
tion. He required that in order to catch up with the great economies in
science and technology, tremendous efforts must be made so that uni-
versity students will have the ability of “reading books of science and
technology which are not in the vernacular” (Li & Xu, 2006). Obviously
6 Debates Around the Orientation of TEFL in Chinese Tertiary… 117
Table 6.1 Teaching objectives of College English Teaching Syllabus (CETS), College
English Curriculum Requirements (CECR) and College English Teaching Guide
(CETG) between 1980 and 2015
Syllabus/requirement Teaching objectives
CETS (1980) CET aims to assist students in laying relatively solid
linguistic foundation which can enable them to read
books and journal articles of science and technology
so that they could access information that relates to
their disciplinary studies
CETS (1985) CET aims to develop students’ relatively stronger
ability of reading with better linguistic foundation
and higher language proficiency so that they are
able to use English as a tool to access information
needed in their disciplinary studies
CETS (1999) CET aims to help students to lay solid linguistic
foundation by developing a relatively high level of
their reading skills and an intermediate level of
listening, speaking, writing and translating skills so
that they can meet the socioeconomic needs
CECR (2007) CET is to develop students’ ability to use English in a
well-rounded way, especially their listening and
speaking ability so that in their future studies and
careers as well as social interactions, they will be
able to communicate effectively and show good
cultural literacy
CETG (2015) CET aims to develop students’ ability of using English,
their cross-cultural awareness and communicative
ability. Meanwhile, it tries to develop learner
autonomy and their comprehensive cultural literacy
so that they will be effective users of English in their
studies, daily life, social interaction and future
careers to suit the needs of the nation, society,
institutional, and personal development
in the eye of the government, foreign language education is strategically

linked to the quest for the modernization of science and technology.
To echo his call, the MOE released an ESP-oriented CET syllabus in
1980 (Table 6.1), and subsequently there was a mushrooming of EST
courses at tertiary institutions in the 1980s under the umbrella term
of Zhuanye English, or rather, discipline-based English. More time in
these courses such as Legal English, English for Biology, English for
Finance, and so on, however, was invested in terminology explanation
118 J. Cai
and translation than the training of communication skills appropriate to

a particular field. Hence, Zhuanye English was taught mostly by subject
specialists except for the courses in the soft disciplines such as Business
English and English for Tourism.
The enthusiasm for Zhuanye English, however, triggered off a nation-
wide controversy as to whether CET should be oriented toward EGP to
improve students’ general English proficiency or toward EST or ESP. The
controversy involved many scientists and university presidents as well as
foreign language policymakers. One of the major proponents was Xu
Guozhang, the past president of China English Language Education
Association. Xu (1978a) argued that scientists and researchers could not
depend on translated works as there are thousands of scientific journals
published in English every year. Hence, EST should be required courses
in college English (CE) programs to help students learn to extract infor-
mation of science and technology. Another proponent is Yang Huizhong,
the past president of the National College English Test Committee
(NCETC). He wrote:
The rapid development of science and technology highlights the impor-

tance and needs of EST. To narrow the gap between our country and
advanced nations, scientists should be equipped with the ability of access-
ing information from scientific journals directly. Hence it is necessary and
even urgent for students to learn EST. (Yang, 1978, p. 59)
However, it seems that more policymakers in the CET circle argue for
EGP. Li (1987), the past chair of the MOE’s Advisory Committee on
CET (MACCET), justified implementing EGP for the following three
reasons.
First, discipline-based ESP instruction won’t be effective considering that

freshmen’s English proficiency is still low though it meets immediate needs.
Second, EST materials are boring with many technical terms. The scientific
texts are not suitable for reading aloud and memorization on which lan-
guage learning depends. Third, ESP will restrict the development of fresh-
men who may change their mindsets in the choice of their majors in the
later academic years.
Li’s views are echoed by Dong (1986), a past vice chair of MACCET
and the author of the best-selling textbook College English in the last
30 years. She argued that “Zhuangye English might achieve immediate
effects” and help students to access information in their reference mate-
rials. But “it is impossible to lay a solid linguistic foundation by using
subject-specific texts”.
Hua (1991) and Yang (1992), the presidents of Fudan University,
argued against the notion of EST by saying that “it is unscientific to
divide English into EGP and EST” and that “to teaching EST to stu-
dents will only lead them to a very narrow realm”. Li (1992) administered
an open-ended questionnaire to scientists, researchers, and academicians
of biology, physics, and other disciplines working in China’s Science
Academy. According to her report, nearly 100% of over 20 respondents
agreed that CET should be EGP-oriented, for solid EGP foundation can
help students to communicate effectively in their future careers even in
their academic studies and research.
The debates about EGP vs. EST had an important impact on the
MOE, which finally released College English Teanching Syllabus (CETS,
1985), establishing EGP as the orientation of CET.
3 nglish for Exam Purposes vs. English

E
for Communicative Purposes (1996–2002)
To ensure the meeting of the requirement prescribed in the 1985 CETS
(Table 6.1), the MOE instituted a standardized general English-based
College English Test (consisting of two levels: CET-4 and CET-6) in
1987, and CET-4 was even made into the requirement of undergradu-
ates fulfilling CE programs (Yang & Weir, 1998). As the rate of students
passing CET-4 in individual institutions is often employed as the main
indicator of the quality of the CE programs, administrators and faculty
members of many tertiary institutions have made joint endeavors to help
students to pass CET-4 and even by setting a pass as the requirements of
their graduation.
Although a growing number of undergraduates have passed the
CET-4 annually under pressure, the negative washback is also obvious.
120 J. Cai
One of the most evident drawbacks is the result that most CET pro-
grams of tertiary institutions have become test-oriented and students
lose their motivation as soon as they pass the CET-4. “To them the
only motivation is the higher GDP or scholarship” when they continue
to select English courses offered to post-CET-4 students (Fan, 2013).
In a large-scale study of 2283 undergraduates in five cities in main-
land China (Zhao, Lei, & Zhang, 2009), 57.1% respondents reported
their English did not improve when they finished CE programs, rang-
ing from “little achievement” (33.6%) or even “regression” (25.9%).
The findings are consistent with the findings of our 2009 survey which
involved 1300 senior undergraduates from 21 tertiary institutions from
10 provinces. The results revealed that 23% of students complained of
little achievement and 21% reported regression compared with their
English proficiency level when they entered university. The self-report
of students is confirmed by their teachers, who complained that the
post-CET-4 students’ English fails to address the needs of their disci-
plinary studies as they are proven unable in accessing information from
reference literature and producing readable English in academic writing
(Huang, 2011; Sun, 2010) and they are especially weak in listening and
speaking.
The prevalence of university students’ poor communicative ability in
English generated a nationwide criticism for the test-oriented CE pro-
grams. Consequently, another symposium on foreign language education
hosted by the State Department was held in Beijing in June 1996, when
Li Lanqing, a past vice-premier, criticized Chinese university graduates
for failure to communicate with foreigners in their work by comparing
with their counterparts in India and Pakistan:
Foreign language teaching is far from satisfactory as it fails to fit the demand
for the growing international contact. To cultivate the professionals who
have strong competency of foreign languages, we must reform the methods
of foreign language teaching so that students’ communicative competency
will be improved. This task is no longer pedagogical, but a grave issue
which affects the better implementation of the opening policy and the
socioeconomic development. (Li, 1996, p. 2)
His talk, though resented by the policymakers in the CET field who
dismissed him as a layperson, gained wide support among the faculty and
students. Jin (1999), an English teacher from a university of Nanjing,
published an article in the China Youth Daily, criticizing CET textbooks
for being full of simplified versions of original texts and limited vocabu-
lary size with the exercises designed similarly to the CET tests in terms
of content and forms. He referred CET as to a pot of water which would
never be brought to the boil despite the years of the effort made by both
students and their teachers. His article generated a nationwide a debate.
Numerous letters and telephone calls were sent to the editors, echoing his
view although Jin came under attack from the CET policymakers. Tang
and Chen (1999), two well-known scholars from Tsinghua University
and Beijing Foreign Studies University maintained that it is an undeni-
able fact a majority of university students cannot communicate though
they spend 8–12 years learning English. They supported premier Li’s com-
ments on foreign language teaching, hoping that more focus will be on
the communication skills, especially the skills of listening and speaking.
Although there is an ongoing nationwide increasing demand for devel-
oping students’ oral English, the CET policymakers insisted that reading
should be prioritized in CET as prescribed in the revised version of 1999
CETS (Table 6.1).
4 nglish for Reading Purposes vs. English

E
for Listening and Speaking (2002–2009)
The priority given to the development of reading skills over listening and
speaking skills in the newly released national syllabus disappointed the
government as well as faculty and students for it brushes off premier Li’s
suggestion and refuses to tailor to the nationwide demand for developing
students’ oral English.
In 2001, China officially joined the World Trade Organization.
Challenged by the substantial rise in international contact and economic
globalization, the MOE, aware of the importance of oral English in inter-
national communication, was determined to implement a new wave of
122 J. Cai
reform of CET. One of the most striking features of the reform is the

replacement of the pedagogical focus on reading with the focus on listen-
ing and speaking. The initiative leads to the College English Curriculum
Requirement (CECR) in 2004, which was revised in 2007 (see Table 6.1).
Zhang (2002), director of the Higher Education Department of the
MOE explained that university students were poor in both speaking and
listening in real-life communication with foreigners simply because tra-
ditional CET neglected the development of their communication skills
and overemphasized reading skills. Zhou, the minister of the MOE,
underscored in an important meeting held in Beijing in 2002 with many
presidents of universities as participants the importance of the skills of
listening and speaking in the international contexts. According to him,
the traditional model of CET will not be automatically reformed and its
teaching goal will remain unchanged without external force. Refusing to
accept the failure of Li Lanqing’s reform in 1996, he declared that “the
government will adopt any unconventional ways to impose the reform”
and he even used the metaphor “the bulldozer” to show the MOE’s deter-
mination to “push away all potential obstacles” (Cai, 2006, p. 48).
However, the reform met with considerable resistance of the CET pol-
icymakers who held a symposium on CET in Nanjing in 2003 (Nanjing
means the capital of the South as opposed to Beijing which means the
capital of the North in ancient times). In the symposium, CET policy-
makers expressed their dissatisfaction with the reform:
Reading is the key to mastering a foreign language. It is proved that an

extensive reading of classics can be more efficient to improve students’
English language proficiency. Therefore the priority of developing reading
skills over other micro skills such as listening, speaking and writing should
not be abandoned. The objective prioritizing reading prescribed in the
CETS is based on the massive needs analysis and practical circumstances
which show that reading is the major skill needed in the future careers for
the majority of university students. (CET, 2003, p. 33)
It seems, however, that the MOE would not compromise this time.
They did three things to overcome the obstacles and promote the reform.
First, the MACCET and the NCETC, the two important national orga-
nizations, were reshuffled and the leaders were replaced with the reform
proponents. Second, tertiary institutions are encouraged to develop stu-
dents’ oral English and those who are willing to implement the speak-
ing- and listening-oriented CE programs are financed by the government
funding. Finally, the content of CET tests is redesigned with more weight
in the listening and speaking items so that the content of CE program
will be changed correspondingly (Zhang, 2008).
5 nglish for Liberal Education vs. English

E
for Academic Purposes (2010–)
As the oral-English-oriented reform is characterized by a top-down impo-
sition, it was coming to a stop when Zhang left his position in 2009. CET
in China was again faced with the choice of the orientation. Influenced
by liberal education being widely implemented in American universities
since the twenty-first century, the Summit Forum on English for Literal
Education and Curriculum Development was held in 2010 in China.
Many CET policymakers attended it and finally reached a consensus that
“English for Liberal Education (ELE) should be a new orientation of
CET and will become a turning point in history of Chinese foreign lan-
guage education” (Wang, 2010). The Summit Forum suggested that the
new curriculum comprise EGP and ELE, and such courses as American
and English literature, European cultures and Chinese culture should be
offered to post-CET-4 students. The new orientation is highly approved
by some MOE officials. Liu Guiqin, the vice-premier of the MOE, pub-
lished his article and emphasized (2012) that CET should “prioritize
quality-oriented education”, education for ideological and cultural pur-
poses, so that university students will better bear their social responsibility”
and “disseminate Chinese culture”.
But I view the new orientation differently. Coupled with the rise in
literal education programs at the beginning of the twenty-first century
is the increase in the university courses using English as a medium of
instruction (EMI). To adapt to the globalized academic environment
and improve Chinese students’ “international competitiveness”, the
124 J. Cai
MOE (2001) initiates an extensive promotion of EMI, encouraging ter-

tiary institutions to offer bilingual or EMI courses in the undergraduate
programs and required that “universities should increase the number of
EMI courses to 5–10% within 3 years”. Obviously it is ESP/EAP rather
than ELE that could better address the requirement. The role of CET in
higher education might be reduced if the primary objective of the CET
programs is to conduct EGP or ELE (Cai, 2014).
A substantial rise in English MOI courses and activities (e.g. attending
lectures offered by visiting international professors, reading disciplinary
reference materials, and going abroad for study tour programs) necessi-
tates the provision of academic communication skills in China. Aware of
the role of EAP in EMI academic studies and activities, I (2012) intro-
duced the concept of EAP and insisted that CET should target the aim
of teaching English to equip students with communication skills appro-
priate for engaging them in their current academic studies and that EGP
should be gradually replaced with EAP in CE programs. Serving as chair
of Shanghai Advisory Committee on CET (SACCET) in 2012, a quasi-
government organization affiliated with Shanghai Municipal Education
Commission (SMEC), I made the best of the opportunity and initiated
an EAP pedagogy in Shanghai tertiary institutions, thus beginning the
maiden voyage of EAP instruction in mainland China.
In 2013, I designed A Framework of Reference for CET in Shanghai
(Trial Implementation) (SACCET, 2013) which was passed by SACCET
and immediately released by SNEC. The Framework (see the Appendix)
set the new objective of CET as “to equip students with English language
skills to enable them to succeed in their academic studies and future
careers” (p. 2). EAP is therefore defined as a transition from EGP instruc-
tion in high schools to English medium activities in tertiary institutions
including EMI programs, or a bridge between the two. It is suggested that
except for students with relatively low English level who are advised to
take the foundation English courses, the majority of the freshmen of each
new cohort should immediately begin their studies with the courses of
English for general academic purposes (EGAP) and then gradually move
on to English for specific academic purposes (ESAP) courses to assist stu-
dents in learning disciplinary genres. Since September, 2013, more than
26 universities and colleges have begun implementing the Framework by
re-conceptualizing and redesigning their own CE programs.
This initiative, a departure from traditional CEA’ orientation, imme-

diately came under attack from the policymakers in China TEFL who
denied the validity and necessity of EAP. Wang, the chair of MACCET,
argues that EAP does not suit Chinese contexts. He maintains:
The internationalization of higher education does not involve all university

students as the number of students going abroad for further studies is quite
limited and content courses in the majority of universities and colleges are
in the vernacular. Hence the implementation of EAP instruction is neither
urgent nor necessary. It is impractical, therefore, to meet the needs that do
not virtually exist. (Wang & Yao, 2013, p. 7)
Wang’s viewpoints are echoed by many other policymakers and schol-

ars. One of them is Hu, a vice chair of the SACCET and the dean of
College Foreign Languages, Shanghai Jiaotong University. He raised a
number of objections to EAP as the orientation of CET (Hu & Xie,
2014):
1. EMI courses account for a very low proportion of the content courses
in the academy. Hence, there is no need for the majority of students
to listen to English lectures and write English papers. The needs of
learning EAP are scarce even in the postgraduate programs.
2. The materials of EAP are usually science- and technology-oriented
and its subject matters are boring compared with less technical texts
and more interesting topics of humanities and literature in EGP text-
books. EAP will only suppress students’ interest in learning English.
3. Most of Chinese undergraduates are low in English proficiency and
what they need is basic grammatical knowledge and general skills of
reading and writing. EAP is too hard for the majority of undergradu-
ates with very limited vocabulary size.
4. A student with good general English proficiency can be well qualified
for their academic studies in English since there is no big difference
between EAP and EGP except terminologies and passive constructions.
Wen, a well-known scholar who publishes extensively in applied lin-

guistics, argues for the coexistence of both EAP and EGP. She maintains
that EAP is more appropriate as complement to rather than as substitute
126 J. Cai
for EGP because it is necessary for freshmen of low English proficiency

to continue EGP instruction, and EGP can also cultivate students’ global
perspectives, cross-cultural awareness and encyclopedic knowledge which
EAP lacks (Wen, 2014).
Her conclusion is that EGP and EAP should co-exist in CET pro-
grams to meet the individualized needs as there is a more linguistically
and disciplinarily diverse student population with different academic or
professional purposes upon graduation (Wang, 2015).
Wang and Xu (2015) well summarized the controversy in their book
2014 Annual Report on China’s Foreign Language Education:
There are three different views on EGP and EAP in recent years. Cai Jigang
believes that CET has gradually lost its unique value in tertiary education
as it remains EGP-oriented. He argues that CET should serve the target
disciplines of students, or rather, develop students’ communication abilities
appropriate to their academic studies. Hence a paradigm shift from EGP to
EAP is urgent. Wen Qiufang, however, argues against the replacement of
EGP with EAP, for the former plays an important role in the development
of the students’ cross-cultural ability and dissemination of Chinese culture.
Another view is held by Hu Kaibao who insists that the orientation of CET
should be EGP instead of EAP. (Wang & Xu, 2015, p. 4)
The national debate exerts a great influence on the EAP implementa-

tion in Shanghai. Many universities and colleges take a more conservative
wait-and-see attitude even if they promise to redesign their CE programs
to be aligned with the Framework. More scholars and language teachers
bitterly resent the reform by writing anonymous letters to the govern-
ment, criticizing it for the wrong orientation.
6 Discussion and Implication
There are some interesting educational implications emerging from the
review of the four debates over the orientation of CET. Many compli-
cated factors underlie a considerable hindrance in mainland China to the
paradigm shift from teaching EGP to ESP/EAP. First, the resistance is
chiefly derived from the mainstream perceptions of the nature of foreign
language instruction in China which has been generally conceived as

part of quality-oriented education, or education for well-rounded devel-
opment. The CETS (1999), the CECR (2007) and CETG (2015), for
example, stipulate that “CET is part of the implementation of quality-
oriented education” and “CET is a program which not only helps
improve students’ English proficiency but broadens their encyclopedic
knowledge and gain a better understanding of world cultures through
quality-oriented education”. Most foreign language policymakers and
teachers believe that ESP or EAP only highlight the instrumental aspect
of foreign language education (Hu & Xie, 2014; Wang, 2013).
Second, there is a general feeling of hostility toward bilingual EMI
courses among Chinese scholars. Hu (2003) and Ma (2006), two well-
known scholars working, respectively, for Renmin University of China
and Nankai University, suggest that EMI or bilingual instruction should
be forbidden in Chinese tertiary education as it involves national sover-
eignty and safety, and it is even illegal according to the present Education
Law of the People’s Republic of China. The prejudice against EMI courses
or bilingual education at tertiary level and their influence on the MOE
not only leads to a low proportion of EMI programs in mainland China
(as compared with its neighboring countries like Japan and Korea) but
affects the development EAP and ESP in the field of TEFL as there seems
no pedagogical foundation for the practice of EAP/ESP if the number of
EMI courses is limited.
Third, it seems that the MOE has an ambivalent attitude toward the
internationalization of high education. The MOE (2007), for example,
required CET to make efforts to provide university students with necessary
English language skills to engage them in disciplinary studies especially
in EMI courses. The officials responsible for foreign language education,
however, tend to stress the dissemination of Chinese cultures as one of
the main functions of CET, which should be reflected in every aspect of
CE programs (Liu, 2012, 2014). While the MOE (2010) encourages
tertiary institutions to “introduce outstanding teaching materials from
abroad and to raise the proportion of foreign instructors”, Yuan (2015),
the premier of the MEO, declared that “teaching materials with western
ideologies must be forbidden in the Chinese classroom”. In short, the
MOE tends to play safe by conforming to the nation’s ideologies.
128 J. Cai
Fourth, the majority of CET policymakers possess strong humanistic

mentality. A survey (Cai, 2012) reveals that almost 100% of presidents of
various academic language associations and 90% of deans of foreign lan-
guage departments in tertiary institution are those who study American/
English literature or theoretical linguistics as their master’s degrees or PhD
degrees. As policymakers of different levels, they try to incorporate their
education or liberal arts education into language teaching which they
perceive as tool-oriented, hence diminishing and debasing. Therefore,
when they are confronted with the government and students’ dissatisfac-
tion with EGP, they naturally choose English for liberal education as a
way out instead of ESP or EAP.
Fifth, languages teachers are unwilling to teach ESP which they believe
might affect their research interest and academic development. In main-
land China, American/English literature or theoretical linguistics are real
disciplines, enjoying the same status and prestige as biology, physics and
law, whereas language teaching is not deemed a discipline at all. Many
universities such as Fudan and Zhejiang Universities make a rule that a
teacher of literature and linguistics can enjoy the academic trajectory of
professorship, but an English language teacher will be only promoted
to lecturers or at most senior lecturers. Hence the majority of language
teachers prefer to orientate their research interest toward linguistics and
literature though they are assigned to teaching English. Given that teach-
ing general English may cost less time and effort than teaching ESP
which necessitates language teachers to be familiar with knowledge of
the target disciplines and to spend more time in preparing their lessons
and textbooks which are totally strange to them, they tend to resist ESP
which they think will do a great disservice to their research and academic
promotion, and relegate them to a low-status service role by teaching for
the specialist departments.
Sixth, there is general misconception of EAP which is often equated
with Zhuanye English by both language instructors and subject special-
ists. It is commonly believed that EAP which “cannot be divorced from
the teaching of the subject itself ” (Paltridge, 2009) is beyond the ability
of both language instructors who lack subject specialist knowledge of
the target disciplines to effectively deliver the class and students whose
English proficiency is not qualified for the subject-specific EAP. Coupled
with the general misconception is the consensus that the solid foundation
of general English can qualify students for any disciplinary studies and
any jobs in the future (Hu & Xie, 2014).
Seventh, CET is orientated to the future careers of the students rather
than their current studies, as prescribed in the CETS (1999) or the
CECR (2007). Wen (2014) states that efforts made in China’s foreign
language teaching in the past 30 years have been directed to preparing
students for their future careers. Hence, EAP provision is unnecessary
as there is no need to teach English for students’ current disciplinary
studies. There are two consequences of the orientation. First, as future
studies and careers are unpredictable and vary from student to student,
it is reasonable that CE programs should be limited to EGP instead of
ESP. Second, the language requirement for graduates is lower, because
it is based on the presumption that a majority of graduates will not use
English for their disciplinary studies except for daily life communica-
tion such as in travelling abroad. For example, according to the CETS
(1999) or the CECR (2007), the vocabulary size for those who complete
CET programs is only 4500 words and reading speed is 70–100 word per
minute, the literacy requirement can hardly address the demands of their
disciplinary studies.
The past 40 years of controversies regarding the orientation of CET
has witnessed the discrepancy between CET policies/implementation
and the government foreign language policies. While the government
makes a demand of foreign language capacity on university students from
the perspective of satisfying the national interest of politics, economy,
science and security, CET policymakers, however, design the national
CET syllabus in accordance with the theory of second language acquisi-
tion. They tend to conduct the needs analysis of individual students and
circumstances in which foreign language learning can effectively takes
place. It is natural that the language requirement they design is exclu-
sively based on how many new words freshmen could learn or how much
they could master in the two-year CE program instead of on whether the
vocabulary size they are required to acquire can fit the needs of students’
disciplinary studies and the government requirement. It is also based
on the EFL environment in which there is difficulty improving English
proficiency, especially oral English, without adequate language exposure,
130 J. Cai
instead of on the possibility that they could develop the skill of reading
and writing appropriate to their academic studies, especially in extract-
ing information from international journals and writing for international
conferences and journals. Again taking learners’ motivation, attitudes,
preferences and levels of English proficiency into full consideration, CET
programs emphasize addressing the idiosyncratic learning needs instead
of the national and institutional requirement. This is evidenced from the
consensus reached in the Nanjing symposium in 2003:
The foreign language policy should be based the scientific attitudes and
made according to the rule of second language acquisition. Every decision
and policy should be grounded in scientific studies instead of with the best
of intentions. Failure to take into account the environment of learning
English as a foreign language will be a disservice to foreign language educa-
tion in China. (CET, 2003, p. 36)
Wang (2013) also emphasizes in an article entitled “Adhering to the

scientific view of college English teaching reform” that we must “comply
with the rule of foreign language teaching”.
7 Conclusion
There are four debates over the orientation of CET for almost four
decades. The core argument is the necessity or even validity of a paradigm
shift from EGP to ESP and the underlying cause for its hindrance is that
policymakers of different levels have different perceptions of the objec-
tive of foreign language teaching and learning. While there is a belief that
foreign languages are a tool to serve pragmatic aims such as the needs
of the socioeconomic development, more policymakers, however, main-
tain that a foreign language should be learned for its own sake, either
to improve language proficiency or broaden one’s horizon through an
additional language.
Conflicts and tensions are unavoidable as stakeholders perceive the
same issue from different perspectives. It should be recognized, however,
that the mainstream perception of English language teaching had led to
the failure of Chinese tertiary education in producing a generation of

scientists and professionals capable of using English for their research and
work adequately. It is not the failure of language teachers, but rather, the
failure of the CET orientation and the failure of English language poli-
cies. One thing is clear that foreign language teaching is not conducted
in a vacuum. As a part of the national strategies of politics, economy and
security, it should be subject to the national interest. One example is the
audio-lingual method which was created and developed in the Second
World War when American universities actively responded to the needs
of the war by switching their traditional grammar-translation method to
the audio-lingual method in foreign language programs to supply mili-
tary personnel with conversational proficiency in variety of foreign lan-
guages. It is worth concluding the chapter with the quotation of Xu, the
pioneer of foreign language education in China:
Teaching objectives as well as the methodology should serve the national

interest. They should not be decided by personal favorites or interest. When
it comes to foreign language policies which entail the national interest,
being innovative instead of following the beaten track is of great importance.
(Xu, 1978, p. 10)
ppendix: A Framework of Reference for

A
EFL Teaching at Tertiary Level in Shanghai
(Revised Edition) for Non-English Major
Undergraduates
English is playing an increasingly prominent role in the process of glo-
balization and internalization of higher education in China, especially
in metropolitan Shanghai. The new challenge results in a considerable
need for university students equipped with international communication
skills and competitiveness within their areas of specialty so as to meet the
needs of the national and regional socioeconomic development as well as
the internationalization of higher education. A Framework of Reference for
EFL Teaching at Tertiary Level in Shanghai (Framework hereafter) is thus
designed so as to accommodate such demands and to provide tertiary
132 J. Cai
institutions in Shanghai with the guidelines for English as a foreign lan-

guage (EFL) teaching to their non-English major undergraduate students.
In view of the diversity of tertiary institutions in Shanghai in terms of
institutional goals, teaching resources, and students’ English proficiency
upon entering university, colleges and universities are encouraged to work
out, in accordance with the Framework and in the light of their specific
circumstances, a scientific and individualized curriculum to guide their
own EFL teaching.
Orientation and Objectives
EFL (as popularly known as college English teaching, we use CET hence-
forth) is oriented toward offering English courses for non-English major
undergraduate students by serving their needs of using English to study
academic subjects hence its contribution to the cultivation of profession-
als in various disciplines.
The objective of CET is to provide students with the necessary aca-
demic English language skills and adequate genre knowledge to enable
them to succeed in their current academic studies and future careers,
so that they will communicate effectively in international academic dis-
courses. Apart from building students’ academic language skills, it also
focuses on liberal education and scientific literacy, aiming to cultivate
students’ critical thinking, autonomous learning, cross-cultural commu-
nication, and cooperation so as to better address the needs of national
and regional socioeconomic developments.
EFL at tertiary level should differ intrinsically from EFL in elemen-
tary and secondary education in terms of orientation and objectives.
While the latter is to teach English for the mere improvement of stu-
dents’ English proficiency, the former prioritizes improving under-
graduates’ language skills for academic studies and future careers. The
discrepancy in the objective necessitates a paradigm shift in the tradi-
tional CET program to meet the needs of students’ disciplinary studies
and the requirement of the government’s effort to construct world-class
universities and disciplines. Such a refreshed perception of CET will
also justify its unique place and irreplaceable role in mainland tertiary
education.
Content and Goals
EFL is divided into English for general purposes (EGP) and English for spe-
cific purposes (ESP). EGP teaching is oriented largely toward improving
language skills for a solid foundation, whereas ESP teaching is designed
to serve specific needs in students’ academic studies and in their future
careers. ESP can be further distinguished by the nature of the learners’
specialism: English for occupational purposes (EOP) and English for aca-
demic purposes (EAP). EOP instruction is designed for language training
required in a particular occupation, whereas EAP instruction is aimed at
developing students’ academic literacy skills required in their discipline
courses and research work. EAP can be sub-categorized into English for
general academic purposes (EGAP) and English for specific academic purposes
(ESAP). EGAP focuses on the development of students’ oral and written
academic language skills across the disciplines, including the basic lis-
tening and note-taking skills for academic lectures, seminar presentation
skills, literature review skills, term paper writing skills, and academic dis-
cussion skills. ESAP highlights language, genre, discourse, and rhetoric
features within specific disciplines (e.g. finance, law, engineering, medi-
cine) as well as the literacy skills appropriate to the purposes of particular
communities. The hierarchy of EFL teaching is illustrated in Fig. 6.1:
Hence, it is obvious that EAP serves an indispensable bridge in helping
students transit from EGP-based learning in high school to practical use
of the language in academic study. It assumes a double role: (i) improv-
ing students’ academic language skills and genre awareness to help them
better cope with disciplinary study, and (ii) fostering a cross-disciplinary
perspective to meet more demanding requirements for professionals in
the twenty-first century (see Table 6.2). It is inevitable, therefore, that
EAP shall be made into the core of CET programs in all tertiary institu-
tions regardless of research-oriented universities or teaching-oriented col-
leges, and EAP courses shall prepare students for both academic research
careers and non-academic occupations.
To meet the aforementioned goals in EAP instruction, a benchmark-
ing scale consisting of two competence levels (A & B) is proposed. Level
A is designed mainly for EGAP teaching while Level B is for ESAP
teaching on basis of the achievement of A-level goals. Level A might be
134 J. Cai
English as a
Foreign Language
(EFL)
English for English for

General Purposes Specific Purposes
(EGP) (ESP)
English for Occupaonal Purposes English for

(EOP) Academic
e.g. English for nurses, taxi Purposes (EAP)
drivers, bank clerks
English for General Academic Purposes English for Specific Academic

(EGAP) Purposes (ESAP)
e.g. skills including listening to e.g. genre, discourse, rhetoric and
academic lectures, literature review language features within a specific
skills, presentaon skills, academic discipline (e.g. biology, law)
wring and discussion skills
Fig. 6.1 Taxonomy of EFLT
c omplemented with elements in Level B when implemented. A prelimi-

nary EAP Competence Scale for College Students (see Table 6.3) is thus
designed for teaching and assessment. Individual universities are sug-
gested to adhere to descriptors within one level or select descriptors from
either level in relevance to the disciplinary requirements and students’
language competence to compile an operational scale for their own use.
Curriculum and Arrangement
The CET curriculum is mainly composed of three course types: tran-

sitional, core, and elective. Transitional courses are EGP-based courses
mainly for freshmen with relatively low English proficiency to enable
them to adapt themselves to the core courses. Hence, transitional EGP
Table 6.2 Elements and teaching goals of EAP
Discipline-specific genre Cross-disciplinary scientific Qualifications of twenty-
EGAP sub-skills knowledge literacy first century intellectuals
1. Listening to lectures, 1. Familiarity with 1. Ability to conduct 1. Critical thinking ability;
note-taking; characteristics of various autonomous and lifelong 2. Communication and
2. Reading general academic sub-genres (research learning and research; coordination ability;
papers and discipline- report, experiment 2. Question raising and 3. Group cooperation
specific literature; report, literature review, problem solving on basis ability;
3. Writing literature review, book review, conference of information analysis 4. Innovation and creative
academic papers, paper abstract, journal and integration; thinking ability;
abstracts; article, etc.); 3. Observance of norms and 5. Cross-cultural
4. Presenting academic 2. Knowledge and ethics in academia; communication ability
papers, participating in observance of 4. Application of scientific
academic discussion established research reasoning and
paradigms and discourse methodology in public
traditions in the specific affairs
discipline
6 Debates Around the Orientation of TEFL in Chinese Tertiary…
135
136
Table 6.3 EAP competence scale for college students

Sub-skill Level A Level B
Listening Students are expected to have a good Having had a good command of listening skills specified
command of general listening strategies, in Level A, students are expected to (1) command
J. Cai
including predicting vocabulary, identify main various strategies of academic listening;

points, and hearing for discourse markers in (2) comprehend extended (over 30 min) academic
signaling structure of a lecture. In addition, speeches and lectures in their fields and delivered in
they are expected to (1) understand short standard and non-standard English varieties at a
(e.g. 15 min) academic speeches related to natural speed; (3) take notes and organize them in a
their fields and given in standard English way that allows a comprehensive summary of the
varieties at a moderate speed; (2) note down content to be written; (4) identify gaps in their
thematic and key points in a speech allowing understanding of specific details and broader issues
a short summary of the content to be written; related to speeches and lectures, and raise questions
(3) identify gaps in their understanding of the that will fill these gaps
theme and main ideas of a speech and raise
questions that will fill these gaps
Speaking Students are expected to have a good command Having had a good command of speaking skills specified
of basic speaking strategies, including the in Level A, students are expected to (1) communicate
communication of simple facts and opinions complex facts and persuasive opinions with disciplinary
with a comprehensible pronunciation, peers; (2) make formal academic presentations
question raising strategies, and simple ways to (e.g. 20 min) in specific disciplines to international
show agreement or disagreement. In addition, audiences, and respond properly to raised questions as
they are expected to (1) deliver short well as raise questions to other presenters
(e.g. 10 min) presentations on general topics
across disciplines; (2) adopt proper
communication strategies to get actively
involved in and contribute to group/seminar
discussions
(continued)
Reading Students are expected to have a good Having had a good command of reading skills specified
command of basic readings strategies, in Level A, students are expected to (1) read and
including skimming, scanning, inferring understand the main points and details in research
meaning from context. In addition, they are articles and theses of considerable length (4000–5000
expected to (1) read and understand the main words) in specific disciplines at an average speed of 200
points in articles of medium length that are words/min; (2) read and understand concepts explained
related to their field but written for a in materials and textbooks in their field; (3) familiarize
non-specialist audience (e.g. popular science with various disciplinary genres (e.g. journal articles,
articles, introductory essays, 2000 words in research proposals) and their move and steps
length) at an average speed of 150 words/ (e.g. IMRD model for research articles), and rhetorical
min; (2) acquire critical reading skills, modes (e.g. problem solving, hypothesis testing) and
including distinguishing between facts and metadiscoursal devices (e.g. hedging)
opinions, evaluating credibility of source
materials, and discerning biased and false
information; (3) have adequate knowledge of
discourse rhetorical devices (e.g. definition,
classification, compare, contrast, cause-effect)
(continued)
137
138
J. Cai

Writing Students are expected to have a good Having had a good command of writing skills specified
command of basic writing strategies, in Level A, students are expected to (1) write extended
including writing topic and supporting academic essays (e.g. 2000 words) on topics related to
sentences, the use of cohesive devices, and their field of study; (2) observe disciplinary conventions,
sentence construction skills. In addition, they modes of inquiry, structures and moves in writing for
are expected to (1) write a summary based on various sub-genres, e.g. research articles, reports, in the
reading a paragraph/section/article; (2) write discipline; (3) use lexical and syntactical structures of
paragraphs with specific functions, including relatively high formality in written discourse e.g.
definition, classification, exemplification, research articles; (4) adopt various metadiscoursal
description, compare, contrast, cause-effect devices such as evidentials, hedges, engagement and
analysis, elaboration and evaluation; (3) write attitude markers; (5) follow discipline-specific
short academic essays (300 words) conventions in in-text citation and bibliographic
synthesizing information from other sources; practices; (6) get acquainted with discipline-specific
(4) write literature reviews (500 words) discourse and writing conventions, and submission
concerning topics in specific disciplines; requirements of professional journals in the field
(5) write abstracts (200 words) for the
submission of conference papers; (6) follow
citation conventions and adopt the strategies
to avoid plagiarism (e.g. summarizing, direct
quotation, and paraphrasing)
(continued)
Vocabulary Students are expected to have a good Having had a good command of vocabulary skills
command of various vocabulary learning specified in Level A, students are expected to (1)
strategies, including guessing the word develop a receptive vocabulary of a minimum of 10,000
meaning through affixes and contexts. In words; (2) familiarize with the collocations of the
addition, they are expected to (1) develop a high-frequency words and be able to use them in a
receptive vocabulary of a minimum of 8000 variety of written and spoken academic contexts;
words (see Reference Wordlist for EGAP (3) use reporting verbs in description of data in visual
Teaching in Shanghai); (2) develop a spoken representations and in reporting experiment results or
and written productive vocabulary, the survey findings; (4) acquire around 1000 semi-technical
high-frequency words of BNC 3000 word and specialized words in specific disciplines (e.g. words
families and 570 word families in the from medical, engineering and agricultural academic
Academic Word List (AWL),academic word lists)
vocabulary which are transferable across the
disciplines and used in definition, description,
illustration of theories, arguments and
hypothesis; (3) acquire high-frequency
discipline-specific academic vocabulary
(continued)
139
140
J. Cai
Study Students are expected to have a good Having had a good command of learning strategies
command of basic learning strategies, specified in Level A, students are expected to (1) have a
including time management, study planning, basic knowledge concerning the nature, origin, and
and monitoring of progress. In addition, they characteristics of the discipline, and linguistic means of
are expected to (1) make full use of library knowledge construction and dissemination; (2) have
and electronic database for locating and the needed knowledge about fundamental
finding resources for autonomous learning; methodology and steps in research practice, including
(2) know how to obtain information related choosing a suitable topic, reviewing literature,
to their field using Internet search skills; collecting data, and reporting findings in oral or
(3) analyze and synthesize information written forms; (3) conduct projects on topics related to
obtained from multiple sources; (4) know their field either independently or collaboratively;
how to work in groups taking responsibility (4) demonstrate critical and creative thinking abilities
for individual decisions and actions and in research work; (5) develop the ability to organize a
building up confidence in a collaborative variety of discussions, seminars, and conferences using
learning environment English
courses including traditional courses such as Listening, Speaking, Reading,

and Writing are to be made preferably elective.
Core courses consist of two categories: EGAP courses and ESAP
courses. EGAP courses train students’ generic academic language skills
in such courses as EAP Listening and Speaking, EAP Reading, Academic
Paper Presentation, and Academic Writing. ESAP courses focus on lan-
guage instruction in specific disciplines. For instance, courses targeting
at communication skills for international conferences, writing skills for
research articles, experiment reports, paper presentation, case study and
contract writing, shall focus on the discourse structure, moves and steps
analysis and language features in various sub-genres within individual
field of study, as well as discourse conventions and rhetorical traditions
thereof.
As those skills and abilities of oral and written communication are
expected in all universities students, and learning the skills will consoli-
date and accelerate the development of their general English skills, it is
suggested that EAP courses, especially EGAP courses, should be made
required in the undergraduate program, ensuring that every student shall
receive some EAP training for proper improvement in academic English
literacy and competence.
Elective courses mainly aim to familiarize students with international
conventions within their own field of study, to equip them with basic
skills required in cross-cultural academic communication and coopera-
tion, and to cultivate a better understanding of and tolerance toward
cultural differences as well as the identification of Chinese culture. Hence,
such liberal education courses may be offered as Introduction to British
and American Society and Culture, Development of Science and Its Ethics,
Critical Thinking, Cross-Cultural Issues in Academic Communication,
and Public Speaking. In addition, such courses as British and American
Literature and Western Civilization might also be offered in some univer-
sities with appropriate faculty. It is suggested, however, that such addi-
tional courses be integrated into the school liberal education module so
as not to share the limited EFL credits.
The Framework presented here fully recognizes the variations of indi-
vidual schools. Hence the categorization, required credits, name and con-
tent of the courses (see Table 6.4) are all suggestive in nature. Colleges
142
J. Cai
Table 6.4 Recommended structure of EAT curriculum

Transitional
courses Core courses Elective courses
Course category EGP (elective) EGAP (required) ESAP (required/elective) English for liberal education
Credit proportion 0–5% 55% 30% 10%
Course content –Listening and –EAP Listening and –Writing for lab reports; –Introduction to—British and
speaking; speaking; –Writing for business/ American Society and
–Reading; –EAP reading; legal cases Culture;
–Writing; –Presentation skills; –Writing for research –Development of science and
or –EAP writing; articles; its ethics;
–Integrated CE or –Technical presentation; –Critical thinking;
courses –Integrated EAP –Technical translation –Cross-Cultural issues in
courses academic communication;
–Public speaking;
–Business English
and universities shall make full allowance for the needs of different dis-
ciplines, English proficiency of different students, and so on to design
an individualized curriculum for the whole school as well as for different
faculties. Moreover, the appropriate integration of and balance between
enhancement courses, academic English courses, and liberal education
courses are encouraged to ensure that students with different English pro-
ficiencies and discipline backgrounds can receive effective training and
make progress.
Modifications made to the objectives and content of CET create a
new need for its larger share in the undergraduate credit system. As the
internationalization of higher education and globalization call for a more
prominent place for EAP courses at tertiary level, a fair proportion of
credits can be added to the CE program, and a recommended minimum
credit proportion is 10%.
It is suggested that newly enrolled students be sorted into different
classes based on their scores in the English tests of National College
Entrance Examination or scores in the school English placement tests.
In normal cases, except for students with relatively low English level (e.g.
lower than EFL at tertiary level Band One) who are advised to take the
enhancement EGP courses, the majority of the students can immediately
start EGAP courses.
EGAP can be realized in the courses training separate language skills
such as EAP Listening and Speaking, EAP Reading, Presentation Skills, and
EAP Writing, or the courses developing comprehensive academic literacy
skills such as Integrated Academic English Band I, II, III. It is recommended
that at least 55% of CET credits be allotted to these core courses. The
more challenging ESAP courses, which are in close relation to the stu-
dents’ specific disciplinary study, are recommended to be arranged after
implementation of EGAP courses, and are also to be made required.
All CET courses can be taught within the first and second academic
years of the undergraduate program, in such an order as to move from
basic to challenging, gradually shifting from EGAP to ESAP. It is sug-
gested, however, that colleges and universities which have enjoyed a
relatively high proportion of English medium instruction courses or
English–Chinese bilingual courses adopt a compressed schedule to place
EAP courses in the first academic year of the undergraduate program.
144 J. Cai
Such practice of condensed learning and intensified training can not

only improve the efficiency of language learning, but also allow students
to timely apply their acquired English academic literacy skills to their
disciplinary studies during the subsequent years of the undergraduate
program.
The school-based curriculum ought to be in line with the principle
of individualized and discipline-based instruction. Hence, full allowance
shall be made to cater for the varying needs of students from different fac-
ulties, and to design a customized “menu” of courses and adopt effective
teaching methods appropriate for individual faculties and/or disciplines.
Assessment and Testing
Assessment plays a crucial role in CET instruction. It not only helps

teachers obtain feedback from students, improve administration of teach-
ing, and ensure teaching quality, but also provides students with an effec-
tive means to monitor their progress, adjust their learning strategies and
improve their learning efficiency. There are assessments for both learning
and teaching, and the former can be realized in both forms of formative
assessment and summative assessment.
Formative assessment is to evaluate students’ progress and develop-
ment in the learning process, on the basis of stated objectives and learn-
ing targets. Special attention should be given to diagnostic assessment and
students’ self-reports on learning progress. The assessment helps teachers
to spot and record the problems students confront in the process and
to provide them with constructive advice and suggestions. The purpose
of the formative assessment is not only to judge students’ performance,
but more importantly to help students reach their learning targets. In
regard to EAP courses, formative assessment mainly focuses on students’
performance in team work on project/case-based research or study. It can
be carried out in the assigned projects relevant to the main themes of
the textbooks or the issues of their disciplines. The task/project-based
assignment requires students to work in groups or teams to (i) search,
evaluate and organize information, (ii) review and summarize literature,
(iii) design their own research (e.g. questionnaire, interview, field study,
and experiment), (iv) collect and describe data, (v) analyze and explain
results, and (vi) report research findings in oral or written form. Adequate
importance needs to be attached to students’ self-evaluation and peer
evaluation. For instance, the evaluation might take account of group per-
formanc. It is suggested that English medium forums for students to share
their research may be organized on a regular basis (e.g. every semester or
academic year). Participants are required to write short papers in line with
the forum themes, submit their abstracts and make presentations. EAP
teachers are encouraged to cooperate with subject specialists in the forum
theme/topic selection and reviewing students’ abstracts.
Summative assessment refers to achievement tests and comprehensive
evaluation when a course is completed. The achievement tests of EGAP
courses, for example, may include such items as listening comprehension
of academic lectures, academic vocabulary size, reading comprehension
of academic articles, sentence paraphrasing, summarizing main ideas of
paragraphs and articles, and writing literature reviews. Comprehensive
evaluation should not only take into account the improvement of the
students’ comprehensive language skills, but also their progress made in a
particular sub-skill or a combination of sub-skills. Apart from measurable
skills, communication and cooperative skills, critical and creative thinking
potentials as demonstrated in the project-based group work should also be
taken into account. The conventional idea of “evaluation for evaluation’s
sake” and the practice of measuring students’ performance by the profi-
ciency tests should be abandoned. It must be recognized that the major
goal of assessment is to provide students with incentive and enthusiasm
to continue study and to boost confidence in their own learning abilities.
Teaching assessment is not restricted to the students’ evaluation of
teachers’ performance and the efficiency of the course they offer. It should
include the teachers’ self-evaluation of their own courses and the materials
adopted, the degree of their understanding of the stated goals of courses
and of the way they assist students in reaching these goals. Course evalua-
tion includes the analysis of the students’ needs before the course, and the
survey of students’ feedback after the course, as well as a comprehensive
self-assessment on all pedagogical activities, including assignments and
examinations. Such evaluation is aimed to provide necessary modifica-
tions in teaching and to enhance effectiveness of instruction.
146 J. Cai
To provide further guidance for assessing students’ academic English

competence and obtain useful feedback for teachers to improve EAP
instruction, the Test of English for Academic Purposes (TEAP, see design
and a test sample in www.ceapa.cn) is developed in accordance with the
EAP Competence Scale. The battery of tests is run by non-institutional
organizations and companies and is open to all students who have com-
pleted the EGAP program. Schools should encourage students to take an
active part in the TEAP.
Material Design and Development
Materials selection and writing is critical to the implementation of the

Framework. EAP materials should not to be mistaken for the materials of
subject-based English which, mainly taught by subject specialists, focuses
on content knowledge. They should also be distinguished from tradi-
tional EGP-based College English textbooks which emphasize interesting
and educational themes, underscore idiomatic and elegant expressions,
and exclude the texts written by non-native speakers even non-renowned
writers. EAP materials, however, focus on informative nature of the cho-
sen texts, not excluding academic prose written by non-native speakers.
EGAP materials, selected from broad disciplines—both humanities
and natural sciences but entailing little disciplinary knowledge, but
entailing little disciplinary knowledge, act as the carriers through which
students’ academic skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing
are properly trained. The selected texts shall feature general techniques in
argumentative writing, including definition, classification, description,
reporting, compare, contrast, elaboration, etc. If narrower disciplines are
to be the focus, the ESAP materials should be introductory and most
importantly representative of students’ target language use situation,
such as the typical genre and language features of the discipline. They
are not required to be systematic or complete in content. The principle
of writing ESAP materials is to teach skills which empower the learners
to study their subjects and communicate effectively in their target disci-
plines rather than to obtain content knowledge. Both EGAP and ESAP
materials should be authentic in content and tasks: the structure and
lexical choices of the original text may be retained to the best, including
in-text citation; the selected texts be of adequate length (aiming for 2000
words) encompassing divergent texts on a certain issue; and the task
design may focus on developing students’ skills in searching for infor-
mation, writing literature review, reporting findings in the process of
conducting project-based tasks.
School/discipline-based EAP materials, and ESAP materials in particu-
lar should be encouraged. It is suggested that colleges and universities of
similar kinds should collaborate in developing ESP materials suitable for
their own students or specific disciplines, in the light of the Framework
and theories in linguistics and EFL pedagogy. The school-based ESP
materials call for joint efforts of language teachers, s ubject specialists, and
English native speakers. They should be based on the analysis of students’
English proficiency the target situation analysis in various areas of spe-
cialty. Language teachers should consult subject specialists about the selec-
tion of content, topics, core vocabulary, and language proficiency targets.
With their help, language teachers can search for appropriate teaching
materials and design authentic tasks to fully satisfy the needs of students
in the study of their target disciplines as well as in their future workplace
situations. The school/discipline-based ESP textbooks should be devel-
oped with a future perspective and with demonstrative practical func-
tions. In addition to the development of teaching materials, due stress
should be laid on the building of ESP resource banks and corpora. The
EGAP resource bank, for example, may include collections of audio-visual
materials such as academic lectures of various difficulty levels and cases
of avoiding plagiarism. The ESAP corpora may collect linguistic features
(e.g. lexical bundles, formulaic language and collocation) associated with
different moves and functions of particular genres of a specific disciplines.
Teacher Competence and Development
Qualified EAP teachers are the key to the implementation of EAP

instruction. But first of all, there is a great need for a change in the tra-
ditional perception of EAP which has been misinterpreted as subject-
based English or even bilingual teaching by most Chinese EFL teachers.
148 J. Cai
It must be recognized that EAP teachers may not be sufficiently famil-

iar with the disciplines of their target learners who will most likely be
more knowledgeable about the content than the teachers, but they are
expected to have a fair knowledge of the linguistic, textual, and stylistic
features within a specific discipline for knowledge construction and dis-
semination. The role of EAP teachers is to draw on students’ knowledge
of the content to generate communication in the classroom and to help
students develop academic language skills which are useful in the study
of their disciplines rather than to help them acquire knowledge of their
subjects. In short, the responsibility resides with EAP teachers to help
learners use English effectively in the study of their major disciplines. A
paradigm shift from EGP to EAP necessitates a change of the method-
ology used traditionally by language teachers. EAP practitioners should
be able to perform both the needs analysis of entrants including their
language proficiency and of the target situation (e.g. the genres and lan-
guage requirement of their disciplines). Instead of the mere analysis of
discourse structure and language usage of a text, EAP teachers are also
required to guide students to evaluate the authors’ arguments by read-
ing and comparing external sources of the same topic, to identify their
stance and bias through the analysis of metadiscourse they use and to
check the reliability of the evidence they offer and the conclusion they
draw. In teaching writing, they are required to evaluate students’ ability
to support their arguments and claims by using evidence both empirical
and literature with correct citation conventions and formal language style
as well as the accuracy of grammar and the language they use. Essential
knowledge, skills and attitudes required for an EAP teacher are captured
in the Framework for EAP Teacher Development (see Table 6.5).
Several suggestions are proposed for ESP teacher training. First, the
workload of novice ESP teachers should be lightened so that they can
receive a minimal one-semester in-service training course, during which
they will study ESP theories more systematically, carry out case studies
of ESP teaching and write ESP and EAP teaching materials to have a
better understanding of ESP theories. They will also audit the classes of
discipline professors to identify students’ difficulty with language and
their learning needs. Additionally, schools can create better opportunities
Table 6.5 Framework for EAP teacher development

No. Descriptors
1 Have a better understanding of the origin and definition of EAP, and the
role it plays in higher education
2 Be able to distinguish among EAP, EGP, and EMI courses in terms of goals
and methodology, and have adequate knowledge of EAP theories
(e.g. genre analysis, study skills, metadiscourse)
3 Feel motivated to explore into the characteristics of EAP in EFLT setting
and actively engaged in EAP teaching and research
4 Be sufficiently familiar with the knowledge construction and dissemination
in the target discipline, i.e., discourse structures, rhetorical devices,
linguistic features, and metadiscourse of various genres
5 Be able to generalize about the cross-disciplinary features of academic
discourse, so as to improve students’ cross-disciplinary EAP skills as well as
their genre awareness
6 Be able to conduct needs analysis, including present situation analysis
(students’ wants and proficiency), and target situation analysis (the
required language skills in their disciplinary studies and future careers)
7 Be able to collaborate with subject specialists for EAP course design and
material development
8 Be able to design appropriate EAP curriculum and syllabus, select material,
and adopt proper teaching methods in accordance with the selected
syllabus
9 Be able to borrow theoretical and empirical insights from related research
paradigms, i.e., SLA and FLT, to better implement EAP instruction
10 Be able to conduct EAP teaching in a combination of multiple methods,
i.e., skill-based, genre-based project/research-based and corpus-driven
approaches, etc. with basic skills in corpus building and use of searching
tools
11 Be able to incorporate critical thinking in task/project-based teaching
practice
12 Be able to organize various project/research-based activities in EAP
instruction to give proper guidance to students in collecting data,
conducting surveys or experiments, and reporting research findings
13 Be able to conduct formative and summative assessment for effective
evaluation of students’ academic skills in EAP instruction
14 Be able to participate in compilation of EGAP and ESAP textbooks
15 Be able to assist students in analyzing discursive features, standards for
language, formatting and graphic representations of research articles
within specific disciplines and offer guidance in publishing their
manuscripts
16 Be able to adopt additional means to improve teaching practice, e.g.,
teaching journal, reflections, and feedback
(continued)
150 J. Cai
No. Descriptors
17 Be able to conduct EAP teaching using technology-assisted methods, i.e.,
video lectures, Wechat group discussion learning and flipped class, etc.
18 Be able to stay motivated to EAP development and stay ready for changes
and challenges in the teaching practice
19 Be able to conduct teaching-based research using empirical research tools,
e.g., experiment, questionnaire, interview; and develop a habit of
reading EAP/ESP journals (e.g. Journal of EAP, Journal of ESP, and Asian
ESP Journal and China ES,) and submit research papers
20 Be able to participate in workshops and conferences on EAP teaching and
research to present research findings and communicate with researchers
and practitioners in the field
to involve teachers in overseas ESP teacher training programs. Second,

ESP teachers should be encouraged to attend ESP/EAP conferences or
workshops held both nationally and internationally. ESP experts might
be invited to hold a series of ESP lectures for them. ESP teachers might
also attend the colleagues’ ESP classes to share teaching experience with
each other. Third, ESP teachers need to cooperate with subject specialists,
whose discipline knowledge can help them gain a better understanding
of basic content knowledge and stay informed of the latest development
of the particular discipline, its language and sub-genre features of the
discipline-specific discourse and needed language skills and communica-
tive strategies for disciplinary study and professional work.
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Jigang Cai is a full professor at the Foreign Languages and Literature Department
of Fudan University, China. He is the president of the China EAP Association
and vice president of the Chinese Association for ESP. In addition, he works
for the Shanghai government as chair of the Shanghai Advisory Committee on
EFL teaching at Tertiary Level. His research interests include contrastive linguis-
tics, applied linguistics and ESP/EAP studies. His publication list includes more
than 80 research articles and about 6 books on the subjects of these two fields.
7
From EAP Teaching to English-Medium
Instruction: Innovation in EFL
Curriculum at Tsinghua University
in China
Weimin Zhang and Hao Zhang
1 Introduction
Since China adopted the policy of opening to the outside world in the
1970s, the English language has attained an increasingly important sta-
tus in the country. According to the Ministry of Education of Peoples
Republic of China (2001), English as a foreign language (EFL) education
begins in grade 3 at the primary school level and students from primary
school to high school have to take EFL courses at least four class hours
weekly. Chinese undergraduate students as non-English majors also have
to learn EFL as a compulsory course four hours per week in Year 1 and
Year 2 (Wu, 2001) and most graduate students in China need to take
English as a required course for one or two terms.
With growing importance attached to the English language in China,
the last four decades have witnessed significant progress in EFL education
from primary school to high school. Numerous high school students,
W. Zhang (*) • H. Zhang

Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

156 W. Zhang and H. Zhang
especially those in big cities such as Beijing and Shanghai, are fairly com-
petent in English for general purposes (EGP) when they graduate (Liu &
Zhang, 2015; Zhang, 2005). The vocabulary size of elementary school,
junior high and senior high school students can, respectively, reach 1000,
3000 and 5000 words upon graduation (Cai, 2004).
Tertiary EFL education, however, tends to be perceived to be time-
consuming and less efficient (Hu, 2002; Zheng & Dai, 2013). College
students are often found to be dissatisfied with their English proficiency
when they graduate (Dai, 2001; Wang & Wang, 2003; Xia, 2003; Zhang,
Zhang, & Liu, 2015). They even consider Chinese tertiary EFL educa-
tion system a disappointment, if not a total failure (Zhang, Zhang, &
Liu, 2011). Therefore, innovation in tertiary EFL education is urgently
called for within the Chinese context (Cai & Liao, 2010; Wang & Wang,
2011; Zhang et al., 2011). This chapter, taking Tsinghua University, a
highly ranked research-oriented university in China as a case, reports on
its integrated English curriculum system (IECS) recently developed for
undergraduate students as non-English majors.
2 Impetus to EFL Curriculum Innovation

Despite the fact that English has become a core curricular subject in Chinese
higher education, growing criticism has emerged regarding the quality of
its tertiary EFL education (Lei & Hu, 2014). Research suggests that with
China’s deepening integration into the world system, its tertiary EFL edu-
cation fails to develop students with advanced English proficiency (Hu &
McKay, 2012). Students often complain that their English proficiency is
still low after receiving higher education, and in many cases, even lower
than when they took the National College Matriculation Examination in
high school (Wang & Wang, 2003; Xia, 2003). For this disturbing situa-
tion, three major interrelated reasons have been identified as follows:
1. EFL education in most Chinese tertiary institutions is based markedly

on repeating what was previously taught in schools (Liu & Zhang,
2015). This repetition negatively affects students’ English learning
motivation.
7 From EAP Teaching to English-Medium Instruction: Innovation... 157
2. The current tertiary English curriculum design tends to provide insuf-

ficient exposure to English as the target language. At most Chinese
higher education institutions, freshmen and sophomores are normally
required to take two-hour EFL courses delivered once or twice a week,
while junior and senior undergraduate students are no longer officially
required to attend English courses. This course schedule is in contrast
to the once- or even twice-a-day workload in high school. Clearly,
such an EFL curriculum cannot guarantee college students’ adequate
exposure to the English language, which usually causes a sharp decline
in their English language ability laboriously cultivated in high school.
According to Xia (2003), an alarming number of college students
experience no improvement, even deterioration, of their English pro-
ficiency during higher education.
3. The conflict between tertiary EFL education and professional educa-
tion/general education affects college students’ interest in English
learning. Higher education for undergraduate students, as is well
known, advocates both professional education and general education.
The heavy burden arising from the onerous study of students’ own
major seems to be in conflict with their English learning for which
continuous time and energy expenses are indispensable. In fact, col-
lege students have little knowledge of the relationship between
improving their English proficiency and gaining specialized disciplin-
ary expertise (Zhang et al., 2015). Many of them tend to register for
English courses simply out of the reason that these courses are com-
pulsory and required by the higher education institutions they have
entered. Unfortunately, once given the credits for these courses, they
would probably desert the English language and celebrate the self-
assumed termination of their English learning. Thus, this disconcert-
ing English learning scenario is not in conformity with principles of
second language learning. In addition, many universities regard guar-
anteeing sophisticated English education as English teachers’ obliga-
tion, yet they constantly fail to recognize that disconnecting English
education from professional education and general education has
become somewhat fruitless in pacifying the “profession vis-à-vis
English” rivalry.
As a response to this distressing situation, numerous Chinese EFL edu-

cators and scholars appeal for innovation in college English education
(e.g., Cai, 2004, 2010; Zhang, 2002, 2005; Zhang et al., 2011, 2015).
They call for a clarification on the relationship between English instruc-
tion and college education (Cai & Liao, 2010; Han, 2007) and for a
shift of tertiary English teaching focus from EGP to English for academic
purposes (EAP) (Luo, 2006; Zhang et al., 2011). Echoing the appeal for
the innovations in tertiary EFL education, Tsinghua University, a highly
ranked university in China, has taken the initiative in reforming its
English curricula since 2011. The following section depicts the rationale
for the university’s EFL curriculum innovation from four perspectives:
English and globalization, principles of language learning, English as a
medium of instruction (EMI), and learners’ needs analysis.
3 ationale for EFL Curriculum Innovation

R
at Tsinghua University
3.1 English and Globalization
Tsinghua University’s innovation in EFL curriculum is concerned with

the impact of globalization on the English language. The increasing
globalization in the past decades has substantially consolidated the sta-
tus of English as the international lingua franca (Hu & McKay, 2012).
English, nowadays, is the dominant language in domains such as tech-
nology, networks, computer science, economics, transportation, foreign
affairs, sports, and academic research, and is consequently valued as the
most favorable and efficient means for a country to embrace the world
(Phillipson, 1992; Wang, 2002). Thus, English is not only a communica-
tion medium linking English- and non-English-speaking countries but
also a multinational, multicultural and multifunctional language (Zhang
et al., 2015).
Faced with growing globalization, Chinese tertiary EFL education has
the responsibility to improve college students’ international communi-
cation ability, with the aims to promote the educational internation-
alization of China and enhance China’s international competitiveness
(Shu, 2013). College EFL education should be the indispensable com-

ponent of Chinese higher education and its effectiveness will exert a
profound impact on higher education quality. Up-to-date reforms on
college English education, especially on EFL curricula, therefore, are
unquestionably essential for a comprehensive advancement of Chinese
higher education quality (Wang & Wang, 2011).
3.2 Language Learning Principles
Language curriculum design needs to conform to language learning

principles. Two major principles of language learning are highlighted in
Tsinghua University’s EFL curriculum innovation. One is concerned with
college students’ continuous learning, practicing, and using of English as
the target language.
The other principle is related to pathways of language learning.
Learners who learn and eventually command a language usually follow
one of the two pathways according to their purposes, that is, learning
the language for general purposes (LGP) and learning the language for
academic purposes (LAP), as shown in Fig. 7.1. Both pathways consist
of two stages—progressing from language learning toward language use.
The first pathway of language learning is to learn the language for
general use, moving from LGP learning to its actual use in daily com-
munication. The second pathway is for educational purposes, especially
for higher education, starting from LGP learning and focusing on LAP
Learning the language for general purposes
Learning the language for academic purposes
Language use
Fig. 7.1 Pathways to achieving a command of the target language

learning and its use in academic and professional life. In the second path-
way, the transition between learning LGP and language use is bridged by
LAP learning, which is perceived to be the extension and development of
LGP learning in that LAP learning can not only further reinforce learn-
ers’ language ability for general communication, but also help cultivate
their language ability for professional and literacy development (Zhang
et al., 2011). To achieve command of LGP or LAP, learners need suffi-
cient and continuous exposure to the target language that leads to using
the language as a tool for general or academic purposes. For language
learners, this outcome represents the evolution from language learning
to language using.
In the Chinese context, most undergraduate students merely start on
the first pathway and stay at the EGP learning stage in that the English
courses offered to them still focus on EGP and few chances are provided
for them to experience the stage of using English as a tool. The EGP
teaching focus of the tertiary EFL curriculum is similar to that in high
school. Therefore, innovation in tertiary EFL curriculum needs to center
on leading students to the second pathway, developing EAP courses and
meanwhile, creating opportunities for students to use the target language
for their professional education and general education.
3.3 English as a Medium of Instruction
To promote EFL learners’ use of the target language, EMI is widely adopted
in EFL contexts. EMI is defined as “the use of the English language to
teach academic subjects in countries or jurisdictions where the first lan-
guage (L1) of the majority of the population is not English” (Dearden,
2014, p. 2). EMI programs in recent years have gathered momentum
in tertiary education across non-English-speaking world, particularly in
Europe and Asia (Wang, 2008). English-medium instruction aims to
improve students’ professional disciplinary ability while guaranteeing
their nonstop contact with the English language. Hence, EMI courses
clarify the goal for college English learning, provide students with an
authentic experience of placing what they have learned into practice,
shed light on the importance and necessity of college English educa-
tion, and ultimately make English learning an organic component of the
college education system. Previous research has shown that EMI courses
help college students improve both their English proficiency and profes-
sional ability (Belhiah & Elhami, 2015; Chang, 2010; Zhang, 2015).
3.4 Needs Analysis
It is argued that language curriculum development should be based

on an analysis of learners’ needs (Benesch, 1996). To reform Tsinghua
University’s EFL curriculum, the first researcher and his colleagues have
administered a survey on Tsinghua students’ English learning needs
from the perspectives of faculty, undergraduate students, and graduate
students (Zhang et al., 2015). Results showed that during their four-
year study, around 50% of undergraduate students at the University
were offered opportunities for overseas exchange, with English being the
working language, and almost all fourth-year undergraduates were sup-
posed to review professional academic literature written in English when
conducting their undergraduate project. Approximately 75% of under-
graduate students directly started their graduate study after completing
their four-year undergraduate program. During their graduate study,
around 95% of the students in doctoral programs and 88% of those in
master’s programs referred to literature written in English for specialized
disciplinary expertise. Eighty percent of doctoral and 60% of master’s
students needed to present academic research at international seminars,
symposia, or conferences, and to compose research papers in English.
These findings suggest that the top priority of Tsinghua’s EFL education
is to provide all-round support to develop both undergraduate students’
EAP competence and their academic and professional skills.
4 Innovation in the EFL Curriculum System

at Tsinghua University
In accordance with the four rationales discussed above, Tsinghua
University has developed an integrated EFL curriculum system (IECS)
for its undergraduate students (as shown in Fig. 7.2). This system high-
lights the following four interrelated features: (1) shifting the EFL
EFL Curriculum System at Tsinghua
EAP course series EMI course series

EMI course series
for language for professional
for general education
learning education
EFL environment platform
Fig. 7.2 The EFL curriculum system at Tsinghua University
teaching focus from EGP to EAP, (2) integrating English learning into
general education and professional education, (3) emphasizing the shift
from language learning to language using, and (4) enhancing continuous
exposure to the English language.
The IECS comprises three course series (i.e., EAP courses for language
learning, EMI courses for general education, and EMI courses for profes-
sional education) and one EFL learning environment platform. Located
in the center of this curriculum system, the EAP course series is designed
to develop students’ English competence for academic communication in
oral and written forms and meanwhile, enhance their academic and pro-
fessional skills, particularly for the purpose of preparing them to take the
EMI courses for general education and professional education. Academic
communication competence is mainly concerned with students’ knowl-
edge of academic discourse features and their capability of reading and
reviewing academic literature, writing academic papers, attending aca-
demic lectures, and participating in academic seminars and workshops.
Academic and professional skills for Tsinghua students concentrate on
the major qualities of academic ethics, honesty, independence, team
spirit, and lifelong learning.
The provision of EMI course series aims not only to develop students’
competence in general education and professional education but also to
guarantee their extensive exposure to and use of the English language.
EMI, therefore, establishes a specific goal for students to take EAP courses.
The EFL environment platform is developed as a supplement to the

three course series to support and facilitate the classroom instruction.
Students are encouraged to use the English language environment to
practice the target language or solve problems in English learning or
using while taking the EAP or EMI courses.
4.1 EAP Course Series
Tsinghua EAP course series (as shown in Fig. 7.3) was established in 2011,
featuring a shift of EFL teaching focus from EGP to EAP for non-English
major undergraduate students. At present, around 180 classes focusing
on EAP teaching with an enrollment capacity of 7200 undergraduate
students are offered each semester.
This course series includes classes at different levels and in two streams
(EAP reading and writing, and EAP listening and speaking), with stu-
dents having the ability to choose classes based on their interest and needs
(Zhang et al., 2011).
The EAP reading and writing courses are based on four genres (i.e.,
expository, argumentative, literature review, and academic paper), which
are generally considered the most frequently used discourse genres in
higher education. Each course has its own teaching focus (i.e., helping
EAP Course Series
EAP Reading and Writing Courses EAP Listening and Speaking Courses
(Genre-based) (Level-based)
1. Expository reading and writing 1. Retelling and summarizing

2. Argumentative reading and writing 2. Reporting and reviewing
3. Literature review reading and writing 3. Seminars and workshops
4. Academic paper reading and writing 4. Debating
Fig. 7.3 EAP course series at Tsinghua University

students command the discourse genre involved). Meanwhile, some

common EAP reading and writing skills are developed throughout all the
four courses, for instance, note-taking for academic reading, summariz-
ing, paraphrasing, reviewing, analyzing and applying academic discourse,
and academic vocabulary.
The EAP listening and speaking courses are based on students’ English
proficiency levels. The four courses matching four levels (Levels 1–4, the
higher the level, the higher the English proficiency) focus, respectively,
on the listening and speaking skills of retelling and summarizing, report-
ing and reviewing, discussing for seminars and workshops, and debat-
ing. Some salient EAP listening and speaking skills also recur throughout
the four courses, including pronunciation and intonation, presentation,
note-taking, and academic vocabulary.
To develop students’ academic qualities and professionalism, some
common skills and attitudes (e.g., academic ethics, lifelong learning,
independent thinking, and team spirit) are also enhanced throughout
both the reading and writing courses and the listening and speaking
courses. In this way, EFL education is hoped to be effectively integrated
into higher education.
4.2 EMI Course Series for General Education
Tsinghua’s EMI course series for general education (see Fig. 7.4) was also
developed in 2011, although its first EMI course of this kind was initiated
in 2001. A decade ago, one class was offered each semester and around
40 students had the opportunity to take this course. Currently, however,
around 80 classes involving 27 EMI courses with an enrollment capacity
of 3200 undergraduate students are provided per semester. These courses
are offered by Chinese EFL teachers or native-English-speaking teachers
according to their research interest or academic specialty.
The EMI course series for general education consists of three streams:
EMI literature and culture courses, EMI history and philosophy courses,
and EMI science courses. As regards the EMI literature and culture course
stream, 19 courses are offered (e.g., Bible and Literature, nineteenth-
century British Literature and Art, Introduction to European Literature,
EMI Course Series for General Education
EMI courses for EMI courses for history EMI courses for
literature and culture and philosophy science
19 courses offered, 5 courses offered: 3 courses offered:

e.g., 1. History of Science 1. Science and Society
1. Bible and Literature 2. History and 2. Introducon to
2. Images of China in Philosophy of Yoga Psychology
English Literature 3. Political Philosophy 3. Business Case
3. Foundations of 4. Art of Critical Analysis
Western Culture Analysis
4. Mythology and 5. History of Western
Culture of Greece Civilization
Fig. 7.4 EMI course series for general education at Tsinghua University
Appreciating English Poetry, Selected Western Drama, Foundations

of Western Culture, Mythology and Culture of Greece, and Images of
China in English Literature). The EMI history and philosophy stream
consists of five different courses (i.e., History of Science, History and
Philosophy of Yoga, Political Philosophy, Art of Critical Analysis, and
History of Western Civilization). The EMI science stream contains three
courses: Science and Society, Introduction to Psychology, and Business
Case Analysis.
4.3 EMI Course Series for Professional Education
Tsinghua’s EMI course series for professional education (as shown in

Fig. 7.5) are designed by the departments of non-English-major under-
graduate students. Presently, around 170 courses are offered to 8200
undergraduate students each semester. In these courses, students gen-
erally use the English language for academic communication, reading
textbooks and course materials, completing assignments, and taking
quizzes and tests. These EMI courses can be categorized into two groups
EMI core courses
EMI Course Series for

Professional Education
EMI seminars
Fig. 7.5 EMI course series for professional education at Tsinghua University
according to the language used in classroom teaching. Roughly 70 of the

courses employ English as the in-class language for teaching while nearly
100 courses use a mixture of English and Chinese as the classroom teach-
ing language.
This EMI course series normally includes two groups: EMI core
courses and EMI seminars. The first group, usually lecture-oriented with
a class size of 60–120 students, tends to be offered for freshmen and
sophomores. The second group of courses is seminar-oriented with a class
size of 15–30 students and granted to junior and senior undergraduate
students.
4.4 EFL Environment Platform
The construction of EFL environment is of great significance to English

learning and using, especially to its learning continuance (Zhang et al.,
2015). To support and facilitate EAP teaching and English-medium
instruction, Tsinghua University has established its EFL learning envi-
ronment platform, comprising an open environment and a personalized
environment (as shown in Fig. 7.6). The open environment is destined
to help build an English learning environment for a wide range of stu-
dents with different language learning experiences, and the personalized
environment is used to offer individualized tutoring and consultation for
students’ personal development.
The open environment, accessible to most Tsinghua undergraduate
students, mainly consists of four modules as follows: (1) English immer-
sion summer camp. Almost all the undergraduate students are required to
EFL Environment Platform
Open environment Personalized environment
1. English immersion summer camp 1. Tutoring center for English writing

2. English societies & competitions (EAP-oriented)
(speech, debate, and drama) 2. Consulting center for English
3. Campus anglicization and learning strategies
internationalization (e.g., weekly lab
meetings, public lectures for
academic exchange)
4. Tsinghua English proficiency test
(EAP-oriented)
Fig. 7.6 EFL environment platform at Tsinghua University
attend this three-week immersion program. The intent of this camp is to

present students with authentic Western-culture experiences, ignite their
English learning interests and motivation, strengthen their confidence
in using English for general and academic communication, and improve
their ability in cross-cultural communication and real-life English appli-
cation. (2) English societies and competitions. The English societies on
campus, including the English speech league, the English debate team,
the English singing group, and the drama acting club, regularly offici-
ate competitions to arouse students’ interest in and enthusiasm for EFL
learning. (3) Campus anglicization and internationalization. Faculty
members in individual departments and colleges are encouraged to
promote the anglicization of regular laboratory meetings and seminars.
International scholars and professionals are also increasingly invited to
deliver public academic lectures in English. Meanwhile, with the growing
number of international students and teachers in recent years, Tsinghua
University has accelerated the anglicization of official websites and pub-
lic services. (4) Tsinghua English proficiency test (EAP-oriented). The
EFL education policy of Tsinghua University requires undergraduate
students to take the EAP-oriented English proficiency test developed by

the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures. The result of the
test may provide students with feedback on their current English profi-
ciency level and advice for further development. Furthermore, the result
is considered as vital evidence of students’ qualification for international
exchanges, graduation, and graduate study.
The personalized environment, established for students who need indi-
vidual assistance in EAP or EMI learning, incorporates a tutoring center
for EAP-oriented English writing and a consulting center for English
learning strategies. The tutoring center for English writing aims to help
overcome students’ problems in writing and improve their academic
English writing skills (e.g., course assignments, term papers, papers for
publication in journals or presentation at conferences). The tutors of
this center are mostly native-English-speaking scholars and Chinese EFL
professionals with rich experience in writing and publishing academic
English papers. Students visiting this center for help receive face-to-face
and one-on-one consultation and assistance. The consulting center for
English learning strategies helps students to pinpoint the causes of their
difficulties in English learning, to provide suggestions for overcoming
these problems, and to further heighten students’ confidence and abil-
ity in using as well as learning English. This center also undertakes a
face-to-face advising approach and its tutors are all Chinese EFL profes-
sionals with sophistication in English teaching.
5 he Effectiveness of Tsinghua’s EFL

T
Curriculum System
The IECS has been implemented at Tsinghua University since 2011.
Upon entering the university, all freshmen take the English Placement
Test which places them into four different groups (Levels 1–4). The
higher a student’s level is, the more proficient his/her English is. Normally,
nearly 30% of the students are placed in the Level 1 group, 40% in the
Level 2 group, 20% in the Level 3 group, and 10% in the Level 4 group.
Nearly all the freshmen need to start their English learning by taking
EAP courses (as shown in Table 7.1) according to their needs. When
Table 7.1 Suggested EAP courses for Tsinghua freshmen

Freshmen’s EAP reading and writing EAP listening and speaking
English level courses (genre-based) courses (level-based)
Level 1 Expository or Argumentative Retelling and summarizing
Level 2 Expository or Argumentative Reporting and reviewing
Level 3 Literature review or Seminars and workshops
Academic paper
Level 4 Literature review or Debating
Academic paper
completing one EAP course, they continue to take a more challenging

one. The Levels 3 and 4 undergraduate students, after experiencing one-
or two-semester EAP learning, are advised to take the EMI courses for
general education or professional education while those of the Level 1
and Level 2 groups start to take EMI courses after completing three or
four semesters of EAP learning.
To evaluate the effect of the IECS, two surveys have been administered,
focusing on EAP courses and EMI courses, respectively, from Tsinghua
students’ perspectives. As regards the effectiveness of EAP courses, Liu
and Zhang (2015) investigated 1717 undergraduate students’ experi-
ences and perceptions of the EAP reading and writing courses. The results
indicated that the participants tended to maintain that the EAP courses
are highly necessary (m = 6.50 on a 7-point Likert scale, 1 = “strongly
disagree” and 7 = “strongly agree”), practical (m = 6.39), and beneficial
in improving their EAP competence (m = 6.50). Zheng’s (2013) research
investigated Tsinghua undergraduate students’ experiences and percep-
tions of the EMI courses for professional education. Two hundred and
forty-four undergraduate students across the disciplines of science, engi-
neering, economics, law or social science from 12 departments partici-
pated in the study and the number of the EMI courses they completed
was 4.63 on average. Her study revealed that Tsinghua undergraduate
students tended to agree that it is of necessity for the university to offer
EMI courses (m = 5.81 on a 7-point Likert scale, 1 = “strongly disagree”
and 7 = “strongly agree”), and that such courses help develop their profes-
sional competence and knowledge (m = 5.50) and meanwhile, improve
their English proficiency (m = 5.53). According to these two studies,
most of the participants seemed to be satisfied with the EAP courses and
the EMI courses they took, suggesting that the innovation of EFL cur-
riculum system at Tsinghua University is acceptable and consistent with
its objective.
6 Conclusion
In conformity with the status of English as the international lingua
franca, language learning principles, the nature of higher education,
and students’ needs, Tsinghua University has established its IECS. This
system attempts to integrate English education into higher education,
featuring a probable guarantee of the continuance of English study and
a solid alliance of English education with general education and pro-
fessional education. The innovation of the EFL curriculum system at
Tsinghua suggests that English education in Chinese tertiary institutions
is a systematic enterprise, involving both English language teaching, EMI
teaching, and English environment development. It is anticipated that
Tsinghua University’s innovation in EFL curriculum sheds more light on
EFL education reforms in the Chinese tertiary EFL context.
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8
ESP/EAP Through English-Medium
Instruction: Teachers’ Perceptions
and Practices
Anne Li Jiang and Lawrence Jun Zhang
1 Introduction
The deepening globalization and marketization of higher education has
entrenched China’s incentive to reform and update its higher educa-
tional system. Chinese universities are aiming at cultivating professional
competitiveness and the development of a deeper and broader talent
pool, with the intention of competing with local and overseas academia
and job markets. To this effect, universities are adopting new language
policies and English education patterns. Since the implementation of
the College English Curriculum Requirements (CECR) (Ministry of
A.L. Jiang
Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China
L.J. Zhang (*)
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

174 A.L. Jiang and L.J. Zhang
Education, 2001, 2011), traditional curricular emphasis on the teaching

of reading, grammar and translation for non-English majors has shifted
to fostering students’ communicative competence and learner autonomy.
The commonly adopted college English textbooks have also been found
to suffer from various drawbacks (Zhang & Liu, 2014). In this vein,
English for specific purposes or English for academic purposes (ESP/
EAP) is gaining significant inroads into College English programmes,
as an increasing number of higher institutions are providing ESP/EAP
courses (see Cai, 2015, for a review). Because of a lack of an explicitly
stated curriculum objective, we would like to use ESP/EAP instead of
clearly dividing them into two separate ones, as is the common practice
in the ESP/EAP practice. We follow Dudley-Evans and John’s (1998)
statement on the purpose of ESP/EAP, which is that they cater to the
needs of learners, draw on the disciplinary methodology and culture,
and centre on the discourse and genre of the discipline. These distinc-
tive features make ESP/EAP a preferable approach to equipping students
with the English proficiency urgently required in today’s restructured
educational and professional settings.
In tandem with ESP/EAP’s popularity in English teaching, English-
medium instruction (EMI) is gaining momentum in content teaching
in China. The use of English as a vehicle of instruction is conceived of
as serving a dual purpose: improving students’ foreign language compe-
tence and learning the content knowledge of the subject students take as
their major in university study. This approach, if effective in its operating
context, can minimize the linguistic barrier to the internationalization of
higher education.
Both ESP/EAP and EMI are currently regarded as innovative peda-
gogies in mainland China in that they have transformed English from
the subject of learning to the tool for learning other subjects or con-
tent knowledge. Compared with what Europe, North America and some
other regions in the world have achieved so far (e.g., British Council,
2006; Cenoz & Ruiz de Zarobe, 2015; Lo & Lo, 2014; Tedick & Wesely,
2015), ESP/EAP and EMI are still in their infancy in mainland China,
facing significant challenges and criticisms relating to the actual teach-
ing quality and student learning outcomes. Previous studies in mainland
8 ESP/EAP Through English-Medium Instruction: Teachers’... 175
China have largely ignored the potential that may exist as the conse-
quence of collaboration and integration between the two programmes,
especially from the perspective of ESP/EAP teachers and their pedagogi-
cal practices. In this chapter, we report on a group of English teachers’
perceptions and reactions towards EMI, particularly in relation to how
ESP/EAP has been redesigned and located in the space of EMI at a local
university, which has seen ongoing English curriculum innovation and
reform in the past five years. We elaborate on the advantages and pitfalls
of integrating ESP/EAP with EMI as a pedagogical innovation and con-
clude our chapter by discussing implications for other institutions that
are interested in or have started implementing EMI.
2 he Driving Force Behind the English

T
Curriculum Innovation and Reform:
Pitfalls of Previous ESP/EAP and EMI
Initiatives
The university in our study is a reputable medical university in which
English is taught in a two-year cycle. Since the launch of ESP/EAP in
2010, a “1+1” curricular programme has been offered. General English
is taught in the first year to consolidate students’ grounding in English
and ESP/EAP is provided in the second year to enhance their academic
English competence. In 2013, in the wake of the national government’s
promulgation to build “world-famous universities with original features”
(MOE, 2010), the university mandated that a minimum of 30% of con-
tent courses be offered in English. It also embarked on an EMI degree
programme where all disciplinary subjects are taught in English. This
initiative has led to a radical departure from the university’s traditional
approach to subject and English teaching. Correspondingly, the English
curriculum is expected to promote students’ language proficiency in real-
life situations both academically and professionally.
Like most EMI programmes oriented to non-native speakers of English
worldwide, an entry-level English proficiency is required. The majority of
students admitted into this programme have scored more than 125 out of
a total 150 marks in the National Matriculation English Test (NMET).
The university also conducts another English test for students at the end
of the first semester. Failing to pass this test will deny students’ possibility
of continuing the programme. In this manner, the university hopes to
ensure the English threshold level is reached, enabling them to continue
and benefit from EMI. However, neither the NMET score nor the hurdle
test score is comparable to the 6.5 Band of IELTS, which is the minimum
international score required for eligibility to enter an EMI programme, as
reported in Graddol (2006). As regards EMI teachers, the university has
selected those who are rated as excellent content specialists and having a
better command of English than others in the same faculty.
As specified in the EMI Curriculum Description, all subject courses
are taught in English, using textbooks and other materials in the original.
However, some critical issues have emerged during the last two years.
First, a lack of English proficiency among teachers and students has dra-
matically affected the effectiveness of content teaching and learning out-
comes. As well as this, there was strong need for language support for
EMI staff.
The College of English designed ESP/EAP courses with their intended
objective of enhancing students’ mastery of English in the academic field
and facilitating the implementation of the EMI programme. However,
they found from a university-wide questionnaire-based survey that
English teachers who delivered these curses turned out to deviate from the
original objective. The questionnaire consisted of six items on a five-point
Likert scale asking students to self-assess how much they still expected
to improve in language knowledge and skills (see Table 8.1) after two
Table 8.1 Students’ self-assessed ESP/EAP learning needs

Language knowledge and skills Mean Std. deviation
1. Content terminology and pronunciation 3.9103 1.09763
2. Grammar and syntax 3.3654 1.20797
3. Text structure and genre 3.4551 1.14353
4. ESP/EAP writing skills 4.1923 1.00396
5. ESP/EAP listening skills 3.9679 1.01231
6. ESP/EAP speaking skills 3.8269 1.08457
years’ ESP/EAP learning. Its purpose was to examine the extent to which
students’ ESP/EAP language needs were met by English courses. If ESP/
EAP courses were effective and efficient in enhancing students’ language
competence for them to follow EMI in subject-content teaching without
much difficulty, then their learning needs in various ESP/EAP aspects
should be relatively low.
The questionnaire was sent to 210 students involved in EMI and ESP/
EAP courses during the academic year of 2013–2014, with a 100%
response rate. As is evident from the results, students’ learning needs were
still high, which suggests that previous ESP/EAP courses failed to pro-
duce anticipated outcomes. The results also imply that students did not
achieve the essential linguistic proficiency to benefit from their disciplin-
ary EMI programmes.
These previously exposed pitfalls in the focal university of this study
have echoed some salient problems in implementing EMI and ESP/
EAP in China. A major predicament jeopardizing effective EMI proves
to be content-subject teachers’ and students’ inadequate English pro-
ficiency of (e.g., Kirkpatrick, 2014). It seems that a misalignment
between the curriculum and students’ actual learning needs, and a lack
of proper textbooks and teaching resources have comprised the course
achievements (Cai, 2015). The available literature suggests that the
implementation of EMI should be contextually adapted, taking into
account the general educational environment, availability of quali-
fied teaching staff and teaching resources (Tollefson & Tsui, 2004;
Tong & Shi, 2012). Scholars in other parts of the world proposed
cross-disciplinary collaboration and restructuring ESP/EAP as a way
of complementing the advantages of both English language and spe-
cific disciplinary faculties (e.g., Arnó-Macià & Mancho-Barés, 2015;
Basturkmen & Shackleford, 2015). These insights were highly valued
by policymakers and teachers, who were keen to have interdisciplin-
ary collaboration in course design, materials development, pedagogi-
cal consultation and assessment. It is on such grounds that this focal
university began to consider how to redesign and locate EAP/ESP in
its implementation of EMI.
3 heoretical Backdrop, the New Model

T
and Recommended Instructional
Strategies
Theoretically, the new teaching model is built on a participatory and con-
structivist understanding of learning. Drawing on Lave and Wenger (1991),
learning takes place through participating in the activities of a community
of practice, and interaction should be one key element in teaching (see also
Zhang, 2016). This construct offers a broad scope for ESP/EAP, because
ESP/EAP per se can be viewed as a kind of apprenticeship-type teaching
model that is expected to cater to the needs of the learner. Meanwhile,
situated learning largely depends on constructivism (Dalton-Puffer, 2007,
p. 8). Constructivist theorists postulate that learning is an active process
of constructing new ideas or concepts based on one’s current knowledge
(Bruner, 1990). As such, the new programme is designed to integrate more
subject content, discipline-specific situations and distinctive methodolo-
gies. Details of the renewed design are given in Tables 8.2 and 8.3.
Table 8.2 Redesign and relocate ESP/EAP in EMI
Objectives
• To enhance students’ communicative competence, especially in writing
and speaking
• To help students develop transferable/generic skills
• To promote students’ self-directedness, critical thinking and problem-
solving ability
• To facilitate the EMI programme
Course Design
• A two-phase course design was closely tailor-made according to the needs
of the parallel EMI programme provided by subject-content teachers:
Phase 1 (week 1–week 4)—coaching general academic English skills
drawing on Johns’ (1997) general academic discourses features common
to all disciplines and basic academic study skills;
phase 2 (week 5–week 17)—developing discipline-specific academic
English proficiency (for detailed contents, see Table 8.3)
Pedagogical Approaches
• EMI: compulsory for no less than 30% of all instructional activities
• PBL/CBI/Genre-based process-oriented/Other: recommended as
alternatives
Assessment
Formative and summative co-assessment involving both English teachers
and content teachers
Table 8.3 A framework of the renewed ESP/EAP components and competence (adapted from Räsänen, 2008)
Scientific and critical Communication and Transferable/generic
thinking skills Problem-solving skills social skills skills
Discipline-specific –Mastering of –Using own expertise –Receptive and –Language learning
academic terminology and to identify, analyse productive and metacognitive
expertise discourse and cultural and evaluate communication skills strategies
conventions of the problems and and strategies + –Self-assessment skills
field solutions discourse competence –Academic study skills
–Analysing and –Making team for language use in for task management
reporting decisions, academic and social
negotiating contexts
Research and –Searching and –Analysing and –Academic –Media literacy
information evaluating materials evaluating problems communication and –Use of new learning
management and information and solutions collaboration (esp. with means
skills –Classifying and –Sharing knowledge, disciplinary specialists) –Peer reviewing
notetaking networking and –Documentation and
–Interpreting, team working presentation skills
synthesizing and
reporting on research
8 ESP/EAP Through English-Medium Instruction: Teachers’...
179
As for the instructional strategies, apart from a minimum 30% of EMI

provision, content-based instruction (CBI), genre-based process-oriented
ESP/EAP and problem-based learning (PBL) are also recommended.
Broadly, both EMI and CBI are different types of content and language
integrated learning (CLIL), which are context-specific and take on vari-
ous forms depending on the levels of language and content integration
(see Arnó-Macià & Mancho-Barés, 2015, for a review). CBI organizes
teaching around the subject matter via “the introduction of academic
topics and texts into a language classroom” (Crandall, 2012, p. 150).
A key concern for this strategy is how to “identify appropriate engag-
ing content and materials, set objectives at the appropriate proficiency
level to integrate with the content, and develop appropriate activities and
assessments” (Stoller, 2004, p. 262).
Through CLIL, students are expected to learn language and content
simultaneously (Lyster, 2007). Whatever specific form it may assume,
CLIL is inextricably connected with ESP/EAP. A critical issue concerns
(1) the extent to which collaboration exists between ESP/EAP teachers
and subject-matter specialists (Hyland, 2012; Melles, Millar, Morton,
& Fegan, 2005) and (2) the question of how an EAP programme can
facilitate smooth implementation of CLIL or the EMI programme (e.g.,
Basturkmen & Shackleford, 2015).
PBL is recognized as a “powerful means for facilitating students’ attain-
ment of the high level competencies and transferable skills” (Ertmer &
Glazewski, 2015, p. 89). The wide-ranging application of this method
rests on its effectiveness in cultivating learners’ critical thinking and self-
regulated learning. Crucial to the success of PBL are elements including
the prior knowledge of learners, collaborative problem-solving, assess-
ment, appropriate scaffolding (Puntambekar, 2015), authenticity of the
problems and the transferability of skills (Savery, 2015). In the university,
PBL has been the main instructional strategy used by content teachers to
teach medical science. English teachers are encouraged to adopt PBL in
ESP/EAP teaching. Supposedly, by applying the same approach, ESP/
EAP can be set in an experiential learning context closely resembling the
disciplinary context. It is expected that it will be easier for students to
transfer their ESP/EAP proficiency acquired in English courses to their
study of disciplinary knowledge and professional practice.
4 The Study
However optimistically envisioned, the success of the revised ESP/EAP
programme rests ultimately with the agents of classroom practice, particu-
larly the teachers. ESP/EAP teachers are expected to play an agentive role
to optimize any innovative initiative in education. In our study, we focus
on teachers’ perceptions and their “curricular and instructional strate-
gies and practices” (Bruce-Davis et al., 2014, p. 276). In this framework,
curriculum is defined as “the planned and guided learning experiences
and intended outcomes, formulated through the systematic reconstruc-
tion of knowledge and experiences” (ibid.). Teachers may employ various
instructional strategies and practices to modify and improve the actual
enactment of the designed curriculum so as to attend to learner diversity
and needs.
At the same time, we prefer to interpret “perceptions” in line with
a more general notion of perception that encompasses teacher “beliefs,
assumptions, and values” (Tsui, 2003, p. 61). Since a plethora of research
on teacher education has already confirmed teacher conceptions have a
powerful influence on their pedagogical decisions and teaching practices
(e.g., Tsui, 2003; Zhang & Liu, 2014), we hope our investigation of
ESP/EAP teachers’ perceptions of an EMI-oriented curriculum may shed
light on the interaction between their perceptions as the receivers and
agents of curriculum/syllabus reform and their practices mediated by
local contexts.
4.1 Research Questions
Specifically, we address the following questions:
1. What are ESP/EAP teachers’ perceptions of the innovated ESP/EAP

curriculum/syllabus design that has integrated EMI in response to a
subject-matter EMI degree programme?
2. How do English teachers practise EMI and other instructional strate-
gies in their classrooms?
4.2 Research Design
To yield contemporary and contextualized information about the

research questions, we carried out a case study. As Yin (2014) points
out, a case study is preferable when addressing the “how”, “what” and
“why” questions in relation to a complex real-world phenomenon and
it is particularly appropriate for examining programme implementation,
that is, EMI as an innovative initiative in this study (Creswell, 2013).
Further, given its “unique strength in its ability to deal with a full variety
of evidence” (Yin, 2014, p. 12), the case study design allowed us to gain
a holistic and in-depth insight into ESP/EAP teachers’ perceptions and
practices based on multiple sources of data.
4.3 Participants
The participants in our study were four ESP/EAP teachers who were
appointed by the faculty to teach students enrolled in the EMI degree
programme. They were members of a combined teaching panel that con-
sisted of language teachers and content teachers involved in the degree
programme (details about their background information are listed in
Table 8.4). Regular meetings were convened on various aspects of ESP/
EAP and EMI teaching and learning, including lesson research, materials
development, performance reflection, among other things. Students of
the programme were divided into four smaller classes of 50 when attend-
ing English courses.
Table 8.4 Demographic information of participants

Teacher Gender Age Years of teaching experience
Teacher 1 Female 45 20 years EGP teaching, 7 years ESP/EAP
teaching, 2 years EMI teaching
Teacher 2 Male 35 8 years GE teaching, 4 years ESP/EAP
Teacher 3 Female 38 11 years GE teaching, 6 years ESP/EAP
Teacher 4 Female 37 10 years GE teaching, 6 years ESP/EAP
4.4 Data Collection and Analysis
Data for this study came from three sources: (1) classroom observations,
(2) follow-up interviews and (3) a focus group discussion. By the time
of data collection, which commenced in the second academic semester
of 2015, the bulk of the programme had been completed. The audio-
recorded classroom observations, with each participant, spanned a whole
unit of teaching including reading, writing, speaking and communica-
tion, which lasted about 6 hours. In this manner, a complete picture
could be gained about the teachers’ execution of the curriculum; instruc-
tional strategies and established classroom culture (see Tsui, 2003, p. 73).
Immediately after the observation, a semi-structured interview was con-
ducted with the purpose of eliciting from teachers how they dealt with
lesson planning, preparation, implementation and evaluation. The focus
group discussion was conducted at the end of the semester, during which
participants were guided towards developing a critical reflection on the
following themes, which were generated from a preliminary analysis of
the classroom observations and follow-up interviews. These themes (see
Table 8.5) also constitute a “start list” (Miles & Huberman, 1994, p. 58)
for further data analysis.
We utilized “description as analysis” for observations (Marvasti, 2013).
Focus group discussion data were investigated through content analysis
both quantitatively and qualitatively. All the interviews and focus group
discussions were audio-recorded and transcribed. Data gained were thus
analysed via a general inductive approach (Thomas, 2006). First, the
transcripts were reviewed repeatedly to identify themes on how partici-
pants perceived and dealt with the new curriculum through open cod-
ing. The emerging themes were then categorized with reference to the
Table 8.5 Themes arising from data

1. Attitudes towards EMI implementation
2. Preferable instructional strategies
3. The role of ESP/EAP teachers and ESP/EAP programme
4. Challenges and solutions
5. Teaching materials and resources
6. Interdisciplinary collaboration
aforementioned “start list”. Following this, within and cross-participant

analysis was carried out to compare, modify and confirm the developed
categories (Creswell, 2013). The final interpretation of the transcript
data was triangulated with ideas extracted from observation data pertain-
ing to the research questions under investigation. To ensure the trust-
worthiness of the findings, coding was independently conducted by the
two researchers. An inter-rater agreement of 91% was later reached. The
results were also sent back to the teachers for checking and confirming
the researchers’ interpretation.
5 Findings
Interviews and focus group discussion were carried out in Chinese, the
participants’ native language, and later transcribed into English by the
researchers. Data cited from the focus group discussion are referred to as
FGD. In the transcripts, TS refers to the teachers in general and T1, T2 …
refers to a particular teacher.
Thirteen hours of classroom practice were observed as outlined in
Table 8.6. The first column refers to the content that the class focused
on. Teachers who used the same content are identified in the second col-
umn. The third column lists the activities and instructional strategies.
Information as to how these activities were carried out, whether involving
the whole class, teams/groups/pairs, or individuals is presented in the last
column.
Student team-teaching, where four to five students form a team to
teach a lesson collaboratively, is a routine practice promoted by ESP/
EAP teachers as a way of applying PBL in English course. Here teach-
ing is an authentic problem given that most students of this programme
are supposed to be teachers or researchers in the disciplinary area. Teams
were organized and tasks were assigned at the beginning of the semes-
ter. In order to prepare a subject lesson which goes beyond their prior
knowledge, students needed to do lots of pre-work, including self-taught
learning, the collecting and sorting out materials either online or from
the disciplinary faculty, lesson plans, interaction design, making PPT
Table 8.6 Summary of classroom observations

Activities/instructional
Content Participant(s) strategies Configuration
Intensive reading T1, T2, T3, T4 A & R session Each team
EMI by student Teacher and peer member
team-teaching: a comment taught a part
topic/lesson from PBL, EMI of the lesson,
their disciplinary followed by
area whole-class
interaction
Academic writing T1, T2, T4 Home-assignment Whole class in
Research paper catch-up groups
writing Genre feature analysis
Sample texts imitation
Peer editing and rating
Teacher assessment
Model writing sharing
Genre-based
Process-oriented
Intensive reading T1, T2, T3, T4 Home-assignment Teacher-fronted
Intensive reading on catch-up lecture-based
a disciplinary theme Discussion based on a whole class
video-clip of
Terminology
Text structure analysis
EMI
Speaking and T2,T3 Academic conference Whole class in
communication procedure groups
Simulated Individual presentation In pairs
conferences and A & R discussion Individually
presentation sessions
EMI, CBI
slides, etc. Teachers believe the benefits of this activity are twofold. For
one thing, student self-directedness and competence in problem-solv-
ing, collaboration and information management will be enhanced. For
another, student practice of EMI can be a valuable component to an
EMI-oriented ESP/EAP course, because their perspective, expertise and
knowledge in subject-specific fields are what might be lacking in ESP/
EAP teacher knowledge.
Students’ potential is amazing. Once they feel motivated, trusted and

empowered, they’ll become more confident and earnest to manage their
own study and play an active role in classroom knowledge construction …
And they do well, sometimes even better than us (teachers).
(Excerpt from Interview 2, Teacher 2)
Teacher 2, a male teacher, who had 4 years’ experience in ESP/EAP

teaching and was consecutively appraised as the Most Popular Teacher
among students in 2014 and 2015, held a strong belief in student agency
and calibre in executing the new model. On his part, what students have
brought into the class not only compensates for his restrained knowl-
edge in subject-content area but also enriches the classroom culture. His
recognition of student contributions to EMI in the English class was
confirmed in the responses of other teachers as well. They also added that
some of the content materials students collected were well received by
students and highly rated by content specialists as being closely relevant
or supplementary to their subject-content EMI programme. Actually,
ESP/EAP teachers had already included such materials into their EMI
content repertoire.
The observed writing class involved instructions on how to report the
“Results/Findings” in a research paper. Before attending the class, stu-
dents were provided with a sample “Results” section from a top-rank
journal article that was recommended by EMI content teachers. The
genre features had been marked out so that students could familiarize
themselves with them. During class, teachers presented two more sam-
ple texts and elaborated on their language features. Students were then
required to write in groups and in response to the teacher’s scaffolding.
Later, their writing was peer-edited and rated within the group. Finally,
each group submitted the best writing to the teacher to assess and share
with the whole class. Teacher 4, who has been specialized in teaching
both GE and ESP/EAP writing for years in the university, was an enthu-
siastic advocate of this writing process. He commented as follows:
Compared with the traditional writing class where students seldom write on
the site, this looks more like a workshop where the apprentices (students)
learn through action and collaboration. What teachers need to do is
to guarantee the quality of the sample material and provide enough scaffolds
in terms of genre feature instruction and product assessment. We teachers
should step back, leaving more space to students’ hand-on experience.
The other teachers were also in favour of this genre-based process-

oriented writing class. They contended that high-quality authentic
samples, adequate linguistic knowledge instruction and imitation are
essential to successful academic writing. What is also apparent in the
excerpt is that, in this study, the role of the teacher is quite congruent
with what Hyland (2003) termed “non-directive and facilitating”, which
means the teacher will assist and guide students to “expressing their own
meanings in a cooperative environment” and writing depends more on
student self-directedness.
Authentic disciplinary materials, situations and needs are also
addressed in teacher-fronted lecture-based intensive reading and speak-
ing classes. Contents for the intensive reading come from various sources:
commercial ESP/EAP textbooks, EMI subject-content textbooks and
internet resources. Teachers focused on terminology, text structure and
genre features in intensive reading classes with the purpose of providing
basic academic language input. In speaking/communication class, CBI
was used as disciplinary topics were brought into discussion. Also, simu-
lated academic conferences and presentations were introduced to build
up “real-world contexts” for learning.
I bet it’s more unrealistic to ask English teachers to teach medical science
than to teach business, given the former is more abstract hard science.
However, EMI is a worthy challenge if the subject specialist content
selected for ESP/EAP courses is handled in a reasonable way, and
approached more from a linguistic perspective … what we could do is to
design, organize, and scaffold language learning through content rather
than to teach the content knowledge.
Teacher 4’s narrative is very representative of a commonly shared per-

ception of the ESP/EAP teacher role and responsibility in applying EMI/
CBI. In the observed practices, they positioned themselves as language

facilitators, activity designers and organizers with their primary attention
unanimously falling on language teaching situated in authentic contexts.
During the focus group discussion which centred on topics in the
aforementioned start-list, some recurrent words appeared in the discourse
of participants. A few themes are unpacked through an examination of
these words (see Table 8.7). To present the whole picture, we began by
interpreting the data from a quantitative perspective and then moved on
to take a qualitative perspective.
Generally, teachers were in support of the new curriculum/syllabus
design. For example, T1, who was head of the department and a designer
of the programme, felt that “through doing EMI, ESP/EAP courses were
more grounded and authentic and hence more beneficial to students.”
Also, teachers pointed out that optimizing a course was an evolving pro-
cess of putting ideas into practice along with reflection, modification and
adaptation. While willing to conduct EMI, they argued that other peda-
gogical methods should be included in a flexible manner and in line with
the programme’s goal, content and the nature of the class. In this aspect,
T3, who was keen on updating teaching methods in class, commented,
“Previously our EAP/ESP was dominated by a genre-based process-
oriented approach, which proved to be effective in our academic writing
class. Now when it comes to speaking and communication, PBL tends to
be more functional, whereas EMI is particularly welcomed by students
in their intensive reading class.” Such comments are in alignment with
previous studies (Deng, Chen, & Zhang, 2014; Zhang, 2016).
In the process of integrating various instructional strategies, teachers have
been shifting their roles from authoritarian knowledge and transmitters
Table 8.7 A quantitative perspective on the themes

Topic in the Count of
“start list” Thematic key words instances
1 Positive, beneficial, constantly evolving 5
2 EMI, PBL, genre-based, process-based 4
3 Facilitator, designer, organizer 8
4 Lack of subject-content expertise. Need training 6
5 Hard to get appropriate EMI materials 6
6 Necessary, need administrative support 4
to learning facilitators, designers and organizers, as is evident in the follow-

ing transcript:
Our perceptions on our roles as teachers have changed with our new under-
standing of language teaching. In this day and age, since knowledge and
skills are updating and expanding all the time, collaborative intelligence is
essential. Our responsibility rests more on facilitating, motivating and scaf-
folding learning.
(FGD Excerpt 1)
Despite teachers’ acceptance and proactive responses in practice, EMI

posed significant challenges. The basic concerns and worries revealed in
the discussion were that their EMI practice was compromised by lim-
ited subject-content knowledge and that suitable teaching materials were
scarce.
T4: We are language specialists. Language teaching should be our priority.

TS: Yeah, indeed.
T2: Lack of content knowledge has greatly affected the quality of our
teaching. But we can’t become content experts…
T3: No, we can’t. We might command some basic knowledge, but not
enough to teach…
T1: I agree. So it is crucial to collaborate with content teachers to narrow
the knowledge gap and develop quality teaching materials.
(FGD Excerpt 2)
As the above conversation shows, EAP teachers were keen on seeking

help from their subject-content colleagues as a remedial solution to allay
the influence of their lack of specialist knowledge and teaching materials.
However, given the conventional and strict division between disciplines
in the focal university, individual or one-side initiatives are not enough.
Institutional support and incentives are urgently needed to promote reg-
ular cross-disciplinary collaboration.
When it comes to the positioning of ESP/EAP, teachers believe an
adjunct model dovetailed to the EMI programme in the subject-content
area would be preferable.
Before the new program, our ESP/EAP teaching was kind of isolated. A
fundamental problem with our course design at that time is that it was
based on the needs analysis with students and even our own understanding
… But now our courses are closely connected with content courses, attend-
ing to the needs of the real context, and thus more prone to shoot the
target.
(FGD Excerpt 3)
This quote indicates that with more discipline-specific content and

methodologies introduced into ESP/EAP courses, target needs are more
accurately pinned down, and student access to target academic language
input is also greatly increased.
6 Discussion
A combined analysis of different data collected in this study may gener-
ate the following highlights of locating ESP/EAP in EMI implementa-
tion. First, locating ESP/EAP in EMI and adopting EMI in ESP/EAP
can enhance constructivist learning in the university under investiga-
tion. Empirical research of EMI, in European higher education, suggests
that EMI course design can be facilitated by student-centred learning,
where students take more responsibility for what and how to learn
(Wilkinson, 2013). This study demonstrates that the reverse is equally
true: an EMI-oriented ESP/EAP course design can also motivate and
facilitate students’ self-directedness, as is shown in student team-teaching
and process-oriented writing activities. Students’ taking more responsi-
bility in managing language study through carrier content is also helpful
to both content and language staff. Besides, because the new curricular
framework in the local university offers more space and autonomy to
students through PBL teachers in this study believe that learning has
become an open process where traditional lines between teachers and stu-
dents, and in-class teaching and outside-class learning have been elimi-
nated. Teachers feel that they are no longer the sole source of knowledge.
Knowledge is co-constructed by ESP/EAP teachers, content EMI teach-
ers and students with the help of multiple resources both in and outside
the classroom.
Second, the new curriculum is prone to better satisfy the language

needs of students and content EMI teachers. Through doing EMI with
subject-content materials, directly introduced from the EMI programme
content, the new ESP/EAP programme is likely to bring in more disciplin-
ary language/discourse conventions and genre features, thus increasing
necessary academic language input for EMI students. Through apply-
ing PBL, organizing simulated academic activities (e.g., conferences and
presentations), the courses may open more space for students to practise
what they have learned. Hopefully in such authentic contexts, students
acquire more generic/transferable skills through situated learning.
Furthermore, this study also reflects that English teachers’ lack of facil-
ity in subject-content knowledge might be a predicament for successful
ESP/EAP/EMI teaching, as is indicated in FGD Excerpt 2. However,
through collaborating with students and content colleagues in teaching
and developing teaching materials, English teachers are provided with
more teaching and learning resources. As such, the co-construction
of knowledge promoted by the new ESP/EAP structure also helps to
improve teachers’ EAP content knowledge and teaching competence.
7 Conclusion and Implications
In this study, we reported on how ESP/EAP teachers perceive and prac-
tise in an innovative ESP/EAP programme which is linked directly to
disciplinary EMI courses. On the whole, teachers hold positive atti-
tudes towards the new ESP/EAP curriculum that has integrated EMI
approach and is oriented to assist the subject-content EMI programme.
Their active and creative engagement has promoted learner-centeredness
and the co-construction of knowledge. Though the findings presented
here from our case study are context-specific, some valuable implications
might be drawn for teachers in other contexts. First, the redesigned ESP/
EAP programme reported on here can be applied in other universities
that are interested in or have already started EMI practice. In addition
to being constructive and supportive in fostering learner autonomy and
transferable learning, the new design is open to context-specific adapta-
tion. English faculties can decide on the proportion of EMI provision
and integrate other CLIL teaching approaches (such as CBI) in align-

ment with their teaching objectives. Besides, the renewed model entails
more opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration which may be ben-
eficial to both language teachers and subject-matter specialists in terms
of coping with their respective challenges doing EMI. Last, and equally
important, the university’s curriculum innovation, though still evolving,
is a successful response to the nation’s changing English education land-
scape. As EMI is widely implemented in subject-content teaching and
ESP/EAP as an innovative pedagogy in China, it is gaining popularity in
the field of English teaching. Therefore, collaboration among language
teachers, subject-content teachers and students is essential to meeting
the requirements and demands of all the stakeholders. Our case study
has provided some preliminary evidence for the challenges and prospects
for policymakers and teachers, to consider when initiating any English
teaching reforms.
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Anne Li Jiang is an associate professor of applied linguistics in Northeast

Normal University. She is now a PhD student in the Faculty of Education and
Social Work, University of Auckland. Her research spans bilingual education,
ELF/EMI/ESP, and language teacher education. She is a member of TESOL
and AAAL.
Lawrence Jun Zhang (PhD) is a Professor of Linguistics-in-Education and

Associate Dean, Faculty of Education, University of Auckland. His major interests
and 100-plus publications are in learner metacognition and teacher education,
with particular reference to EFL reading and writing. He is Co-Editor-in-Chief
for System and TESOL Quarterly’s Brief Reports and Summaries.
9
Students’ Perceptions and Practices
in L2 Disciplinary Writing at an English
Medium University in Mainland China
Zhoulin Ruan and Jinhua Chen
1 Introduction
With the current trend towards the internationalization of higher education
in China, an impetus for innovation in language learning and teaching is
the adoption of English as a medium of instruction (EMI). Through this,
Chinese university students are expected to use English to acquire subject
contents and develop disciplinary competence in their academic studies.
This move is closely associated with the growing importance of English
as a lingua franca in contemporary cultural, scientific and professional
communication in international contexts, and reflects an educational goal
that Chinese policymakers and educators pursue in the reform of higher
education in China. In EMI institutional settings, writing in the disci-
plines plays a significant role in university students’ academic success, as
writing is not only the means by which students construct disciplinary
knowledge, but also the main means by which they demonstrate their
Z. Ruan (*) • J. Chen

Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou Shi, China

198 Z. Ruan and J. Chen
academic attainments (Nesi & Gardner, 2012). Teaching students to write

academic texts in English as a foreign language (EFL) is therefore high on
the agenda for English language teaching reform in China. Writing in the
disciplines, whether in L1 or L2, considers writing as a tool for learning
both subject contents and disciplinary conventions (Hyland, 2013a; Nesi
& Gardner, 2012), and is markedly different from traditional approaches
to English writing instruction in China, which see writing simply as one
of the four basic language skills that students should develop. Chinese
university students’ perceptions of learning to write in English are typi-
cally associated with developing language accuracy and complexity, which
is best measured in their written language. English writing is rarely consid-
ered as a mode of learning the content of academic disciplines in English
language curricula at Chinese universities.
Research on writing in the disciplines has seen a great deal of work
exploring students’ disciplinary writing experiences in the broad ESL
context, yet there is little research on students’ perceptions and prac-
tices of writing in the disciplines in EFL in an English medium setting,
where the ability of disciplinary writing in English is crucial to EFL stu-
dents’ achievements of academic success. How Chinese students studying
in EMI settings respond to the changing (and challenging) role of L2
writing remains an unexplored area for language teaching and research
in China. This chapter aims to fill this gap by presenting a situated,
qualitative study that seeks to explore Chinese undergraduates’ experi-
ences in L2 disciplinary writing in the areas of Applied Linguistics and
Urban Planning and Design at an English medium university in main-
land China. We hope this study will help further our understanding of
Chinese students’ perceptions and practices in L2 disciplinary writing in
their university careers.
We begin by contextualizing the study in the current theoretical discus-
sion on the distinction between the Learning-to-Write (LW) and Writing-
to-Learn (WL) approaches in writing research. We then examine how,
with the rapid increase of EMI institutions and programmes in China,
writing in the disciplines in English prompts a reconsideration of the role
of English writing instruction in Chinese university classrooms. We also
discuss key themes gleaning from previous research studies on Chinese
9 Students’ Perceptions and Practices in L2 Disciplinary Writing... 199
students’ disciplinary writing in the broad ESL contexts. Following this,

we present our qualitative interview investigation looking into writing
experiences and practices of a group of final-year students from two dis-
ciplines at a Sino-UK collaborative university. We focus on the students’
common perceptions of the complexity of L2 disciplinary writing, as well
as discipline-specific practices and strategies for coping with challenges
encountered in the process of writing academic texts in English. Finally,
we discuss the implications of the study with regard to re-examining the
role of English writing in curriculum reform for Chinese universities as
they respond to the growing demand of EMI contexts and international-
ization of higher education in China.
2 riting-to-Learn Content and Writing

W
in the Disciplines
A recent theoretical attempt to explain the multifaceted nature of L2 writ-
ing is the distinction made between the LW dimension, where students
learn to express themselves in writing, and the WL dimension, where
writing is used to develop either the content of the discipline (Writing-
to-Learn Content; WLC) or language knowledge and skills (Writing-
to-Learn Language; WLL) (e.g. Hirvela, 2011; Hyland, 2011; 2013a;
Manchón, 2009, 2011a). Manchón (2011b) noted that the LW per-
spective has its theoretical base in L1 composition, English for academic
purposes (EAP), and the Writing-Across-the-Curriculum movement in
the US, and has developed process-oriented and genre approaches to the
teaching of writing. WL in the content areas, however, considers writing
as a tool for learning content while students acquire disciplinary knowl-
edge, and is associated with the pedagogical perspectives of content-based
instruction (CBI), and content and language integrated learning (CLIL)
in European contexts (Hirvela, 2011). Hyland (2013a) further notes that
writing in the disciplines is a reflection of the WL perspective, in that
students use writing to “display their critical and analytical skills, their
use of English for reasoning and persuasion, their grasp of subject matter
issues, and their ability to shape an argument using the conventions of
their field” (p. 241). In other words, writing serves as a mode for learn-
ing both disciplinary content and disciplinary conventions and practices.
Writing in the disciplines, then, suggests a connection between writing
and disciplinary acculturation to be established for university students,
and to be pursued as a natural part of the educational process (Hirvela,
2011, p. 38).
Within the EFL context in China, writing has been traditionally
taught as an indispensable language skill that students learn to develop,
along with listening, speaking, and reading skills, but, as You (2006)
noted, has received much less attention in instruction. Furthermore,
writing instruction in English classrooms often takes the form of lec-
turing on writing, with a focus on grammatical accuracy, practising
vocabulary and sentence structures, and imitating model essays, rather
than using carefully designed writing tasks for students to develop their
English writing competence. Teachers’ feedback on student writing also
attaches more importance to language use and expression than the devel-
opment of ideas. This approach to writing instruction sees writing as
an integral part of second language acquisition, and the central aim of
English writing is to develop students’ English language proficiency. It
is a manifestation of the WL the language perspective, which considers
writing merely a tool for language learning (Manchón, 2011b). Chinese
university students tend to conceptualize EFL writing as “a highly struc-
tured language learning task that was imposed and examined by external
agents, rather than as a process of regulating their own cognition and
effort for communicating meaning” (Ruan, 2014, p. 84). This conceptu-
alization might be shaped, in a combined way, by the nature of writing
Chinese students have been required to do, the instructions they have
received, and the EFL learning context in which they have carried out
their English writing.
This approach to L2 writing, however, does not fit the current trend
towards using English as an international language (EIL) for academic and
professional communication. In China, the internationalization of higher
education over the past decade has become a driving force for adopting
EMI in disciplinary teaching and learning. Writing in the disciplines in
English requires a change of focus on L2 writing as a linguistic skill to a
means of acquiring subject contents and learning disciplinary discourses.
For English language researchers and teachers, it is imperative to rec-

ognize the WL the content dimension in teaching writing to Chinese
students who use English as a medium for disciplinary learning. The abil-
ity to construct disciplinary arguments, as Hyland (2013b) observes, is
central to the conceptual understanding of a field, and written genres
have a strong influence on how students understand and engage with
their disciplines. The recent debate among Chinese scholars on shifting
college English instruction to EAP (e.g. Cai, 2013; Wang & Yao, 2013)
is a response to the changing context of English language teaching in
China, and a positive move for incorporating the teaching of academic
English literacy to meet the burgeoning needs of Chinese students in
EMI educational settings.
3 hinese Students’ Experiences in L2

C
Disciplinary Writing
Previous research on L2 writing has showed that challenges and complex-
ities that L2 students experience in their disciplinary writing can never
be underestimated (e.g. Leki, 2007). In a review of the WL Content
dimension of L2 writing, Hirvela (2011, p. 55) concluded that “there is
no clear, straightforward picture of the role writing plays for L2 writers
as they move across the content areas”, and that “the ability to engage
successfully in WLC while enhancing L2 writing ability is more likely to
occur slowly”. Storch (2009) investigated the impact of studying in L2
medium university on the development of ESL students’ writing over one
semester, and found that students’ writing improved mainly in structure
and development of ideas, but not in language accuracy or complexity. In
addition, there was no change observed in students’ strategies for using
source materials.
With regard to Chinese students’ L2 disciplinary writing, much research
attention has been devoted to the way that the students construct disci-
plinary knowledge in writing, especially the issue of using source texts,
which is labelled textual borrowing (Shi, 2004, 2012), language reuse
(Flowerdew & Li, 2007, 2009), or patchwriting (Li & Casanave, 2012).
Shi (2004) examined the effect of first language and the type of writing
task on text borrowing from source readings in Chinese undergraduates’

English writing, in comparison with American undergraduates’ first-year
compositions. The study found that summary tasks contained more bor-
rowed words from source texts than opinion essays, and more importantly,
Chinese students used source texts mostly without citing references for
either task, though they had no apparent intention to steal and cheat.
Based on the analysis, Shi argued for “a need to distinguish legitimate
appropriation of language from dishonest copying so as to make ways
for novice L2 writers to traverse the boundary and become members of
the academic community” (2004, p. 191). In a study of Chinese doc-
toral science students’ practices and beliefs regarding language reuse in
writing for publication in English, Flowerdew and Li (2007) found that
students’ language reuse from source texts occurred in all sections of their
scientific papers, varying from short phrases to stretches of sentences
in a row, but they had various arguments for defending their practices.
The researchers observed that, in line with the argument that “language
reuse is an intermediary stage in mastering the target discourse”, the lan-
guage reuse of the students can be seen as “their means of developing an
appropriate disciplinary discourse” (2007, p. 459). This observation was
echoed in a case study of students’ strategies for writing from sources,
conducted by Li and Casanave (2012), who claimed patchwriting as “an
important strategy that deserves much more attention as an instructional
device in undergraduate classes where students are learning to write from
sources”(p. 178). A consensus among the researchers, then, seems that it
would be educationally more constructive to take a developmental per-
spective and view novice student writers’ appropriation of source texts
in L2 writing as a strategy of learning to engage in the discourse of their
disciplines.
Another important research theme is concerned with Chinese students’
experiences and perceptions in the context of L2 disciplinary writing. As
Hirvela (2011) noted, writing to learn the content is appealing in the L1
domain since students have already acquired the language of the content
as their native language and can focus on acquiring content knowledge
instead. However, for Chinese students whose deep-rooted belief about
English writing is to learn the language, it is no easy task to learn to use
L2 writing for the purpose of acquiring subject content and developing
disciplinary competence. Due to their limited L2 language proficiency

and lack of training in English academic writing at school and college,
it has been particularly challenging for Chinese students to transfer to
studying in an ESL education context where writing in the disciplines is
a crucial aspect of their academic life (Hirvela & Du, 2013; Leki, 2007;
Morton, Storch, & Thompson, 2015). In a longitudinal study on ESL
students’ academic literacy development at an American university, Leki
(2007) probed into two Chinese students’ journeys through undergradu-
ate academic literacy. Both students did not appear to believe in writing
as a means of content learning: One student conceptualized writing pri-
marily as a means for building fluency in language use, not expression of
the content, while the other believed learning came as a result of thinking
hard about the subject matter, though writing had a peripheral role in the
process.
Although previous research studies are revealing about Chinese stu-
dents’ experiences in L2 disciplinary writing, they have largely been con-
ducted in ESL contexts, mostly in the US, UK, Australia, or Hong Kong.
There is, to date, no reported research documenting Chinese undergrad-
uate students’ perceptions and practices in their L2 disciplinary writing
in the mainland China context, where EMI has been adopted by a grow-
ing number of universities in their aspiration to internationalization. This
study aims to fill the gap by exploring the writing experiences of a group
of final-year students studying in two disciplinary areas at a Sino-UK
collaborative university, where all its degree programmes are delivered in
English, and writing is used as a primary means for assessing students’
attainment of disciplinary knowledge and competence.
4 The Study
4.1 Setting
The research study was undertaken at a Sino-UK joint venture univer-

sity that was established in mainland China in the first decade of the
twenty-first century. The university offers dual degrees for its under-
graduate programmes: its own Chinese degree certified by the Ministry
of Education and a bachelor degree from its UK parent university. For

this reason, the university follows the quality assurance system of British
higher education, in which university students’ disciplinary writing is
the key to the achievement of academic success (Nesi & Gardner, 2012).
Although internationalization is a crucial aspect of the university’s mis-
sion, the vast majority of the student population is comprised of local
students recruited from all over the country through the GaoKao sys-
tem. They learn EFL at secondary school, where English teaching typi-
cally focuses on grammar and vocabulary, with minimal attention being
paid to L2 writing. Consequently, students have received very little
training in academic English writing when they arrive at the univer-
sity, and they are largely ill-prepared in English academic literacy for
meeting the demands of studying the disciplinary subjects in English.
The concepts of referencing conventions, formal academic register, and
discipline-specific ways of constructing arguments, for example, are rela-
tively foreign to them.
The university therefore incorporates a transitional stage in its aca-
demic framework. The first year is offered as the foundation year, focus-
ing on intensive teaching of EAP, especially academic writing skills.
Students start their discipline learning from the second year, along with
a discipline-related EAP course that aims to familiarize them with dif-
ferent written genres they are likely to encounter in their disciplinary
fields. From Year 2 to Year 4, students study their disciplinary subjects in
English, and this involves doing a range of written assignments, includ-
ing essays, research reports, case studies, lab reports and so on. All stu-
dents, regardless of their disciplines, are required to undertake a final-year
project dissertation on a subject topic, which is supervised by the faculty
and spans over two semesters in Year 4. The dissertations must be written
in English and, depending on the disciplines, the length ranges from
6000 to 12,000 words.
4.2 Participants
This study derives from interviews conducted with 12 Year 4 under-

graduate students from two disciplines: six from Applied Linguistics
(Humanities) and another six from Urban Planning and Design (Social
Sciences). These two disciplines were chosen for the following reasons:
according to Hyland (2008), disciplinary genre variation spreads along a
spectrum with Sciences on the one end and Humanities at the opposite
extreme, while Social Sciences are a hybrid of Sciences and Humanities.
This suggests the possibilities of some shared writing experiences between
students in the two disciplines, which is the main objective of this study.
In addition, the commonalities of students’ challenges and practices can
be more meaningful in suggesting ways of providing writing support for
students in the process of curriculum design.
The decision on Year 4 undergraduates as participants is based on two
considerations. We believe that compared with students in lower level,
the final-year students are more competent users of English for disciplin-
ary learning, and their writing experiences accumulated over the course
of studies are likely to be more revealing about their disciplinary writ-
ing development. Furthermore, previous research on L2 students’ writing
experiences is typically concerned with Year 1 or Year 2 students who are
at the early stage of studying at English medium settings (e.g. Hirvela &
Du; 2013; Hyland, 2013b; Li & Casanave, 2012; Morton et al., 2015),
but few studies examine the writing experiences of undergraduate stu-
dents who are completing their academic studies at university. The partici-
pants were selected after first sending invitations to their cohort, and then
consulting with the faculty who taught their subjects and recommended
them owing to high grades awarded to their written assignments. In order
to stimulate their reflections during the interviews, the participants were
also asked to bring a sample of written assignments that had been submit-
ted for their subject courses and been positively marked by their tutors.
All the 12 participants were from mainland China with Chinese as their
first language and had similar English learning experience in the Chinese
school system.
4.3 Procedures
The study carried out one-on-one semi-structured interviews with the

participants, in order to elicit their accounts of disciplinary w
riting
experiences at the EMI university. The interviews took place in the

first semester, when they were busy formulating the topic for final-year
projects. In-depth semi-structured interviews are considered as a more
desirable option over surveys or self-reported questionnaires because
face-to-face interviews allow interviewees to express their experiences
and interviewers to probe relevant insights with follow-up questions
(Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2007), a feature is particularly valuable
for the purpose of the current study. An interview guide, adapted from
Goldschmidt (2014) and Ruan (2014), were used, along with a sample
of their assessed writing from their Year 3 or 4 courses. The students
were allowed to switch between Chinese and English during the inter-
view as long as it helped the flow of their thinking. All interviews, lasting
from 30 minutes to an hour, were recorded and transcribed verbatim.
The interview data was then coded for identifying the emerging themes
guided by the objectives of the study. This involved getting familiar with
the data by multiple rounds of reading, underlining and annotating
the transcript, a process of inductive data reduction for capturing the
general themes in the interviews. In doing so, common themes relating
to students’ perceptions and practices in their L2 disciplinary writing
emerged, and discipline-specific themes were identified through con-
stant comparisons across the two disciplines.
5 Results and Discussion
The interviews generated rich accounts of students’ experiences of writing
at the EMI university. An emergent thematic analysis has identified four
broad themes recurring in the accounts, and these themes reveal com-
monalities of their disciplinary writing in Applied Linguistics and Urban
Planning and Design as well as differences across the disciplines. These
themes include:
• Language use in L2 disciplinary writing

• Perceptions of rhetorical norms and disciplinary conventions
• Valued practices in learning to write in the disciplines
• The role of writing in developing disciplinary competences
5.1 Language Use in L2 Disciplinary Writing
As EFL writers, an important theme recurring in their interviews is

related to the role that the language plays in learning to write in the
disciplines. Although the students learn English as a subject at second-
ary school, and have intensive EAP classes in the first year at the EMI
university, writing about their disciplinary knowledge in English, despite
its differences from writing for developing English language proficiency,
continues to raise their awareness of the importance of good language in
representing subject contents.
I think language is still very important, this is a common aspect between year 1
and year 4. If your language is not accurate, no matter how good your ideas are,
others perhaps won’t understand what you’ve written. (AL)
I think the basic thing is to learn English grammar well, then the academic
style, and learn the native speakers’ ways of expressing, and understand how is
it like to be more natural, more academic. (UPD)
However, students’ perceived importance of language use does not

seem to be matching their subject tutors’ focus in their marking, espe-
cially for students in Urban Planning and Design. Students reported their
impression that their subject tutors laid much more emphasis on their
understanding of subject contents in their written work, and language use
seemed to be a peripheral issue in representing disciplinary knowledge.
Students were also inclined to use visual means in their written work, for
the purposes of achieving effective communication of the c ontents as well
as making up for their inadequacy of English proficiency in writing.
I feel the tutors don’t pay much attention to those basics in writing, they focus
on how well you understand subject knowledge. (UPD)
I like using graphs and figures to present the results. To me, these methods
make the information you want to present much clearer than long text-based
descriptions, maybe it’s because of my problem in English proficiency. (UPD)
When it comes to the areas for improvement, students in both disciplines,

though in their final year of studies at the English medium university, still
considered grammar and vocabulary as the main concerns of language use

in their writing. Students in Applied Linguistics, in particular, placed much
emphasis on improving textual quality through the variety of language
forms, such as rich diction and syntactic structures, in making disciplinary
argument.
I think I need to improve the basics of academic writing. I didn’t learn it well
in year 1, and now in year 4, I still trace my grammar knowledge back in high
school. Sometimes while writing on and on, I feel I wasn’t expressing what I
wanted to say. It’s a completely different thing to write in English and think in
Chinese, and your grammar may go wrong. My present tense is just a mess.
(UPD)
Actually what I need most is vocabulary. I always use the same words and
can’t think of other vocabulary to replace. For example, ‘illustrate’, ‘demon-
strate’, I often use them again and again in my writing, without much
change. When I read journal papers, I often come across new words, but
when looking them up in dictionaries, actually many words have similar
meanings. (AL)
A salient language issue for these Chinese students is the use of trans-
lation as a mediation strategy for acquiring knowledge from sources in
Chinese and constructing knowledge in written English. This is particu-
larly the case for students studying Urban Planning and Design, whose
discipline learning involves application of theoretical knowledge to
addressing local issues in China. Students often relied on Chinese sources
for learning content and writing about content, especially for the initial
understanding of subject concepts. However, representing the knowledge
acquired from L1 sources in good English poses a great deal of difficul-
ties, as illustrated in the following extracts:
To be honest, I’m not afraid of theories, usually I “Baidu” the Chinese equiva-
lents first to get a grasp of the concepts. So, understanding the subject concepts is
not a problem, I can get lots of information very quickly as long as they are in
Chinese. But accurate English expression of what I have learned is the biggest
problem; this is why I’m not active in answering teachers’ questions in class. I
know the answer, theories in Chinese, but I just don’t know how to express them
in English, especially those specialized terminologies. (UPD)
We had a group project surveying the living conditions of low-class people in

Shanghai. Much of the work involved translating Chinese into English. We
interviewed local residents and had to summarize and translate their inter-
views to English. It was a bit beyond our ability. And then because that research
topic was a Chinese local issue, most references we found were in Chinese, and
that required translation as well. Perhaps our English was not at that level, we
had to rely very much on the electronic dictionaries to look for words, so some
words might not sound academic, or have different meanings. There might be
some problems in both translation and expression. Our tutor might not fully
understand what we wrote. (UPD)
These extracts suggest two issues that are pertinent to writing in the
disciplines in a second language. First, when L2 students are not sure
about their competence in acquiring the subject content from English
materials, which is often mandatory in EMI universities, they tend to
turn to L1 sources, if they are readily accessible, for quick comprehen-
sion of relevant concepts and knowledge. This is not necessarily prob-
lematic, as it is used as a compensatory strategy for disciplinary learning
by L2 students, but, by adding translation as a mediational process for
knowledge representation in writing, it nevertheless complicates the mul-
tifaceted nature of L2 disciplinary writing. Furthermore, in disciplines in
social sciences, like Urban Planning and Design, which involves theoreti-
cal application to practical issues in local contexts, L2 students’ bilingual
knowledge can be an advantage in their disciplinary learning, though it
can also place constraints on their disciplinary writing in English. As the
second extract suggests, the factual recount of events and the field work
in urban ethnography in Shanghai determined that the first-hand data
and available references were likely to be predominantly in Chinese.
5.2 erceptions of Rhetorical Norms

P
and Disciplinary Conventions
While the students’ emphasis on language form and use reflects the fact
that they are writing in EFL, their writing in the disciplines is also a
crucial aspect of disciplinary acculturation, which involves the acquisi-
tion of appropriate rhetorical norms and genres as well as conventional
disciplinary practices in constructing knowledge (Hyland, 2013a). Although

university-student writing is a complex notion, and there are possibilities
for different ways of genre categorization (Nesi & Gardner, 2012), in this
study we are interested in looking into the students’ genre awareness of the
written assignments they did for their subjects and their understanding of
the disciplinary conventions expected in their writing. In the interviews,
two types of written assignments that students in both disciplines com-
monly referred to were “reports” and “essays”, but they also tended to use
them interchangeably as umbrella terms for describing different types of
written assignments in their courses.
I feel most of our written assignments are essays, and next are reports. But if it
involves design assignments, then we do posters and graphs. For essays, you pre-
pare a logical outline, then write the introduction, which is what it is mainly
about, and then select a city and analyze the problems in that city, and finally
put forward your solutions. Basically it is like this, not so much field investiga-
tion. (UPD)
The main kind of writing is research reports, and sometimes writing essays.
You first have some key points, then look for literature review to prove them,
and then put them in the big context of China to see if they are suitable. Last
time, we did a rather peculiar assignment called policy memorandum.
(UPD)
In year 1 semester 1, we focused on writing essays, the kind of short essay. In
semester 2 we did a group project and wrote a report; we designed a question-
naire survey, and did the research. This was the first time we wrote reports since
entering the university. (AL)
In describing their writing experiences, students also referred to “case

study”, “literature review”, “group projects”, “evaluation and recommen-
dation”, and “problem and suggestions”, and so on, and perceived the
generic structure of the various types of writing as consisting of “intro-
duction”, “literature review”, “methods and analysis”, and “conclusion”.
Students appeared to have a vague understanding of distinctive social
purposes and rhetorical features of different written genres or sub-genres,
but they were able to clearly articulate the key differences between writ-
ing for Year 1 EAP classes and writing in subject courses.
Year 1 essays seldom involved subject contents. Teachers only taught the basics of
academic writing, how to organize the essay, how to use academic vocabulary,
etc. But in years 3 and 4, the essay topics the tutors give are very subject specific.
Another aspect I think is in year 1 essays, teachers’ marking focused on whether
you followed the academic style, whether you used proper academic words, but
in years 3 and 4, the tutors don’t pay special attention to your academic format,
they focus on your discipline-related logic, your analytical ability in your writ-
ing. (UPD)
In year 1, you were given writing topics, and you had some common knowl-
edge about them. Generally, I wrote four paragraphs, an introduction for
expressing the thesis, then two paragraphs for reasoning, and then a conclusion.
It’s like writing IELTS essays. In years 3 and 4, you must read those references,
even if you got an understanding in class. If you don’t read them carefully, you
don’t know what to write, very discipline-specific, furthermore, you can’t afford
to misunderstand the theories, it would be a disaster if you got it wrong. (AL)
However, students sometimes struggled to figure out the tutors’ expec-

tations of the discipline writing conventions, especially when the assign-
ment specifications appeared to be either too general or too complicated.
This seems to have happened more often to students in Urban Planning
and Design. In such circumstances, students had to assume what was
expected of them in terms of disciplinary-approved ways of representing
knowledge when writing for their subject tutors.
We once had a tutor whose assignment specifications were very complicated, but
gave no indication of the structure, so we didn’t know what to follow to orga-
nize the whole paper, felt helpless. (UPD)
Sometimes the professors’ requirements are not clear, and this leads to our
misunderstanding; sometimes they use the kind of native-speaker English that
we don’t understand. Once a professor used a phrase in the coursework
instructions, something called “art of state”, or “state of art”? He didn’t explain
its meaning. We discussed it but couldn’t figure it out, so in the end had to go to
ask him for clarification. It took a lot of time. (UPD)
The extracts suggest that students are generally aware that certain rhe-
torical conventions are expected of them in their assignments, but do
not have the genre knowledge of what is actually expected. Perhaps, a
common belief among subject tutors is that students can pick up the
disciplinary ways of writing along with the subject concepts. However,
for L2 students, the process of becoming familiar with the disciplinary
conventions of constructing knowledge in their academic English writing
is more time-consuming. Disciplinary acculturation in a second language
involves factors that may not be present in L1 student writing. Subject
tutors’ explicit guidance of the disciplinary ways of constructing knowl-
edge is therefore necessary to novice L2 writers in helping them acquire
disciplinary discourses.
5.3 alued Practices in Learning to Write

V
in the Disciplines
An important aspect of the students’ writing experiences is valued prac-

tices that lead to successful accomplishments in their writing. In their
interviews, students spoke of various learning activities that facilitate
their L2 disciplinary writing. However, one particularly valuable practice
mentioned was extensive reading of source materials, which was consid-
ered as a prerequisite to successful disciplinary writing. Some students
talked specifically of lecturers’ recommended reading lists as a good start-
ing point for not only grasping the subject content, but also familiarizing
themselves with how writing is done in their subject fields.
The important thing is just to read a lot, read on things relevant to your major.
You will learn more vocabulary and how to structure your own writing; try to
imitate scholars’ writing style as much as possible. (AL)
Reading, reading English articles is more helpful to us, especially those on
recommended reading lists. Because reading builds up academic vocabulary;
second, we can try to imitate how to compose. Reading is the input, it helps you
write fluently. (UPD)
Students’ emphasis on subject-related reading indicates their under-

standing of the close relationship between reading and writing in the
process of meaning-making in the disciplines. This awareness of ‘read-to-
write’ connections (Belcher & Hirvela, 2001) leads them to believe that
reading is a primary academic skill in successful genre learning. As an
integral part of disciplinary writing, extensive reading of the literature has

two purposes: to acquire the subject content, and to imitate the models of
expert writing. Extensive reading of relevant literature is therefore essen-
tial to the acquisition of disciplinary knowledge and disciplinary ways of
making argument, as it is a primary means by which they cope with the
disciplinary content as well as the rhetorical structure in their writing.
I once had rewarding experience of writing on a topic of green architecture. For

one thing, the materials were readily accessible; for another, there was an article
closely related to the topic, and I imitated part of its structure. So writing the
whole assignment was relatively easy. (UPD)
Peer learning is also considered valuable to their disciplinary writing

in the eyes of some students. This is in the form of peer discussion at the
planning stage of assignments, or group projects that were often adopted
by subject tutors. Talking to classmates helped them identify the key
points to be covered, and this is to ensure that they understood what was
required in written assignments.
Discussing with classmates is very important, it helps me understand the

requirements and what is the right direction, so to avoid writing off the topic.
You can also learn what kind of structure and content that others use in the
assignments, and whether the materials I found are appropriate. (AL)
A writing strategy unique to these L2 students is making an outline

in Chinese, which is believed to be facilitative to organizing key points
in planning their assignments. Students took advantage of their first
language for developing clear logic and structure before writing a draft
for disciplinary assignments. L1 use in Chinese students’ L2 composing
process was not uncommon, and as Wang and Wen (2002) observed in
an exploratory study of Chinese EFL writers, students were more likely
to rely on their L1 for generating and organizing ideas.
I learned it from others, and used it myself. You just draft an outline in Chinese
and write down what you plan to write, but not the whole essay. That helps
your thinking, because when you write in English, you don’t have the kind of
clear logic as you write in Chinese. (UPD)
5.4 he Role of Writing in Developing Disciplinary

T
Competences
A key function of students’ written assignments is to learn the disciplin-

ary concepts and content by means of writing. Students are required not
only to demonstrate knowledge and understanding in written assign-
ments, but also to construct knowledge and arguments in their writing
and to become a member of the disciplinary community. While all the
students, irrespective of whether they were studying Applied Linguistics
or Urban Planning and Design, recognized the role of written assign-
ments in deepening their understanding of subject contents and devel-
oping their ability to reason and argument, writing also contributed to
building up the sense of achievements that is specific to their disciplinary
studies. Students in Urban Planning and Design considered it more ful-
filling when they were able to write like professionals in their field.
Once you have decided on your focus and thesis statement, and found the mate-
rials, you can write smoothly. For that assignment, I felt particularly valuable.
I learned a completely new field, something I hadn’t known before. Then you
wrote them down, I felt I advanced my knowledge of that topic. (UPD)
For that writing, I designed a survey and administered to local people, I then
obtained results from the data. I was very satisfied with the analysis too, because
the results turned out to be very similar to those reported in a published article.
I felt somewhat like a professional. (UPD)
Differently, students in Applied Linguistics had a sense of achieve-

ments that was often associated with pursuing the freedom of think-
ing and individual identity as depicted in the text. They became rather
uncomfortable when the assignment requirements were too prescriptive
or rigid.
I feel most competent when doing translation assignments, because you can look
for the source text yourself and choose the text that is most interesting to you, so
when translating, you are fully into it. Moreover, when writing the commen-
tary, your explanations are not too theoretical, and you have more freedom to
express your thinking. (AL)
In that course, maybe our teacher wanted us to think and discuss within the
theoretical framework he gave us, so in the analysis, we couldn’t freely express
our own thoughts. There was no sense of self. (AL)
It appears that for students in Applied Linguistics, their satisfaction

in disciplinary writing was partly derived from the opportunity of devel-
oping individual creativity and independent thinking, though in their
view, this sometimes clashed with the disciplinary way of communicating
knowledge that was strictly set by the subject tutors.
Finally, students tended to believe that when assignments provided
opportunities for application of disciplinary knowledge to practical
issues in the real world, they contributed significantly to the develop-
ment of their disciplinary competences. Such assignments were designed
to engage students in a way that they were able to do the learning of the
disciplinary content. The experience of doing the practical analysis was
often directed towards the knowledge building in the form of both writ-
ing and oral presentations.
I enjoyed the process of doing that assignment. First you look for innovative
advertisements on the Internet, and find all sorts of interesting ads. Then you
choose one to see what kind of metaphor is used in its design, and what is its
innovative aspect. Then you do a detailed analysis from different angles accord-
ing to the theories you learn in the book. Finally you write a report and give a
presentation of your analysis to the class, which is very rewarding. (AL)
6 Summary and Implications
Most previous research on Chinese student writing has studied the
development of writing skills as measured by grammatical accuracy and
complexity in written texts, and has been conducted typically in the con-
text of English language classrooms. This line of research has enhanced
our understanding of the characteristics of Chinese student L2 writing
in the process of their second language acquisition. However, the cur-
rent trend towards using English as the medium for disciplinary teaching
and learning in China has opened up a range of new questions about
English writing instruction, of which an important one is the role that

English writing plays in Chinese students’ disciplinary learning. Although
the present study was carried out with a small group of undergraduate
students from two disciplines and situated in a particular, even unique
EMI context in China, the findings contribute to our understanding of
Chinese students’ practices and perceptions about using L2 writing as a
means for learning subject matter and disciplinary practices. The study
identified four key themes, revealing both commonalities and disciplinary
differences of student writing experiences in the disciplines of humanities
(Applied Linguistics) and social sciences (Urban Planning and Design).
These themes are related to their perceptions about (1) language use in L2
disciplinary writing, (2) rhetorical norms and disciplinary conventions;
(3) valued practices in learning to write in the disciplines; and (4) the role
of writing in developing disciplinary competences.
As shown in the interviews, students in both disciplines considered
that appropriate language form is important in L2 disciplinary writing.
Chinese students’ deeply ingrained belief in the importance of grammati-
cal accuracy and vocabulary is the reflection of their past writing experi-
ence in English classes, where they learn L2 writing as a language skill and
are accustomed to receiving language-based feedback from their teach-
ers. This, however, seems to be in contrast to their impression of subject
teachers’ attitude towards language issues, especially in Urban Planning
and Design: faculty teachers are more concerned with the disciplinary
content in their writing and give relatively little attention to the language
aspects. Previous research on faculty feedback has also reported their lack
of attention given to language accuracy and their focus on students’ ability
to produce disciplinarily effective arguments (Hyland, 2013a, 2013b). As
a result, this might send to students a message that grammatical accuracy
is peripheral to the representation of disciplinary knowledge, and can
be detached from the development of the disciplinary ways of reasoning
and making argument. Although there seems to be a rhetoric-linguistic
dilemma to be resolved in the provision of writing courses to L2 writers
(Matsuda, Saenkhum, & Accardi, 2013), for Chinese students who write
in the disciplines in EFL, their language needs can still be a prominent
issue, and should be carefully taken into account in disciplinary learn-
ing, along with the development of disciplinary knowledge and abilities.
We agree with Hyland’s (2013a) observation that faculty teachers’ lack of

attention to language errors can unsettle students who come from edu-
cational cultures that emphasize the importance of corrective feedback.
Another common feature of student writing in the two disciplines is
using expert writing as models for imitating the discipline-specific ways
of reasoning and constructing argument. Looking for models is a writing
strategy that ESL students typically rely on (Leki, 1995). For Chinese
students who are accustomed to learning model essays in their general
English classes, they naturally resort to writing exemplars specific to the
discipline when learning to write for subject courses. Imitating expert
models in this regard is different from students’ language reuse from source
texts, which is often concerned with copying phrasal and sentential units
in composing text (Flowerdew & Li, 2007, 2009; Shi, 2004). Rather, it
is a strategy of genre learning by novice academic writers to master the
way by which disciplinary knowledge is constructed and communicated
in the community. As disciplinary differences are believed to be essential
in constructing academic discourses and students are expected to write
in disciplinary-approved ways (Hyland, 2008, 2013a; Shi, 2012), models
of expert writing in the disciplines are particularly useful resources that
students can exploit in the process of disciplinary acculturation.
A significant finding of discipline-specific writing practices is the
heavy reliance on L1 sources by students in Urban Planning and Design,
while students in Applied Linguistics are more inclined to use English
sources. In using Chinese source materials, students need to first inter-
pret the meaning of the original Chinese text and then restate the mean-
ing in the English language. Shi (2012) observes that like paraphrasing
and summarizing, translating is a meaning-making process in L2 dis-
ciplinary writing. However, this also raises the issue of source attribu-
tion, that is, whether translation means copying words from L1 texts
or paraphrasing others’ ideas. Although this adds further complication
to the issue of plagiarism in L2 students’ academic writing (e.g. Belcher
& Hirvela, 2001; Flowerdew & Li, 2007; Howard, 1995; Shi, 2008),
the ability to translate source texts from L1 suggests extra-linguistic or
knowledge resources that L2 writers can use in their disciplinary writing.
A recognition of this unique aspect of L2 writers calls for a new approach
which sees L2 students not as linguistically deficient writers who have to
overcome language hurdles, but as resourceful writers, for whom differ-

ences in language can be a resource for producing meaning in writing.
As Shi (2012) argues, L2 students should be encouraged to create texts
by making use of L1 source texts and be guided to use appropriate meth-
ods of attribution. In this study, for students in Urban Planning and
Design whose work involves application of theories to local environmen-
tal issues, exploiting their L1 knowledge is an integral part of disciplinary
learning and writing.
Unlike students in Urban Planning and Design, who wish to construct
apprenticeship identity in their field by conforming to the disciplinary
conventions, students in Applied Linguistics aspire to individual creativ-
ity and freedom of thinking through their writing. While recognizing the
importance of grasping the theoretical knowledge of their subject, they
are more interested in making connections with practical issues, by which
their individual voices can be expressed in their writing. In their view,
constraints on freely expressing their thoughts can be imposed by overly
rigid assignment requirements set by the faculty teachers. This finding
suggests that there are discipline-specific goals that students in the dis-
ciplines of the humanities pursue in their writing, and such disciplinary
distinction shall be fully recognized so that disciplinary writing can nur-
ture their ability in critical thinking as well as individual creativity.
This research study has important implications for the reform of
English writing teaching and learning within the context of English as the
medium of instruction at Chinese universities. We call for a reconsidera-
tion of the role of English writing in the disciplines in China’s university
education. It is necessary to distinguish the different (and developmen-
tal) types of English writing for Chinese students: general English writ-
ing, EAP writing, and writing in disciplinary courses. Recognition of
this distinction can help identify educational aims that are associated
with teaching English writing at different phases in the course of uni-
versity studies. For general English classes, writing primarily serves as
a tool for developing second language proficiency, manifesting the WL
the language dimension. In EAP classes, writing instruction focuses on
the development of academic vocabulary, discourse chunks and syntactic
complexity, as well as the mastery of the generic structure of academic
texts. Writing in general English and EAP classes is the foundation for
the development of Chinese students’ language proficiency and English

academic literacy, but if they choose to study disciplinary subjects in EMI
institutional settings, whether going abroad or in mainland China, writ-
ing as a means of learning disciplinary content and conventions has to be
fully recognized in the curriculum. Owing to the significant role writing
plays in university students’ academic success, a close alignment between
general English writing, EAP writing, and disciplinary writing is a key
issue for reforming language learning and teaching at Chinese EMI uni-
versities. This requires a collaborative relationship between EAP teachers
and subject faculty, as EAP researchers have already strongly argued in
the literature (e.g. Hyland, 2013a; Flowerdew & Li, 2009).
Furthermore, in EMI institutional settings in mainland China, an
important question to be answered is the role of the L1 in disciplin-
ary learning and teaching. Using translation as a mediational process in
disciplinary writing requires a high level of academic literacy in both L1
and L2 for appropriate knowledge representation. This is particularly rel-
evant to Chinese students who study disciplinary subjects that are closely
linked to the local environment and context in China. How to maximize
Chinese students’ bilingual knowledge for disciplinary studies is not just
a pedagogical issue for subject faculty and L2 writing scholars, but a mat-
ter deserving thorough examination in the process of policymaking while
adopting EMI for disciplinary learning and teaching in China.
Though illuminating about Chinese students’ experiences in L2 disci-
plinary writing, the findings of the study need to be interpreted with cau-
tion. This was a small-scale study conducted with a group of 12 final-year
students from two disciplines in a Sino-UK collaborative institution. The
interview data may not have been able to mitigate idiosyncrasies of individ-
ual students who had developed their particular ways of learning to write in
their disciplines. The unique EMI setting at the university also suggests that
the complexities of these students’ disciplinary writing may be distinct from
university-student writing in the L1 or ESL context, as well as Chinese-
student writing experiences in bilingual education settings in other Chinese
universities. Caution is required in considering how far the students’ writ-
ing experiences could be generalized beyond this particular institutional
setting. This line of research therefore can be enhanced through extended
qualitative studies about Chinese students’ L2 disciplinary writing in other
contexts. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the complexities of

L2 disciplinary writing, there is a need for broadening the scope of future
research. For example, little is known about Chinese L2 students’ transition
from writing to learn the language to writing in the disciplines, a gap of
understanding that can be filled by longitudinal research documenting the
trajectories of writing development throughout the course of their univer-
sity studies. Further investigations also need to look into L2 students’ gen-
eralizable experiences in disciplinary writing, such as L2 language use and
the role of the L1 in L2 disciplinary writing, as well as discipline-specific
practices across a wider range of disciplinary fields. Such investigations will
help understand the process of Chinese students’ disciplinary acculturation
in the L2, which is largely determined by the disciplinary ways of represent-
ing and constructing knowledge through L2 writing.
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Zhoulin Ruan is Associate Professor in applied linguistics and the found-

ing Head of Department of English at Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
in China. He received his PhD in applied linguistics from the University of
Reading, UK. His research interests include academic writing, metacognition
and self-regulated language learning, EAP/ESP in the Chinese context, func-
tional grammar, and discourse analysis. His monograph entitled “Metacognitive
Knowledge in Self-regulated Language Learning and Writing” was published by
Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press. His research articles have appeared
in journals, such as Language Awareness, System, RELC Journal, International
Journal of Computer-assisted Language Learning and Teaching, and Journal of
Foreign Languages in China as well as edited collections in applied linguistics.
Jinhua Chen was a college English teacher at a Chinese university for a few
years, before moving to the United States. She did her MA in TESOL at Xi’an
Jiaotong-Liverpool University, focusing on Chinese students’ academic writing.
10
The Implementation of EAP Instruction
in a Local University in China
Beibei Zhao and Guoxing Yu
1 Introduction
English language teaching can be classified into two principal branches,
English for General Purposes (EGP) and English for Specific Purposes
(ESP) (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). Within ESP there are again two
main branches, English for academic purposes (EAP) and English for
occupational purposes (EOP) (Dudley-Evans, 2001). EGP tends to teach
learners conversational and social genres of the language. By contrast,
EAP courses focus on formal, academic genres (Hamp-Lyons, 2001). As
noted by Hyland and Hamp-Lyons (2002, p. 2), “EAP refers to language
research and instruction that focuses on the specific communicative
B. Zhao (*)
Zhejiang Shuren University, Zhejiang Sheng, China
G. Yu
University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

224 B. Zhao and G. Yu
needs and practices of particular groups in academic contexts. It means

grounding instruction in an understanding of the cognitive, social and
linguistic demands of specific academic disciplines in the hope to equip
students with communicative skills to engage in various academic and
cultural activities”. EAP has developed rapidly over the past two decades,
from humble beginnings as a comparatively fringe branch of ESP in the
early 1980s to a major force in English language teaching and research
around the world (Hyland, 2006).
Within EAP there are also two main branches: English for General
Academic Purposes (EGAP) and English for Specific Academic Purposes
(ESAP). According to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998), the EGAP
approach was designed for pre-study groups, or groups that are hetero-
geneous with regard to discipline. Teachers attempt to isolate the skills,
language forms, and study activities thought to be common to all dis-
ciplines, such as listening to lectures, participating in seminars, read-
ing articles, and writing reports (Dudley-Evans & St John, 1998). This
approach involves such activities as questioning, note-taking, summary
writing, giving presentations, and so on as generic academic practices.
ESAP, on the other hand, was designed to meet specific needs of students
in the same discipline. ESAP reflects the idea that, while some generaliza-
tions can be made, the differences among skills and conventions across
distinct disciplines may be greater than their similarities. ESAP is there-
fore concerned with the teaching of skills and language that are relevant
to the demands of a particular discipline or department (Hyland, 2006,
p. 9).
2 urrent English Language Education

C
in China
Under a new wave of reform in English teaching and learning, the
Ministry of Education in China reformulated its Guide to College English
Teaching for 2015. As indicated in the Guide, the main aims of College
English teaching are to develop learners’ cross-cultural awareness and
communicative competence, to facilitate the growth of learner auton-
omy, and to improve their comprehensive cultural literacy, so that they
10 The Implementation of EAP Instruction in a Local University... 225
can effectively use English in studies and social interactions and therefore
meet the needs of their social and individual development. Traditionally,
College English consists of courses devoted to specific skills such as lis-
tening and speaking separately, as well as courses that integrate listening
and speaking. There is a general consensus that there exist some problems
in College English teaching in China. For example, learning and teach-
ing goals are generally unclear (Shu, 2012), English teaching is time-
consuming and inefficient (Dai, 2001), students lack motivation (Cai,
2012a; Shu, 2013), and some students think their English ability has not
improved at all (Zhao, Lei, & Zhang, 2009). However, the number of
hours allocated to College English teaching is being reduced gradually as
part of educational reform in Chinese higher education institutions, as
priorities are being given to competing subjects while at the same time
the expectation of students achieving higher English language proficiency
is even higher than in the past two decades. Universities are facing the
challenges of developing a reformed College English curriculum that is
fit for purpose within this broad educational context and in the context
of the globalization of higher education.
3 The Necessity of EAP Instruction in China

With respect to the curriculum, the Guide to College English Teaching
points out that the College English curriculum should consist of all
three kinds of courses, that is, EGP, ESP (including EAP and EOP), and
cross-cultural communication courses. The Guide further distinguishes
between elementary, improved and developed stages. At the elementary
stage, the goal is to meet the basic demands of the majority of the non-
English-major students. At the improved stage, the goal is to further
develop those who do well in the English placement test when entering
college. The developed stage aims to meet the specific needs of top stu-
dents. According to the ‘National Medium- and Long-Term Educational
Reform and Development Plan (2010–2020)’, universities should make
an effort to cultivate a large number of talents with international vision,
who are able to participate in international affairs and international
competitions. The Ministry of Education points out that the reform of
College English should aim to improve students’ professional ability in

English and equip them with the capacity for directly using EAP.
Cai (2010) has argued for the promotion of ESP instruction in
College English programs and pointed out that EAP should be the
main course of ESP in China. He has speculated that, from a student’s
perspective, EAP can not only help students to improve their language
ability but also help to improve their academic literacy and interna-
tional competitiveness. Additionally, he has noted that EAP instruc-
tions could push the internationalization of the curriculum of other
subjects. As a matter of fact, EAP programs are becoming increasingly
common in Chinese universities.
A syllabus is a plan of what is to be achieved through teaching and
learning, identifying what will be worked on in reaching the over-
all course aims and providing a basis for evaluating students’ progress
(Hyland, 2006). Due to the fact that EAP refers to instruction that
focuses on the specific communicative needs and practices of particular
groups in academic contexts, EAP practitioners need to equip learners
with communicative skills to participate in those particular academic
and cultural contexts (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002). Needs analysis
leads to the specification of objectives for a course or set of courses
and to an assessment of the available resources and constraints that
lead to the development of an appropriate syllabus and methodology
(Hamp-Lyons, 2001). Nowadays, it is accepted that learners who are
bound for or participating in formal education through the medium
of English should also receive study skills preparation (Hamp-Lyons,
2001).
In China, there are two different patterns of EAP practices. One is
a typical western EAP practice, and the other is a hybrid EAP practice.
The former is mainly found in universities such as The University of
Nottingham Ningbo and Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University, where
joint programs are carried out. The latter are implemented mainly
in state-owned universities, such as Fudan University and Tsinghua
University (Gao & Bartlett, 2014). In Fudan University, EAP courses
are designed on the basis of the target academic disciplines, such as
Academic English for Science and Engineering, Academic English for
Social Sciences, Academic English for Humanities, Academic English for
Business, and Academic English for Medicine (Cai, 2012b). Tsinghua

University, however, follows a different pattern, which combines lan-
guage skills training with general academic targets. The EAP courses
are further divided into eight subdivisions, including EAP Reading and
Writing (Bands 1–4) and EAP Listening and Speaking (Bands 1–4)
(Zhang, Zhang, & Liu, 2011).
4 he Local Context of English Language

T
Education
Following the footsteps of the pioneers who have been exploring dif-
ferent patterns of EAP practices in China, Zhejiang Shuren University
(ZSU) also makes efforts to develop an appropriate EAP curriculum
fit for the local context. This chapter reports a case study concerning
EAP practices at ZSU. ZSU is a comprehensive, four-year private insti-
tution that currently serves approximately 16,000 students. The uni-
versity offers 40 programs and 11 specialized areas of concentration
that lead to four-year bachelor degrees. All ZSU undergraduates must
take College English in order to graduate. This consists of two 4-credit
integrated courses for first-year students. Each course is allocated 160
minutes per week, which amounts to approximately 90 hours per year.
Next, there are two 2-credit College English courses for sophomore
students, with 80 minutes per week amounting to a total of 45 hours
each year. At the end of each semester, all ZSU students sit their final
examination according to the courses that they have enrolled in. This
examination is developed by a committee of College English teachers,
and normally lasts two hours. It consists of four major parts, includ-
ing listening, reading, writing, and translation sections. Speaking tests
are carried out separately by individual teachers. All College English
courses help students develop their academic literacy in English. The
instruction for freshmen focuses on development of fluency and profi-
ciency in listening, speaking, reading, and writing, whereas subsequent
courses help students to develop competence in academic English skills
and cross-cultural communication.
5 Curriculum Innovations at ZSU

Tertiary education in China has witnessed remarkable change and
growth in the past two decades. Similarly, ZSU has undergone a period of
development and innovation. In the past ten years, the College English
department of ZSU has carried out three major waves of innovations
and has made some achievements with strong support from the insti-
tution. The first innovation was in 2005, marked by the introduction
of a new policy entitled ‘College English Curriculum Requirements’
(Department of Higher Education of Ministry of Education of the
People’s Republic of China, 2004). At that time, the learner-centered
teaching concept was introduced in the curriculum. Self-access centers
were established where students could work independently on language
and study skills related to their needs and interests. With the assistance
of multimedia technology, internet resources, and a learner-centered
learning platform, students were divided into several levels according to
their scores on the English placement test. During this period, College
English tests were introduced and teaching quality was fully supervised
by internal and external experts. The emphasis was paid on listening
and speaking skills. Autonomous learning became an integral part of
the College English curriculum.
The second wave of innovation was marked by the introduc-
tion of College English elite courses and school-based teamwork. The
College English teaching syllabus was divided into two categories: one
for Arts students and the other for Science and Technology students.
Correspondingly, two sets of teaching materials and syllabus were used.
Teachers also created more opportunities for students to participate in
in-class activities in accordance with their language proficiency levels to
encourage greater participation.
The third innovation happened in 2011. To cope with an increasing
interest in ESP courses, the College English teachers at ZSU redesigned
the syllabus by integrating EGE (English for General Education) courses
into the College English syllabus and established a variety of courses (see
Table 10.1), laying a solid foundation for the curriculum system in the
development stage.
Table 10.1 College English program

Second year (3rd and 4th
First year (1st and 2nd semester) semester)
Courses EGP EGE
Content College English listening and Business English
speaking (bands 1–2) Vocational English
College English reading and writing Tourism English
(bands 1–2) Secretary English
…… Culture and Communication
Newspaper English
……
After three rounds of innovation, students’ English-language profi-

ciency improved, more students participated in class activities, and their
awareness of autonomous learning developed to some extent. However,
based on teachers’ observations, there still existed a large number of
problems. For example, learners became increasingly demotivated to
learn English. Some learners appeared to be unable to perform classroom
activities because of their limited language proficiency.
In recent years, an increasing number of institutions have started to
compress College English credits. In a similar vein, the credits at ZSU
were reduced from 16 to 12. To cope with the decrease in credits,
computer-mediated facilities and new teaching models were introduced
and online autonomous learning became an integral part of College
English at ZSU. This trend has also pushed College English teachers at
ZSU to re-evaluate the levels of difficulty of teaching materials and pro-
gram syllabus.
Owing to these unsolved problems, literacy demands and global
trends, ZSU undertook a fourth round of innovation in 2015 as part of
the innovation, and EAP programs were added to the College English
curriculum. With the support of the institution, College English teachers
provided EAP courses as a complement to the College English program.
These courses became compulsory in the undergraduate degree programs,
in an attempt to support students’ professional development and future
careers. In order to design a program that would best match our students’
needs, we conducted a thorough needs analysis (Brindley, 1989), consist-
ing of questionnaires and interviews with teachers and students. We will
now describe the needs analysis as well as the process of implementing

EAP in our context.
6 Research Aims and Methodology

A range of methods including questionnaires, interviews, language tests,
observations in class, self-assessments, diaries, and case studies is com-
monly used to collect the necessary data for conducting a needs analysis
(Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001b; Jordan, 1997; West, 1994).
Needs analysis, the collection and application of information on
learners’ needs, is fundamental to course design and teaching (Hamp-
Lyons, 2001; Jordan, 1997). A definition of needs analysis is presented
by Hyland (2006, p. 73):
Needs analysis refers to the techniques for collecting and assessing informa-
tion relevant to course design. … Needs can involve what learners know,
don’t know or want to know, and can be collected and analyzed in a variety
of ways.
Needs analysis, the necessary point of departure for designing a syllabus,

tasks, and materials (Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001), has been ‘a key instru-
ment in course design’ in ESP (West, 1994, p. 2). With its concern to fine
tune the curriculum to the specific needs of the learner, needs analysis is
a precursor to subsequent interest in ‘learner centredness’ (Nunan, 1988).
Needs analysis is a means to identify the purposes of learning English
(Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001), taking into account learners’ lacks (what
they actually require), what they already know, as well as their wants (what
they themselves wish to learn) (Hutchinson & Waters, 1987). Jordan
(1997, p. 29) sees four dimensions of needs: those of the target situation,
of the employer or sponsor, of the student, and of the course designer and/
or teacher. Flowerdew (2013, p. 325) claims that needs analysis is the first
stage in ESP course development, followed by curriculum design, materials
selection, methodology, assessment, and evaluation.
The study reported in this chapter focuses on the necessity of the
implementation of EAP instruction at ZSU, in an attempt to locate the
EAP course foci as well as the implementation of EAP instruction fit

for the local context. Essentially, this involved collecting information on
learners’ primary motivation in learning English, learners’ goals, their
learning background, language proficiency levels, reasons for taking the
course, learning preferences, and the situations they would need to com-
municate in. We will now describe the study as well as the instruments
we used in our needs analysis. Our research questions:
RQ1: Is it necessary to implement EAP instruction at ZSU?

RQ2: What should the EAP course focus on?
RQ3: How should we implement EAP instruction at ZSU?
6.1 Questionnaire Surveys
In 2015, two questionnaire surveys were administered with non-English-

majors at ZSU. The first was an online questionnaire disseminated to
freshmen. The questionnaire had a total of 13 items on students’ English
language learning background, proficiency levels, learning goals, their
learning preferences as well as their perceptions of their current English
language instruction. The second questionnaire targeted the sophomores’
perceptions of their English language learning goals as well as their per-
ceived importance of academic skills. This questionnaire was made up of
two parts, consisting of 36 questions. Part one included questions con-
cerning students’ academic background and their experiences of learning
English as a foreign language. Part two was related to their perception of
the importance of various language skills.
6.2 Interviews
The questionnaire data helped us formulate the specific topics to be cov-

ered in the semi-structured interview with teachers. During the inter-
views, we made efforts to make the interviewees do most of the talking,
explaining what an idea, event, or bit of background meant (Rubin &
Rubin, 1995). Teachers were selected on the basis of their willingness
to be interviewed and audio-recorded. Due to time constraint, only six
English teachers participated and all interviews were carried out in their
offices. Each interview lasted from 10 to 30 minutes and was conducted
in Chinese. The teachers’ interviews contained 10 open-ended ques-
tions, in an attempt to seek teachers’ perception on their EAP instruction
practices. The interview questions included several general questions,
including questions about teachers’ background information and current
situations as well as several focused questions asking teachers to describe
various aspects of their perceptions of teaching EAP at ZSU and their
perceptions of difficulties and possibilities in EAP pedagogy.
6.3 Data Analysis
6.3.1 Students’ Perceptions
In total, 1061 questionnaires were returned from freshmen. The results

from the first questionnaire showed that participants’ learning back-
grounds were similar. Most of them had been learning English for more
than 10 years and had a vocabulary size ranging from 3000 to 4500
words. The questionnaire data reported significant gaps between the
proficiency of learners coming from urban schools and those from rural
areas. In terms of learning preferences, about 30% students expressed a
preference for academic materials. With regard to their learning goals,
the majority (84%) reported passing tests; 69% reported personal fulfill-
ment; 46% reported attending seminars; and for 20%, EAP courses were
their goals for learning English. Finally, 23% students reported their goal
was to study abroad after graduation.
As indicated earlier, the second questionnaire was disseminated to
sophomore students who had been learning College English for more
than one year at ZSU. The second questionnaire aimed to investigate
students’ needs. In total, 635 questionnaires were returned, 310 from arts
students and 325 from science and technology students.
Students ranked the four macro-skills using a Likert scale (5 = most
important, 1 = least important). They ranked reading and listening skills
as the most important, with writing and speaking as less important. The
means ranged from 4.29 (reading), 3.59 (listening), 2.59 (speaking) to
2.14 (writing).
Next, students were asked to rank the importance of various micro-

skills. Responses for the seven micro-skills in reading ranged from 3.89 to
4.62. Scanning for specific pieces of information had the highest mean,
followed by skimming for the main idea, with guessing the unknown
words having the lowest mean. Among the six micro-skills in listening,
means ranged from 3.41 to 4.71. The ability to take notes had the high-
est mean, the ability to identify the key idea and the purposes of lectures
accounted for the second and the third highest mean, with locating sign-
posting key words having the lowest mean (Table 10.2).
6.3.2 T
eacher’s Perceptions of Local English Education
Context
A close analysis of the interview data reveals that teachers are facing simi-
lar constraints on effective teaching and learning due to distractions such
Table 10.2 Students’ perception of the importance of micro-skills

Macro-skills Micro-skills Mean
Reading Skimming for the main idea 4.28
Scanning for specific pieces of information 4.62
Distinguishing facts from opinions 4.24
Distinguishing main ideas from evidence 4.21
Understanding text structure 3.90
Drawing conclusions 4.04
Guessing the unknown words 3.89
Listening Identifying the purpose of lectures 4.48
Identifying the key idea of lectures 4.65
Taking notes 4.71
Ability to locate signposting key words 3.41
Ability to identify topic of the lecture 4.14
Ability to recognize key lexical items 3.77
Speaking Pronunciation and intonation 4.55
Oral presentation 4.33
Seminars and discussions 3.43
Writing Writing a summary 4.46
Writing a report 3.74
Writing research papers 2.74
Argument development 3.41
as students’ use of mobile phones and other electronic devices. Teachers

are concerned about the large gap between the proficiency of learners,
large class sizes, lack of learners’ motivation, as well as inadequate teach-
ing facilities. One teacher indicated that only 40 minutes per class is not
sufficient for developing English, especially with classes of over 90 learn-
ers. According to this teacher, the students do not get enough time to
practice the language. Many students encounter difficulties learning the
English language with limited language resources and especially limited
language exposure. Another teacher identified learners’ poor motivation
to learn English. One teacher thought that learners learn English in order
to get higher scores on the final exam or pass tests rather than to learn
the language itself. This can result in teachers not having the incentive
to challenge and inspire students and to attempt new ways of teaching.
6.3.3 Teachers’ Perceptions of EAP Practice
Teachers identified language ability and inadequate training as significant

problems that play an influential role in their capacity to develop an EAP
pedagogy that caters to global demands and local needs. They also point
out limitations in teachers’ capacity for developing EAP pedagogy suit-
able for their context. Some noted their education background provided
a good foundation for teaching general English; however, they were not
confident in teaching EAP courses. They demanded training courses and
consultation, not only to provide a theoretical basis for EAP pedagogy
but also to facilitate self-reflection on design of practical activities and
assessment tasks for academic study skills in their teaching. The majority
of teachers support the implementation of EAP courses at ZSU, even
though some are concerned whether students’ limited language skills may
hinder their understanding or application of EAP instruction.
7 Implementing the EAP Curriculum at ZSU

Findings suggest that there is the possibility for implementing EAP
instruction at ZSU to complement current College English courses,
although challenges and difficulties need to be fully acknowledged. Data
from the questionnaires and interviews suggest that both stakeholders

recognized the importance of EAP instruction. Teachers supported the
implementation of EAP instruction, though they identified a number of
challenges in the implementation of EAP instruction in a local university
such as ZSU, including large class sizes, varied English language profi-
ciency levels, and learners’ poor learning motivation.
With the growing demands for EAP instruction, ZSU teachers
attempted to embed EAP pedagogy into their curriculum and teach-
ing in February 2016. Concerning the possible challenges that teachers
reported during the interview, the College English department at ZSU
decided to implement EAP instruction in 16 classes as a trial instead of in
the whole university. Eight teachers were selected to attend EAP training
courses in order to build their confidence in delivering EAP instruction
at ZSU. Teacher training and capacity-building workshops for teachers,
presented by experts, were also conducted on a regular basis.
7.1 Skill-Focused, Content-Based Instruction
Based on the results of the needs analysis, a general approach to EAP

course is taken, which consists primarily of academic reading and listen-
ing. These activities include listening to lectures and note-taking, read-
ing skills such as skimming, scanning, and writing a summary. Based on
the findings from the needs analysis, the course was designed as follows
(Table 10.3):
In addition to preparing learners for study through the medium of
English, EAP instruction is also concerned with developing the com-
municative skills necessary for students to participate in particular aca-
demic discourses (Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002). EAP practitioners
at ZSU adopted one pedagogical approach called theme- and content-
based instruction (CBI) to achieve these learning goals. Theme-based
instruction is organized as a set of topics or a single topic selected by
the teacher, focusing on developing overall academic skills and is not
targeted at a particular discipline (Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001). In CBI,
the main goal of the program is to establish a communicative link in a
way that is paradigmatic for the target discipline. The communicative
Table 10.3 Course design

Macro-skills Micro-skills Contact hours
Reading Skimming for the main idea 4
Scanning for specific pieces of 4
information
Distinguishing facts from opinions 4
Distinguishing main ideas from 4
evidence
Understanding text structure 4
Drawing conclusions 4
Guessing the unknown words 4
Writing Writing a summary 4
Listening Identifying key ideas in lectures 4
Identifying purposes of lectures 4
Identifying the topic of the lecture 2
Recognizing key lexical items 2
Distinguishing key points from 4
examples
Signposting and highlighting key 4
points
Note-taking 6
Lecture structure 4
Speaking Oral presentation 8
Total 68
link is the development of shared knowledge of a topic, which is created

by a series of communicative events that are embodied incommunica-
tive acts (Garner & Borg, 2005). Brinton and Holten (2001) indicate
that CBI is a highly effective method of delivering EAP instruction and
summarize the characteristics of CBI as follows: (1) the goal of CBI is
to provide a meaningful context for language teaching to occur; (2) the
organization of a CBI course centers around content; (3) Content drives
the curriculum; (4) language and context are taught concurrently; (5)
comprehensible input provided through the content materials leads to
language acquisition (Brinton & Holten, 2001, p. 240).
The major goal of the content-based language course is to equip stu-
dents with academic literacy skills across the curriculum and the genre
knowledge necessary for them to succeed academically (Song, 2006).
The CBI approach to EAP aims to avoid the problem of centering the
communicative link between teacher and student on the language itself.

There is a wealth of evidence which demonstrates that content-based
second language teaching can promote both language acquisition and
academic success (Kasper, 1995, 1997). This growing, multi-layered
relationship provides the motivation for increased language learning.
EAP aims to prepare students for their professional development and
future career.
7.2 The Role of the Instructor and the Learner
It is argued that the roles of the instructor and the learner are essential
components in a learner-centered EAP classroom. In order to make sure
the EAP curriculum is successful, teachers should not only be willing
to adjust their teaching activities and materials in accordance with stu-
dents’ needs but also understand students’ existing knowledge. Teachers
should design new materials suitable for the local context and provide
opportunities to promote English and academic study skills outside the
classroom. On the one hand, teachers should encourage learners to take
responsibility for their own learning; EAP learners, on the other hand,
need to be able to develop the skills they require to study alone and
become independent learners (Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001). Ideally, in
the roles of teachers and facilitators, EAP practitioners are compelled
to create space for negotiation in the classroom in accordance with the
proficiency levels of the students, cater to the needs of individual learn-
ers, and provide opportunities for development. Teachers also need to
acknowledge that teaching those who are using English for their studies
differs from teaching those who are learning English for general purposes
only. EAP learners, in the meantime, need to be independent learners,
develop study skills, and strive for academic success. In a content-based
course, the role of the teacher becomes one of guide and adviser rather
than a source of knowledge only. Because EAP is concerned with helping
students use English to learn, EAP teaching has always been associated
with the various study skills that encompass a wide range of activities
(Flowerdew & Peacock, 2001).
7.3 Teaching Materials
In the Chinese market, there is a wide range of published EAP materials.

It has, however, been difficult to select appropriate materials for the EAP
course at ZSU. Due to the gap in language proficiency, students at low
proficiency levels may misunderstand or misinterpret authentic materi-
als; however, lower-level texts may bore those students whose language
proficiency is higher. We chose the teaching materials for the course
according to the results of the needs analysis described above and selected
a textbook that included most of the micro-skills that students perceived
to be important. In future, we may replace the reading materials if they
prove to be too difficult for ZSU students.
7.4 Other Related Challenges
7.4.1 Varied Language Proficiency Levels
As noted from the survey data, the most difficult factor thought to influ-
ence the design and implementation of EAP practice is students’ English
language proficiency. ZSU students have been learning English for more
than 10 years; however, many students are still very poor in either spoken
or written English or both. Students coming from urban schools have a
better command of English than those coming from rural schools. Since
the majority of the students at ZSU are from rural schools, most of them
are unable to produce good sentences in English for communicative pur-
poses. Rural schools have fewer qualified staff and teaching facilities than
urban schools. Due to students’ varied levels of language proficiency, it
is a real challenge to assign tasks allowing students to interact. Partial
understanding of the material may lead to students’ inability to under-
stand the texts, let alone to perform various communicative tasks or to
make an argument in response, thus impeding development of their lan-
guage skills.
7.4.2 Poor Motivation and Attendance
Additional challenges teachers are faced with are students’ lack of motiva-
tion and poor attendance in English classes. Most teachers responded that
the time allocated for English classes is insufficient to equip students with
the necessary language skills. It is reported that English classes are poorly
attended, because students tend to channel their energy towards their subject
courses, allocating little time for their College English classes. Limited class
time and low attendance impede language development. Teachers find it
hard to stimulate students’ involvement partly because they have passive atti-
tudes in class and feel awkward while negotiating communicative activities.
7.4.3 Large Class Sizes
It is recognized that the quality of teaching and learning is inevitably

affected by large classes. In recent years, with the enrolment expan-
sion, there is an increasing number of students; however, ZSU has not
recruited any additional English teachers since 2008, probably because of
financial constraints. At ZSU, classes are very large and can have as many
as 100 students, often due to the lack of teachers. It is difficult to provide
students with opportunities to learn or for teachers to give feedback and
in this way scaffold students’ performance.
7.4.4 Lack of Subject Knowledge
Teachers expressed a sense of insecurity with respect to the disciplinary

content and subject expertise requirement of the EAP pedagogy. The stu-
dents are from different faculties; therefore their views, expectations, focus,
and learning goals for the course may not be the same. Teachers reported
some concern about constraints in language ability, and inadequate train-
ing may play a part in their capacity to meet students’ needs. In addition,
teachers reported considerable difficulties in local pedagogical practices
without appropriate teaching materials and resources to local contexts.
Despite the challenges around the integration of the EAP curricu-

lum to College English instruction, most teachers agree on the necessity
to enhance students’ study skills to meet professional expectations and
global needs. The above circumstances represent obstacles to designing
and implementing the EAP curriculum. In spite of the problems and
challenges outlined above, most of the teachers agree, with some degree
of variation, that EAP is the future of College English at ZSU.
8 Ongoing Reforms of the EAP Curriculum

Based on the experiences from the trial teaching in the preceding
semester, course designers will refine the content for the EAP course in
order to complement the existing College English program. They are
currently developing pedagogical courses and new curricula for ZSU
students and for teachers of EAP (see Table 10.4). The new program
will start in September 2016. In the first year, students are taught EGP
to communicate in English only and use English for general functions
such as giving an oral presentation and writing an essay. In the sec-
ond year, these courses are centered on EAP and EGE cross-cultural
communication in different disciplines, aiming to facilitate academic
success.
Table 10.4 College English program

First year (1st and 2nd
semester) 3rd semester 4th semester
Courses EGP EGAP EGE
Content College English Academic Culture and
listening and speaking reading and communication
(bands 1–2) writing Contemporary China’s
College English Academic society and culture
reading and writing listening and ……
(bands 1–2) speaking
…… ……
9 Conclusion
Students are increasingly required to develop academic study skills to
support their learning and future careers. To align with these needs,
College English education in China has undergone curriculum adjust-
ments. There is a general consensus that EAP instruction should be added
as complement. Nevertheless, EAP pedagogy has unique local relevance;
thus, EAP practitioners are entrusted with the responsibility of develop-
ing an appropriate curriculum. ZSU has witnessed challenges and dif-
ficulties in implementing EAP pedagogy as a complement to its College
English program. Despite these obstacles, they are determined to make
an effort to continue improving the standards of English education.
Teachers express their confidence in developing EAP pedagogy if they are
equipped with skills and strategies that are essential for understanding,
negotiating, and teaching EAP in the given situation. It is recognized
that there are some dilemmas in EAP teaching at ZSU, resulting from
local factors, such as low language proficiency levels and lack of access to
resources. However, there are ways in which syllabus designers and EAP
practitioners can negotiate these challenges to construct a reasonably
suitable pedagogy. Given the challenges arising from the consideration
of the local context and the utility of a needs analysis, this chapter has
attempted to describe the development of suitable EAP practice, aim-
ing to examine how EAP practitioners can negotiate such challenges in
their teaching contexts. This pedagogy not only may help local students
enhance their language performance but can also help them develop
awareness and strategies to navigate their learning.
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Zhang, W. M., Zhang, W. X., & Liu, M. H. (2011). Tongyong yingyu jiaoxue
zhuanxiang xueshu yingyu jiaoxue de taisuo. [From EGP to EAP-proposal for
College English reform at Tsinghua University]. Foreign Language Research,
5, 11–14.
Zhao, Q. H., Lei, L., & Zhang, M. (2009). Xuesheng yingyu xuexi xuqiu shijia-
oxia de daxue yingyu jiaoxue. [College English teaching from the perspective
of students’ needs analysis]. Foreign Language World, 4, 1–18.
Dr. Beibei Zhao (TESOL/Applied Linguistics, University of Bristol) is a lec-

turer in the foreign language school, Zhejiang Shuren University, Hangzhou,
China. Her primary interests lie in the areas of second language acquisition,
language testing/assessment, EAP, as well as ELT teaching.
Dr. Guoxing Yu is Reader in Language Education and Assessment at the

University of Bristol. He has published in Applied Linguistics, Assessing Writing,
Assessment in Education, Educational Research, Language Assessment Quarterly,
and Language Testing. He is an executive editor of Assessment in Education
and a member of the editorial board of Language Testing, Language Assessment
Quarterly, Assessing Writing, and Language Testing in Asia.
11
Using Corpora to Investigate Chinese
University EFL Learners
Bin Zou and Hayo Reinders
1 urrent Issues in Tertiary English

C
Teaching
At the majority of Chinese universities, General English (GE) dominates
the curriculum. There is little attention to the specific needs of different
disciplines and very little preparation for students’ future use of English in
the workplace. This is partly because most students must pass the College
English Test, which assesses GE skills and exerts a significant backwash
effect on language classes across the country. Another issue is that the
quality and content of most classes do not adequately prepare students
for academic language use; numerous studies have reported poor per-
formance of Chinese university students in English reading and writing
B. Zou (*)
Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou Shi, China
H. Reinders
Unitec, Auckland New Zealand and Anaheim University, Anaheim, CA, USA

246 B. Zou and H. Reinders
(Cai, 2012; Sun, 2010), communication skills (Ding & Dai, 2013;
Yang, 2012), vocabulary use in English writing (Li & Wharton, 2012;
Zhang & Liu, 2014) and understanding of academic and other genres
(Deng, 2006; He & Xu, 2003; Wen, Ding, & Wang, 2003; Zhao, 2011).
Reasons given include poor EFL teaching and the use of inappropriate
curricula (Ding & Dai, 2013), poor motivation from students who do
not experience much use of English in the workplace (Yang, 2012) and
the lack of attention to speaking practice (Sun, 2010).
An additional problem that has received considerable attention in the
last two decades is that of referencing and plagiarism. Shi (2004) com-
pared the English writing of 48 Chinese students in a university in China
and 39 native English students in an American university. She found
that Chinese students did not paraphrase original sources correctly and
when they copied or slightly modified sources, they did not cite them. In
contrast, American students cited references appropriately. This indicates
that Chinese students may not be trained how to paraphrase sources and
how to cite references properly in universities in China. Shi suggested
that both teachers and policy makers should raise awareness in develop-
ing Chinese students’ academic writing skills including using appropriate
language and avoiding plagiarism in order to adhere to the standards
of the academic community. Similarly, Zhang (2014) compared aware-
ness of plagiarism between 27 Chinese college students and 17 American
college students. The results showed that the Chinese students had less
awareness about plagiarism than American students. The author argues
this was because they had received less instruction on the subject, as well
as the emphasis in Chinese education on memorization. The Chinese stu-
dents in the study did demonstrate a belief that plagiarism is not accept-
able. Xu (2013) investigated 50 undergraduates and 50 postgraduates’
awareness of citations in writing essays in two universities in Nanjing,
China. Data consisted of a questionnaire, correction of citations in essays
and interviews with six of the participants. The results suggested that both
undergraduates and postgraduates lacked understanding of appropriate
citations and how to include a correct reference list in writing because of
insufficient training.
Researchers in the UK also found that Chinese students who studied
in UK universities lacked academic skills in writing and speaking, and
11 Using Corpora to Investigate Chinese University EFL Learners 247
therefore could not cope with their academic study at university (e.g.
Bamford, 2006; Banerjee, 2001). More recently, Davies (2013) con-
ducted a study with 252 Chinese students who were going to or were
already studying at universities in the UK, USA or Canada. He found
that the majority of Chinese students agreed that they would benefit from
support in academic English. They also thought it was highly important
for them to learn about university and social life, assessment systems, and
referencing and how to avoid plagiarism in their essay writing. Further,
participants expected more English lessons before they went abroad and
expected their language teachers to provide more relevant practice in ref-
erencing and academic writing.
2 he Introduction of English for Academic

T
Purposes in China
The poor outcomes of English language instruction have led many univer-
sities to initiate changes. One of the most important of these is the gradual
move towards implementing English for Academic Purposes (EAP). EAP
teaching has become increasingly popular in language teaching in the last
two decades as a way to attempt to meet students’ needs and help students
acquire academic language skills and develop academic study and research
skills (Hyland, 2006; Hyland & Hamp-Lyons, 2002; Jordan, 1997). The
Shanghai College English teaching Committee issued the latest version of
its College English teaching Guidelines in Shanghai, one of the largest cities
in China. The new policy has positioned EAP as compulsory in College
English teaching in all universities in Shanghai (Cai, 2013). Similarly, the
latest China College English Teaching Guidelines, a policy document issued
by the government, highlights EAP as one of the key areas in College
English teaching for all universities in China, the first time for this to have
been the case in a national report (Cai, 2015a, 2015b).
Recent publications have attempted to demonstrate the advantages
of using EAP with Chinese students in a variety of settings (e.g. Gong,
2015; Li, 2015; Liao, 2015; Zhang, Zhang, & Liu, 2011); however, none
of these report on robust studies that would allow definitive claims about
its impact to be made. Recently, Zou and Cao (2016) conducted a study
on the impact of EAP on graduates’ occupations with some graduates

aged from 23 to 30 who learned EAP in various disciplines for two years
at a university in China. They sent questionnaires to 66 graduates who
work in a variety of occupations and interviewed 12 of them. The results
demonstrated that the participants felt they had benefited significantly
from their EAP classes and that the classes had prepared them well for the
language skills needed in their jobs. Clearly, considerably more of such
studies are needed in the future. Nonetheless, these publications do show
a growing awareness of EAP and its potential role in China.
Despite this increased interest in EAP, its implementation across the
country has, so far, been uneven, with some regions being well ahead of
others, and with major differences within regions and between universi-
ties. Perhaps partly as a result, few good quality EAP materials are avail-
able and many teachers have not been trained in the implementation of
EAP (Wang & Yao, 2013).
One reason for this uneven implementation is a lack of knowledge of
Chinese learners’ particular issues in learning English, especially at uni-
versity level and at higher levels of proficiency in general. Below we will
show how corpus studies can play an important role in filling this gap in
our understanding.
3 he Use of Learner Corpora to

T
Investigate Chinese Learners’
Interlanguage
3.1 Learner Corpora
A learner corpus is a large electronic collection of students’ written or

spoken work and is one of the key instruments in the identification of
second-language learners’ errors in writing or speaking. Several well-
known learner corpora have been compiled in recent years, for example,
the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE) with essays written by
EFL learners from 16 countries and 3.7 million tokens in total (Granger,
Dagneaux, Meunier, & Paquot, 2009), the Corpus of British Academic
Written English (BAWE) with 3500 essays written by students from
three UK universities and 6.5 million tokens (BAWE: Nesi, Gardner,

Thompson, & Wickens, 2007), and the Asian Corpus of English (spo-
ken corpus) with 1 million tokens (ACE: Kirkpatrick, Wang, Patkin, &
Subhan, 2014). Language teachers can use learner corpora to identify
language learners’ errors in writing by using concordancing tools or by
comparing their L2 production with native speaker corpora to explore
foreign/second-language learners’ problems (Granger, Kraif, Ponton,
Antoniadis, & Zampa, 2007).
Some studies have used learner corpora and identified problems in
writing or speaking production in order to help learners develop their
skills. For instance, studies using error analysis found that many EFL
learners have difficulties in using adequate conjunctions in their English
writing (Granger, 1994; Granger & Tyson, 1996) and frequently use
informal words or underuse/overuse some conjunctions (Altenberg and
Tapper, 1998; Narita, Sato, & Sugiura, 2004). Such studies can help
researchers and teachers understand EFL learners’ problems, and thus
can provide specific teaching materials to focus on these areas.
Similarly, Chinese EFL teachers and researchers have also developed
Chinese EFL learner corpora in recent years, primarily to detect Chinese
students’ problems in English writing and speaking. These include the
Chinese Learner English Corpus (CLEC), with one million tokens (Gui &
Yang, 2003), the College Learner English Spoken Corpus (COLSEC) (Yang
& Wei, 2005), with 700,000 tokens, the Spoken and Written English
Corpus of Chinese Learners, with 1.2 million tokens (SWECCL 1.0, Wen,
Wang, & Liang, 2009) and the XJTLU Written English Corpus (XWEC)
with 1.2 million tokens (Zou & Peng, 2012). Many studies have been
carried out in recent years and most of these focus on Chinese language
learners’ errors (Deng, 2006; He and Xu, 2003; Li, 2005; Pu, 2005; Wen
et al., 2003; Zhao, 2011).
3.2 Investigating Chinese EFL Learners’ Errors
As mentioned, identifying the weaknesses of EFL learners is a key area

of focus in Chinese corpus studies. Academic writing has received par-
ticularly much attention, including learners’ use of vocabulary and cita-
tions. In a corpus study of 100 Chinese MA students’ essays in a Chinese
niversity, Sun (2008) found that students had significant difficulties with
u
referencing. The students lacked awareness of the importance of proper
citations in English writing. They also used a small range of reporting
verbs and had problems in using verb tenses. Finally, they appeared to
lack critical thinking skills. Sun (2008) suggested that teachers should be
responsible for helping students improve their academic writing skills,
which would not only benefit their study at campus but also their future
work after graduation.
Another key challenge identified for Chinese students is in their use
of collocations. Wei and Lei (2011) compared a corpus of 20 Chinese
doctoral students’ dissertations (comprising approximately one million
words) with a corpus of 20 English native speaker’s doctoral students’ dis-
sertations (also about one million words) in using amplifiers and ampli-
fier collocations. They found that the Chinese students tended to use
more amplifiers and amplifier collocations. The authors suggested that
EFL teachers should teach Chinese students how to use amplifiers in
academic writing, and to use materials specifically designed for Chinese
learners. Similarly, based on the CLEC corpus Wei (2005) found that
Chinese students often make mistakes in typical collocations which leads
to prosodic conflict, unusual collocations and interlanguage collocations.
A further area identified by researchers for Chinese EFL learners is
metadiscourse. Li and Wharton (2012) compared an English written cor-
pus of Chinese undergraduate students studying in a Chinese university
and a UK university. They collected 80 essays in the two universities and
looked at mistakes in their metadiscourse. They found that Chinese uni-
versity students used non-standard language compared with UK-based
students. For example, students in the Chinese university used more per-
suasive markers (e.g. must, should) than students in the UK. Their results
also showed that students in the Chinese university used fewer hedges
than UK-based students. Additionally, UK-based students used more
formal citations than Chinese college students who used some unquoted
sources. Furthermore, interactional metadiscourse was underused among
students in the Chinese university. Parataxis (repetition) is another com-
mon problem in Chinese students’ writing. Li and Wharton (ibid) indi-
cated that UK-based students had better training in academic writing
than the Chinese students.
Another error Chinese students often make is in their use of proper

nouns. Peng (2015) investigated Chinese students’ misuse of nouns
by comparing XWEC (Zou & Peng, 2012) with several other corpora
including SWECCL 1.0 (Wen et al., 2009), BNC (2007) and BAWE
(Nesi et al., 2007). He found that Chinese students are likely to use plural
forms of nouns incorrectly compared with native English speakers. With
regard to conjunction, in another Chinese learner corpus, SWECCL
(Wen et al., 2009), Zhao (2011) compared SWECCL and her own col-
lections of students’ written work from 214 students and found that
Chinese college students made frequent mistakes in using conjunctions
including informal and superficial ones or overused some conjunctions.
Similarly, some studies adopted CLEC (Gui & Yang, 2003) as a source
to investigate Chinese EFL’s errors. For example, based on a compari-
son of the CLEC and ICLE (Granger, Dagneaux, & Meunier, 2002),
Yang (2005a, 2005b) identified less use of coordinator conjunctions
such as ‘and’, ‘or’, but overuse of ‘but’ among many Chinese univer-
sity students. In terms of key words, based on CLEC as well, Li (2005)
found Chinese students’ problems in using key words in writing essays
in CLEC. Regarding lexical bundles, Pu (2005) found that Chinese EFL
learners cannot use lexical bundles including synaptic structure, lexical
structure and cluster correctly.
Some studies blamed a lack of sufficient instruction for the types of
errors described above. For instance, based on their own small Chinese
ESL learner corpora, He & Xu (2003) and Wen et al. (2003) identified
that Chinese college EFL learners often used connectors that they had
been acquainted with since they learned English in school and that are
more likely to be used in informal speaking. Further, some researchers
have highlighted transfer from Chinese to English (e.g. He, 2012; Yang,
2005a, 2005b; Zhao, 2005). For example, in a corpus study based on the
CLEC (Gui & Yang, 2003), Zhao (2005) found that Chinese EFL learn-
ers often made mistakes in the use of verb-noun collocations which were
influenced by the Chinese language. Yang (2005a, 2005b) also found
mistakes from CLEC in using verbs in patterns, subject-verb agreement,
tenses finite and non-finite, voice and mood by Chinese students due
to the influence of Chinese language. Yang’s (2005a, 2005b) focus on
coordinator conjunctions shared similar findings regarding transfer from
Chinese. Similarly, He (2012) established a small corpus with 96 college

students’ summarized essays with 13,812 tokens in total and carried out a
study of the use of constructive-finite-verb sentences. He found that stu-
dents made errors in this area because of the impact of Chinese language.
Although these studies provide useful information for researchers and
teachers to understand common errors, which can perhaps help them to
address these errors in class, few studies have looked at ways in which
corpora can be used to provide positive models for language learning and
teaching. In the rest of this chapter we therefore look at additional ways
in which corpora can be utilized.
3.3 Issues in Chinese Learner Corpora Research
The learner corpus data described above, although useful, may not be
comprehensive, or entirely representative of Chinese learners’ language
production. One issue, as pointed out, is the predominant focus on
learner errors. Another is the emphasis on data from lower-level learners.
It is important to look at studies that have focused on more advanced
learners, and those that have focused not just on identifying errors but
that are more comprehensive in nature, and that describe the features of
Chinese EFL learners’ English. In this way a better understanding can be
arrived at of, for example, the needs of academic and professional users
of English. However, with the research currently available to us, it is pos-
sible that too negative a picture of Chinese language learners is painted.
This can result in classes being pitched at a level that is too low.
Some learner corpora established in Hong Kong such as the HKYUST
Corpus of Learner English (Milton, n.d.) and the Chinese Academic
Written English (CAWE) corpus (Lee, n.d.) cover only English major
students, who are likely to be more advanced; however, their English
language background is of course vastly different from that of most
mainland Chinese EFL learners (Benson, 2000). No learner corpus of
advanced Chinese learners of English exists to date and there is a need
for such a corpus so that a comprehensive picture of Chinese learners’
language development can be attained. Nonetheless, studies have been
carried out with smaller samples of advanced language data. An example
of such a study is Deng’s corpus study (2006) that compared 1000 essays
written by Chinese college students (1,90,551 tokens) with a native
speakers’ written corpus (1,55,553 tokens). When investigating one lin-
guistic aspect (adverbial connectors), it was found that advanced students
performed at comparable levels with native speakers. Chen (2013) also
conducted a study to compare a corpus of Chinese college EFL learners
including 780 essays with two corpora of British college students includ-
ing 689 essays and two corpora of American college students covering
358 essays in using phrasal verbs. The results suggested Chinese college
EFL learners are able to use phrasal verbs in academic writing, similar to
English native speakers, although phrasal verbs are not included in the
Chinese language. This means that the Chinese language did not affect
these Chinese students’ use of phrasal verbs.
A study conducted by Zou and Peng (2015) looked at the impact of
different contexts (EAP and GE) by comparing two Chinese EFL learner
corpora. The first of these, the ‘Spoken and Written English Corpus of
Chinese Learners’, or SWECCL, comprises GE texts (Wen et al., 2009),
and the second, the XWEC, academic English (Zou & Peng, 2012). Both
were compared with a third corpus, the BAWE (BAWE: Nesi et al., 2007)
for the use of a variety of conjunctions. SWECCL contained 3000 stu-
dents’ essays from Year One to Year Four at nine universities in China,
totalling 1.2 million tokens. XWEC included 1000 examples of students’
essays from Year One at a Sino-British University, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool
University (XJTLU), with 1.2 million tokens. BAWE covered 3000 exam-
ples of college students from three British Universities with 6.5 million
tokens in total. All of these assessed assignments received scores of over
60% and were considered to be at an advanced level (Alsop & Nesi, 2009).
The results showed that students in Year One in the EAP teaching context
at XJTLU performed better than students from Year One to Year Four in
non-EAP teaching contexts at the nine universities in using conjunctions.
Students in the EAP context performed to a similar level as students in the
three UK universities who had high scores. This indicates that Chinese
students could perform better in academic writing in the EAP teaching
context than those in the non-EAP teaching context.
Moreover, although some college students’ written corpora have been
developed in China, for example, the CLEC (CLEC, Gui & Yang,
2003) and the Spoken and Written English Corpus of Chinese Learners
(SWECCL, Wen et al., 2009), these are not dedicated to including texts
produced in the context of EAP courses, but instead include texts from
a wide range of sources, such as from GE classes. Corpora that do focus
on EAP, such as the Chinese EAP learner corpus (XWEC, Zou & Peng
(2012)), are not specific to advanced level learners. There seems to be a
significant gap in the tools available to researchers to better understand
Chinese learners’ development, and there is a need for a resource such as
the BAWE (BAWE, Nesi et al., 2007) which includes well-written aca-
demic assignments by both native and non-native speakers of English at
three UK universities. BAWE is extensively used in teaching and research
around the world and could be a model for Chinese researchers. Similarly,
the ICLE Version 2 also contains advanced EFL learners’ essays (Granger
et al., 2009).
With a suitable corpus, as advocated for above, teachers and research-
ers can better understand learners’ challenges, as well as their language
development. For example, an academic corpus can be used to identify the
improvement students may make in the EAP teaching context, compared
with previous corpora based on the GE teaching context, including in the
areas of vocabulary, collocations, citations and plagiarism. Researchers can
conduct studies using an EAP corpus to identify positive features in writing
and speaking among Chinese College EFL learners and then provide sug-
gestions on English teaching to EFL teachers. Students can use the samples
in the corpus to guide their use of words, phrases and citations.
4 Conclusion
This chapter has given an overview of the ways in which learner cor-
pora are currently used in research on learning and teaching in China. It
has also identified some problems with current approaches, in particu-
lar the predominant focus on learner errors, and the exclusion of more
advanced language learner data. We hope that a more comprehensive
learner corpus can be developed in China in the coming years. This will
be a resource for teachers to draw on to inform the materials they use in
class and the areas they focus on. It will also help to come to a better and
more comprehensive understanding of Chinese learners’ language learn-

ing processes and will enable to focus on the positive aspects of Chinese
EFL learners’ language. Such a corpus can also give better insight into the
specific challenges faced by advanced level language learners.
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analysis of Chinese learner English (pp. 275–340). Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign
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A study based on picture compositions and the WECCL corpus. Foreign
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(pp. 134–157). Palgrave Macmillan.
Bin Zou received his PhD in TESOL and computer technology from the
University of Bristol (UK) and his MA from the University of York (UK). He
is a senior tutor at the Language Centre, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University,
China and Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Computer-Assisted
Language Learning and Teaching. Zou’s research interests include ELT, EAP,
CALL and Corpus. He has published papers in international journals such
as Computer-Assisted Language Learning, System, the International Journal of
Computer-Assisted Language Learning and Teaching and chapter books. He is
the editor of several books such as Corpus Linguistics in Chinese Context pub-
lished by Palgrave Macmillan in 2015 and Computer-Assisted Foreign Language
Teaching and Learning: Technological Advances published by IGI Global in 2013.
He has also reviewed papers for journals including Computer-Assisted Language
Learning, System and Language Learning and Technology. He is an executive com-
mittee member of the China English for Academic Purposes Association and
an executive committee member of the China Computer-Assisted Language
Learning Association.
Dr. Hayo Reinders (www.innovationinteaching.org) is Professor of Education

and Head of Department at Unitec in New Zealand and Dean of the Graduate
School at Anaheim University in the USA. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the
journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. Hayo’s interests are in
educational technology, learner autonomy and out-of-class learning. He has
published over 20 books, of which the most recent ones are on teaching meth-
odologies, digital games and second-language acquisition. He edits a book series
on New Language Learning and Teaching Environments for Palgrave Macmillan.
12
Facilitating Transformative Learning
Toward Productive Bilingualism:
Innovations in Teaching English
for Intercultural Communication
in China
Xuan Zheng and Yihong Gao
1 Introduction
With the speeding intercultural exchange around the world, the relation-
ship between language and culture is growing more complex. As China
is becoming more internationalized, speaking English has become part
of everyday life for many Chinese people, adding to the complexity of
the multilingual, multidialectical Chinese society. The goal of English
education in China has also undergone changes: simply imitating “native
speakers” of British/American English and learning about the “western
culture” no longer reflect the diversified linguistic and cultural situations
today. Although there has been a recent call to foreground students’ inter-
cultural communication competence (ICC) development as one of the
X. Zheng • Y. Gao (*)

Peking University, Beijing, China

262 X. Zheng and Y. Gao
new goals for language teaching in China (Sun, 2016), research and real
change in teaching practices and assessment tools are still in its initial
stage (Wang & Kulich, 2015). Classroom teachers now believe that ICC
is important, yet most of them still understand ICC as merely knowledge
and skills of English “native speakers” (Gu, 2016).
Among the new language learning and education models that deviated
from the “native speaker” norm, the proposed “productive bilingualism”
(Gao, 2001, 2002, 2014) stresses the learner’s growing competence in
additional languages/cultures and his/her competence in languages/cul-
tures acquired earlier reinforces each other. “Productive bilingualism” was
originally found among recognized “best foreign language learners” in
China, and later empirical research based on questionnaire and case study
(e.g., Gao et al., 2013) demonstrated it was one of the self-identity change
directions among Chinese university students. However, while produc-
tive bilingualism as an ideal has been commonly recognized, whether
it is commonly practiced in real life among college students remains to
be closely examined; the challenges of moving toward such a goal and
related pedagogical measures remain to be identified. To ground the
new goal in real teaching practices, this study explored how in practice
English language teachers can develop methods and materials that facili-
tate students’ transformation toward productive bilingualism in their
local contexts. Based on an action research that developed the curriculum
of a College English course “Language, Culture and Communication”
(LCC) in a comprehensive university in Beijing, this chapter serves as an
example of how classroom teachers could act as agentive forces that bring
changes to their classrooms. Through three cycles of action research, the
teacher had developed a new curriculum that was guided by transforma-
tive learning theory (Mezirow, 2000) by emphasizing critical reflection
where the teacher guided students to become open and critical of their
own and others’ assumptions, to redefine problems from a different per-
spective and to incorporate multiple perspectives. By analyzing data from
multiple sources, i.e., classroom observations, teaching journals, surveys
and students’ reflection papers, the effects of the course design, teach-
ing steps and techniques were discussed, and suggestions for language
teachers who would also like to bring changes to their own classrooms,
12 Facilitating Transformative Learning Toward Productive... 263
especially for facilitating their students’ developments toward productive

bilingualism, were provided.
2 Literature Review
2.1 Teaching English for ICC Development in China
In the field of English education in China, there has been a recent call to
shift from developing communicative competence to intercultural com-
municative competence (ICC) (Gu, 2016; Sun, 2016). The paradigm
shift intends to move away from imitating the communicative compe-
tence of “native-speakers” to cultivating ICC and “intercultural citizen-
ship” (Byram, 2012). However, although such a goal has been proposed,
research and real change in ICC-oriented teaching practices and assess-
ment tools for Chinese students are still in its initial stages.
Classroom innovations in cultivating ICC have been documented
in some studies (e.g., Gao, 2008; Huang, 2015; Snow, 2015; Wang &
Kulich, 2015). Among them, a few emphasized teaching practices that
facilitated attitudinal change toward openness. For example, viewing
cultural differences as relative to one’s frame of reference, Gao (2000,
2008) advocated for first knowing and describing cultural differences
and then deconstructing cultural stereotypes—“going across and going
beyond”. Huang’s “process oriented cultural teaching” (2015), which
encouraged students to actively investigate cultural phenomena them-
selves, had significantly enhanced students’ affective and behavioral
aspects of intercultural competence. Snow (2015) applied “critical
incidence exercise” that helped students become aware of their habit-
ual interpretation process and affective reactions. What these scholars
shared in common was that they strived for openness through being
aware and critical (i.e., problematizing) of one’s taken-for-granted
frames of reference.
On the whole, however, classroom innovations still need to be fully real-
ized in foreign language teaching. A review of studies on ICC in foreign
language classrooms revealed that most pedagogical practices in China still
focused on knowledge and skill-oriented training (Wang & Kulich, 2015,

p. 41). Furthermore, the ICC “knowledge and skills” were still centered
on English “native speakers”. Surveying 1000 English teachers from 39
universities in China on their ICC perceptions and practices, Gu (2016,
p. 264) found that although most teachers were willing to assess ICC in
their English classes, they still perceived it as “merely specific knowledge
and sociopragmatic norms of mainstream English- speaking countries,
which are seen as the standard to conform to and the means to facilitate
the development of language skills and interactive abilities”.
Such practices that assumed the link between English and cultures
of “English-speaking” countries, without problematizing the values and
worldviews transmitted through, may lead to the reversed form of eth-
nocentrism: students may judge their own culture from the standards of
others and see themselves as inferior to the “English-speaking cultures”.
As a result, English education in China was criticized for its “Chinese
culture aphasia” (Xiao, Xiao, Li, & Song, 2010). This highlights the need
for maintenance and strengthening of one’s own “frames of reference”, or
native language/culture in the Chinese context.
2.2 Productive Bilingualism
Among the new language learning and education models that promoted
the development of ICC, the proposed “productive bilingualism” was
rooted in the Chinese context, highlighted the mutual enhancement
between one’s native language/culture and the ones acquired later, and
was distinct from earlier models of “subtractive bilingualism” and “addic-
tive bilingualism” (e.g., Lambert, 1974). Drawing on Fromm’s (1948)
theory of “productive orientation” and based on empirical data from 52
“best foreign language learners” in China, Gao (2001, 2002) illustrated
this concept by discussing the pattern of interaction between one’s native
language (L1), native culture (C1) and one’s target language (L2) and
target culture (C2). Different from “subtractive bilingualism” in which
one’s L1/C1 is replaced by L2/C2 (symbolized as 1-1=1), or “additive
bilingualism” where one’s L2/C2 is simply added to one’s L1/C1, which
share separate communicative functions (1+1=½+½), in “productive
bilingualism”, L1/C1 and L2/C2 benefit and enhance each other

(1+1>2). For a productive bilingual (Gao, 2002, p. 159), “the command
of the target language and that of the native language positively reinforce
each other; deeper understanding and appreciation of the target culture
goes hand in hand with deeper understanding and appreciation of the
native culture. In the process of learning another language and related
culture, the learner’s personality become more open and integrated at the
same time”.
Productive bilingualism is characterized by the following character-
istics: (1) openness: an increased open attitude toward both L2/C2 and
L1/C1, (2) criticalness: being able to critically appreciate and reflect on
aspects of both C1 and C2, and (3) incorporation: integrating or relat-
ing L1/C1 and L2/C2 in meaningful ways, often with creative outcomes
(e.g., translation of ancient Chinese poems into foreign languages, with a
distinct style). Moreover, productive bilingualism is a concept capturing
what may refer to a stable orientation, a state, a moment or an experience
(Gao, 2002).
With accelerated globalization, increased transcultural flow (Pennycook,
2007) and mobility of languages (Blommaert, 2010), especially the con-
tinuing spread of English and its deterritorization from “native speaking”
countries, the “C2” in productive bilingualism has been expanded. The
renewed “productive bilingual” in the context of intercultural communi-
cation, in the form of a “dialogical communicator” (Gao, 2014, p. 68),
is one who “has transcended various dichotomies such as listening vs.
speaking, native culture vs. C2, and instrumental vs. integrative motiva-
tion” and who “enjoys mutual enhancement of L1/C1 on the one hand,
and competence in the chosen L2 target discourse and identification with
the chosen imagined community on the other”. The expanded version
of productive bilingualism is in line with existing social constructivist
approaches to L2 identities that stressed individual agency in selecting
learning “targets” (e.g., Norton, 2013) or “C2”. In its emphasis on L1
competence and C1 identity enhancement, productive bilingualism is
distinguished from radical critical approaches to intercultural communi-
cation in that the identification and labeling of “cultural” identities were
rejected altogether, or hybridities replaced identification with explicit
languages, speech communities or cultural groups.
Although the ideal of expanded productive bilingualism was proposed,

and sketches of evidence were provided showing the presence of such
expanded productiveness, for example from Olympic Games volunteers
(Gao, 2014; Gao et al., 2013), it remains to be examined whether it is
commonly practiced among college students, what challenges there are
in its development, and what pedagogical measures can be taken in its
facilitation.
2.3 Transformative Learning
In the process of becoming a productive bilingual, one will become

more open and at the same time integrated rather than split as he/she
learns another language. This is congruent with a key aspect identified by
scholars of intercultural communicative competence (ICC): a frame-of-
reference shift from ethnocentric to ethnorelative worldviews. How does
this identity expansion happen? Mezirow and his successor’s transforma-
tive learning theory (TLT) (Mezirow, 1994, 2000; Taylor, 2008) has shed
light in understanding this process.
Mezirow’s TLT explains how adults changed the way they interpreted
the world (Taylor, 2008). Mezirow believed that certain experiences (e.g.,
intercultural contact) may lead to a “disorienting dilemma” that prompts
people to question their usual way of doing things. When people start
to have a deeper understanding and awareness of cultural differences,
they may change their attitudes and perspectives (e.g., from an ethnocen-
tric orientation to an ethnorelative orientation), and eventually will be
able to handle intercultural situations more successfully. This process has
the potential to lead to identity expansion in some individuals. Mezirow
pointed out that critical reflection was the key to transformation: that is,
“a process by which we attempt to justify our beliefs, either by rationally
examining assumptions, often in response to intuitively becoming aware
that something is wrong with the result of our thought, or challenging its
validity through discourse with others of differing viewpoints and arriving
at the best informed judgment” (Mezirow, 1995, p. 46). Through critical
reflection, a person may experience change in their habitual mindset and
an identity expansion.
Since the 1980s, Mezirow’s TLT has been widely used in professional
training programs. The classrooms guided by TLT emphasize critical
reflection: teachers help learners to become aware and critical of their
own and others’ assumptions, to recognize their own frames of reference,
and to redefine problems from a different perspective. Learners achieve
these goals through participating in discourse with others: discourse that
is learner-centered, participatory and interactive. To create this kind of
discourse, group problem solving, role-play, reflective journals, class dis-
cussions and case study are common activities used in class. To facilitate
students’ active engagement with the course concept, real-life experiences
of the learners are treated as important resources for reflection in class
(Xu & Qiu, 2011). To capture the dynamics of the process of transfor-
mative learning, portfolios are often used as the assessment tool (Taylor,
2008). As examining one’s assumption critically is considered the key in a
person’s transformation, TLT provides useful implications to change the
status quo of English teaching for intercultural communication.
3 Methods
This study sought to explore classroom innovations that will bring changes
to current English education that aims at productive bilingualism in
China. An action research approach was taken, with the goal of solving
problems identified by the practitioner herself in order to improve prac-
tice (Burns, 2011). By definition, action research is an inquiry into one’s
own practice through a cycle of planning, acting, observing and reflect-
ing (Farrell, 2007). The “problem” that guided this action research was:
How does a content-based College English course titled “Language, Culture and
Communication” facilitate students’ transformation toward productive bilin-
gualism? With this question in mind, the teacher who was also the primary
researcher planned and taught the course, and observed students’ reactions.
Through reflection, she identified the challenges, adjusted teaching materi-
als and techniques, and observed the change in the class again.
The primary researcher in this study was the teacher of a content-based
College English course titled “Language, Culture and Communication”
(LCC) at a comprehensive university in Beijing, with the goal of facilitating
students’ transformation toward productive bilingualism. She was a

young foreign returnee with a PhD degree in language and rhetoric from
a US university. At the time of writing she had taught LCC for five con-
secutive semesters. Every semester she taught two classes with a total of
around 70 non-English major students, aged between 18 and 23.
The action research underwent three cycles of planning, acting,
observing and reflecting. The initial cycle included the first two semesters
(2014.2–2015.1) when the teacher planned and taught the course mostly
from experience. She identified the biggest challenges and sought solu-
tions from relevant literature. The second cycle (2015.3–2016.1) started
with an updated course plan and specific teaching steps and moves guided
by TLT. By the end of these two semesters, students improved the most
on the aspects of criticalness and openness. The teacher identified new
problems and reflected on the causes. The third cycle (2016.2–2016.6)
started with planning and carrying out adjusted teaching techniques.
Effects of the course in relation to developing productive bilingualism
were observed and reflected.
To document the process and effectiveness of the course holistically,
data were collected through multiple sources: students’ written assign-
ments, teacher’s journal, TA’s classroom observation notes, class recording
transcriptions, and pre- and post-class surveys. These qualitative data were
analyzed in a bottom-up manner using theme analysis, in relation to the
characteristics of productive bilinguals, and with a focus on the changes
students experienced. The themes that were related to the aspects of the
course that facilitated students’ transformation were also coded. The data
from multiple sources were triangulated in order to strengthen the findings.
4 Findings
4.1 First Cycle (February 2014–January 2015)
During her first year teaching the course, the teacher relied mostly on
her experience studying in China and the US and arranged the course
around topics that were related to language and culture. Class activities
included lectures, class discussions, presentations and role plays. Course
assignments included journals, a group research project and a final

reflection letter. Throughout the semester, students were attracted by the
communicative approach she took and came up with creative final pre-
sentations; however, the teacher observed three major challenges: (1) the
students were often unaware of potential problems in intercultural com-
munication, (2) they were unaware of their own assumptions and thus
attitude change toward openness was difficult, (3) they were not able to
incorporate their own cultures/perspectives with others.
These challenges were observed from students’ completed class assign-
ments: they remained at the descriptive level of simply comparing and
contrasting cultural products (food/cartoons) and practices (wedding
ceremonies/humor) across nations/regions; interactions between cultures
were rare; and the suggestions students provided to solve intercultural
conflict were simple. For example, in a final project explaining the differ-
ences between “northern Chinese” and “southern Chinese” culture, the
solutions proposed by the group of students to resolve conflicts between
the two regional groups were simply:
Being calm. Try to change it or try to accept it. Enjoy the diversity. Take it
easy. (Student PowerPoint, June 9, 2014)
Despite the positive tone, students were not specific about possible
conflicts between cultures and didn’t say how they could manage nega-
tive emotions. Similar results were observed in the second semester. Such
simplistic optimism reminds one of a common criticism of the ICC lit-
erature that emphasized ideals, unproblematic equal relationships and
positive outcomes while in reality, people often have to become aware of
the barriers and negative realities (Wang & Kulich, 2015). Furthermore,
there was no attempt to incorporate one’s self and others; one needs to
either completely accept others by giving up their own preference or
change others despite their needs.
Similar results were observed in the second semester. Interestingly, two
German exchange students who were teaching English in China took
part in the course. They had provided a different perspective in the class.
However, the benefit of having international students was not realized
fully because the Chinese students preferred to work with themselves.
In class, one of the German students often raised negative impressions

about Chinese students’ “rude” behaviors (e.g., cutting into the waiting
lines in cafeterias), and the other Chinese students often seemed intimi-
dated, lowered their heads and avoided eye contact with the teacher.
In retrospect, the teacher sensed a lack of theoretical grounding and
a specific standard for ICC assessment. To address these problems, the
teacher read more relevant literature on intercultural communication,
productive bilingualism and came across TLT. She was enlightened by
the construct of the productive bilingualism as the goal for developing
intercultural competence, and the potential of applying TLT in facilitat-
ing students’ change toward productive bilinguals. She also realized the
key stage to assess ICC development was a change from ethnocentrism
toward ethnorelativism. Therefore, in the second teaching year, she held
the “frames of reference shift” as central to her course and redesigned the
curriculum based on the key components from TLT (e.g., critical reflec-
tion) that she believed would facilitate the transformation.
4.2 Second Cycle (March 2015–January 2016)
After the first phase, the teacher developed a course pack, combining theo-
retical readings and short essays from several textbooks on intercultural
communication such as Jackson (2014) and Xu (2009). Since the teacher
held “the frames of reference shift” as the key stage for ICC development,
the course emphasized critical reflection where the teacher helped learn-
ers to become aware and critical of their own and others’ assumptions, to
recognize their own frames of reference and to redefine problems from a
different perspective. This process was realized in two teaching steps and
five moves:
1. Creating a “disorienting dilemma”: the teacher helped students to ques-

tion their usual way of doing/viewing things.
a. Cultivating awareness. The first move in this step was to make stu-
dents become aware of their own judgments when faced with
strangeness. For example, the teacher asked the students to observe
an “unfamiliar” group, took some observation notes and discussed

those in class. Often the students’ descriptions of the group implied
their attitudes toward them. For example, some of them wrote:
“unlike the Chinese students, the European students often used
too much body language and exaggerated facial impressions while
talking”, and, “I found it quite strange that they touched each
other very often, which was different from us Chinese students”.
The teacher directed students’ attention to the implied attitudes by
underlining the words such as “too much”, “unlike”, “different”
and “strange”. Another technique was to use a “verbal guise test”
(Garrett, 2010); that is, students listened to different English vari-
eties and wrote down their reactions. The students could realize
they made judgments on people just based on their speech.
b . Examining frames of reference. When the students realized their
descriptions were not as neutral as they thought, the teacher asked:
why do we tend to have negative judgments about others? In this
way the students could start to think about their ethnocentrism
tendency: that is, people tend to judge others based on their own
familiar cultural framework. Then the teacher showed them a
detailed explanation on how people make quick judgments on
others from academic research.
2. Resolving the “disorienting dilemma”.
a. Deconstructing stereotypes. The teacher guided students to trace the

sources of their previous values, beliefs and worldviews, and the
consequences of stereotypes. The students could become aware of
the long-lasting influences their parents, peers, teachers and the
public media had on them.
b. Reconstructing open attitudes. In this move, the teacher asked stu-
dents to think about alternative interpretations of “strangeness”.
For example, she used the example of how silence could be inter-
preted in class in a PowerPoint slide.
Example 1:
Some Chinese students do not respond to teacher’s questions in
class. (observation from an American teacher’s perspective)
Teacher: “Chinese students are just so passive and timid in the

class. They are not interested in the class”. (quick judgment)
Alternative interpretations: “Are all Chinese students quiet in
class? Are they quiet in all classes? What are the possible reasons
that they don’t speak up? Is silence always bad in this cultural con-
text? Can it be good?”
c. Seeking creative solutions. After the students learned to postpone
judgments and started to seek alternative answers, the teacher gave
them scenarios of conflicts in which they need to come up with
creative solutions.
In actual teaching, “Creating a dilemma” turned out to be a very

challenging process. Describing differences was easy for the students
but they were not able to differentiate description from judgment.
For example, when the teacher asked the students to identify their
attitudes in their field notes on non-verbal behaviors of an unfamiliar
group, they claimed that they were very neutral and objective. Only
when the teacher pointed out words such as “too much”, “unlike”,
“different” and “strange”, did the students start to acknowledge they
had negative attitudes. Similarly, in doing the verbal guise test on
attitudes toward different English accents, what had attracted the stu-
dents the most was getting the correct answer of accent identification;
detecting their own judgments toward the accents came only later.
When the real identities of the speakers were shown, students were
busy checking whether their answers were correct. Some students even
claimed that “the Indian speaker in the recording spoke better than
most Indian speakers” without realizing their own prejudice. Without
becoming critical of their own biases, it was difficult to continue with
the later teaching steps.
The second reason why creating a “disorienting dilemma” was dif-
ficult was that students were often held back by fear and anxiety; they
preferred to stay in their comfort zone, avoided seeking constructive
solutions to conflicts, and thus missed the chance of developing an in-
depth relationship with others. Such tendency can be observed both in
the students’ writings as well as in-class activities. A typical response
can be seen from a student writing about an intercultural experience;
this student wrote about having a picnic with some American friends
and said:
It was fine but not fun enough. Although we talk a lot, but somehow we
were scared that we might say something unwittingly offensive to others so
most of our conversations were really “safe” and boring as a consequence.
Similarly, in class activities where students were asked to solve inter-

cultural conflicts, many chose to quit, oblige or turn to a third party. For
example, in a conflict scenario of visiting the family of one’s boyfriend/
girlfriend with an unintelligible dialect, some students immediately said
they would “break up with him/her”. In a scenario of interpreting for
a professor whose English was difficult to understand, most students
responded they would “pretend” understanding and never ask him to
rephrase, because asking may suggest they were not competent. In the
simulated scenario of volunteering for VIPs whose English was unfamil-
iar during Beijing winter Olympics, some just complained it was a wrong
volunteer-VIP match and would ask to be replaced by other volunteers
who could understand the native language of the VIPs. A few even reacted
emotionally by saying if the VIPs became impatient and yelled at them,
they would yell back “This is our land. If you don’t speak good English
you should go back to your country” (class observation notes, November
24, 2015).
Another challenge was that when students became “critical”, they were
most of the time one-sided, using others’ standards and being sweep-
ingly negative about their own culture. Contrasted with productive
criticalness which transcends simple dichotomies, such “out-group favor-
itism” (Council of Europe, 2009, p. 12) might also be an embodiment
of “ethnocentric” attitudes and was evident in subtractive bilingualism
(Gao et al., 2013).
For example, in a group project comparing the Regulations for Pupils
(小学生守则) between China and America, the suggestions the group
gave in the end were all for improving the Chinese regulations for pupils:
Avoid ambiguous terms which could be obscure to pupils. Add more prac-
tical terms. Borrow ideas from American student codes in instructing
s tudents to be a role model and a good influence. Propagandize the regula-

tions in a more active way, such as making cartoons.
When the teacher asked the group what suggestions they could pro-
vide for the American regulations for pupils, it seemed to be the first
time they started to think about this question. The one-sided suggestion
in this example may arguably be due to the relative unfamiliarity the
students had with American cultures; nevertheless, the general attitudes
revealed by their projects were often preference of western cultures over
Chinese cultures. In reflecting why the students had these challenges, the
teacher recalled her own life experience and found she had been there
herself too. She remembered her college years when she faithfully imi-
tated native speakers’ English and behavior, and preferred western cul-
ture over Chinese culture. She also recalled the time when she was so
uncomfortable being hugged by a male American professor in the US but
pretended she was happy and open enough. She remembered those criti-
cal incidents where she was reminded by her American friends for stereo-
typing “Americans”. Resonating with the challenges with the students,
she realized the first step to opening up to others was full acceptance of
himself/herself.
4.3 Third Cycle (February 2016–June 2016)
Accordingly, as a start of the third cycle, the teacher emphasized more

acceptance of one’s self and native culture in planning. She acted it out
through several teaching techniques:
First, the teacher gave direct instructions that acknowledged struggles
students have and asked them to experience their fear and anxiety when
faced with unfamiliar situations. For example, in an activity Find Friends
during week 4, students were asked to walk around the classroom and
have small conversations with others. To prepare them, the teacher first
showed a list of typical suggestions for striking up small conversations: for
example, relax, smile and say hello, remember their names, etc. Then the
teacher presented a quote from the course pack that defined communica-
tion competence as “the ability to achieve one’s goals in a manner that
is personally acceptable and, ideally, acceptable to others”. The teacher

highlighted “personally acceptable” to the students and emphasized to
consider both their own and others’ preferred communication styles. She
told the students “it is ok to feel nervous and awkward”, “use your own
way to connect with others” and “it’s not a test! Notice how you feel in
this experience weighs more”.
Secondly, the teacher set up student groups since week 4, and many
activities and discussions were done through group work. To help stu-
dents identify with their own group, the teacher asked each group to
name themselves: for example, GF boys, Running girls, Black glasses,
Half-blooded and etc. As students got very familiar with their group
members, they became braver and more outspoken in answering ques-
tions the teacher raised. Groups also helped introverted students to work
in a less stressful way than directly interacting with the whole class. Most
importantly, working with others helped students to gain different per-
spectives and this served as an additional way of problematizing students’
habitual thinking and facilitating change.
Thirdly, the teacher often shared her personal intercultural experi-
ences in class, which functioned as a demonstration of critical reflection.
Students were highly engaged when she did such personal sharing and
would often immediately follow up by sharing their own. For example, in
the lesson on language attitudes, students became very quiet when asked
“where do our attitudes come from?” The teacher then shared a personal
reflection with them:
T: “Well, I guess when we talk about English or other languages, maybe

some of them are too far from our lives, but what about your dialects? So,
like, for me, born and grew up in Wuhan, I don’t speak Wuhan dialect,
because, uh, when I was little, my parents told me ‘Do not speak…’
(Students laughed) … because it is rude, it’s not elegant, or as woman, you
shouldn’t really speak Wuhan dialect. So I never learned, and, now I feel
pretty bad about it because I don’t mingle with my friends who … all of
them speak Wuhan dialect. So have you also had similar experience?”
A student immediately responded by saying he shared a similar expe-

rience where growing up in Guangzhou, his Wuhanese parents did not
allow him to speak the Wuhan dialect while all his relatives did. Then the
teacher concluded “so the family influence is a source” and the student
was nodding (class observation, April 26, 2016).
Many students mentioned in their final reflection papers that they had
deep impressions of the teacher’s personal sharing and were grateful of it.
The teacher’s personal sharing had made some students more accepting
of themselves. For example, once the teacher shared a story of hiding her
uneasiness when a Hispanic American professor hugged and kissed her
during greetings. The teacher asked the students what they would do.
Then she told the class that today she would explain to him although
she respected his way of greeting, it was actually uncomfortable to her.
This sharing had contributed to the change in this student from avoiding
conflict to making himself understood, as he said in the reflection paper:
I know how to make myself understood and am never too shy to admit and
explain my differences from others. We consider it others’ fault to be differ-
ent from us and vice versa. This class has taught me there are times when
we should try to explain the diversity. For example, I’ve met some embar-
rassing situations like you said in the class (the case that your professor
hugged you, you know). I used to bury my head in the sand and never tried
to figure it out. But now I can tell, it may be our different culture dimen-
sion or so, thus make myself understood and let others know that diversity
is nothing deficient.
Fourthly, the teacher often provided non-evaluative feedback to stu-

dents’ “wrong” answers. Instead of directly stating that the students were
“wrong” and immediately correcting their “mistakes”, she either summa-
rized and repeated the part that seemed problematic, provided another
perspective, pursued a further question or asked what other students
thought. In the excerpt below, the student, as the spokesperson for his
group, had just reported two strategies they would use if they could not
understand the dialects of their girlfriend/boyfriend’s family.
T: Um, so the first is to try to speak mandarin. The second one is if they
don’t understand, then you smile (T giggled and Ss laughed)…
S: And just listen to them.
T: But you don’t understand them (T giggled and Ss laughed).

S: (S giggled and Ss murmured) Pretend to understand them.
T: Pretend. (Ss laughed)
(class transcription, May 10, 2016)
The teacher meant to point out that the second strategy was problem-
atic. She did so by first summarizing what the student said. Then she
emphasized “but you don’t understand them”, suggesting that “smile and
just listen” would not really work. When the student responded again,
she repeated “pretend”, suggesting again this strategy was just pretending.
Another example was when discussing what counted as “racial dis-
crimination”; a group of students were not able to see their own preju-
dice against “black people”. They thought the toothpaste brand in China,
“Darlie” (黑人牙膏), with the logo of a wide-eyed, smiling dark-skinned
black male wearing a top hat was not racism, but simply an accurate
description of the black people. The teacher didn’t point out directly that
they were wrong; instead, she asked “suppose a person with a dark skin
color walked into the Chinese store and saw the toothpaste, what will
he or she feel?” The students responded “they may feel a little offended”.
Realizing the brand was problematic, they searched online and had a
deeper understanding of this issue.
Such non-evaluative feedback gave students opportunities to explore
answers on their own without causing shame or low self-esteem.
5 Discussion
Through the three cycles of the action research, the teacher developed
methods and techniques that prompted criticalness in order to achieve
openness. The most obvious effect of the course design, teaching steps
and techniques was a more open attitude. The openness was two-sided:
students became more open to both themselves and others. They became
more aware of their own prejudice and biases. By the time of writing
the students also improved significantly in providing creative solutions
to conflict situations, a sign of incorporating different cultures and
perspectives.
5.1 Criticalness
Guided by TLT, the teaching steps of creating “a disorienting dilemma”

(Mezirow, 2000) and resolving it, that is, revealing the ethnocentric
tendency of ourselves and guided reflections on real-life examples, had
helped the students become aware and critical of their own frames of
reference. Most of the students experienced an awakening moment in
the class where they recognized their own prejudice, and examined deep
into the source of the prejudice. For example, after the lesson on language
attitudes, a student wrote about his realization in the journal:
I was surprised that we had quite different opinions on these people. Some
of these opinions, which I also had, are obviously prejudice. I have to admit
that I don’t like it when I heard the Indian accent. It makes me laugh
though because it’s funny, but if I am asked whether I want him/her to be
my teacher, I wouldn’t prefer that. I think the main reason is that I’ve seen
too much news on rape in India, and from movies I also learn that Indian
people are overactive and like to sing and dance. All these help me form the
stereotype that Indians are not trustworthy. When I check others’ answers,
I found my classmates rate Indians much higher than I expected. This
indeed gave me a lesson. Indians are not that bad in reality, and not even in
others’ impression. It is only my prejudice.
Most students remembered the teaching steps that prompted critical

reflection and described it as the most useful part they learned from the
course. For example, a student said in the final reflection paper:
What impressed me most is that before our judgement, we need to do self-

questioning again and again, to think whether the judgements are reasonable
to some extent, and to put ourselves into others’ shoes so that ‘we’ and ‘they’
can understand each other. After this, do reinterpret from a brand new level.
5.2 Openness
It was observed that through being critical, most students experienced

a change from an ethnocentric perspective to an ethnorelative perspec-
tive. The openness identified among the students was for both themselves
and others: they not only learned to tolerate, understand and accept oth-
ers, some also mentioned they learned to accept their own uniqueness.
Comparing the strategies students would use in dealing with intercultural
situations in the beginning and the end-of-the-semester surveys (Spring
2015), the most significant progress was an increase from 18% to 33%
on the aspect of attitudes and feelings. Many students described that they
were able to view and understand differences from others’ perspectives.
For example:
…now I always put myself into others’ shoes in an effort to enhance mutual
understanding. The more cultural differences I take into consideration, the
less conflicts and stereotypes I have.
Similarly, in the reflection papers, students described in detail their

changes in attitudes: from negative reactions such as complaining, to try-
ing to understand others’ cultures. For example, through the teaching
steps of “creating a disorienting dilemma” and “resolving it”, a student
realized her past judgments on others were based on prejudice. She now
learned to postpone judgments and understand others:
Instead of complaining about some “strange” things in the communication

with people from different culture like before, now I always put these in a
specific cultural background and figure out how these exterior phenomena
are connected with this culture interiorly. In this way, I found myself more
tolerant and moderate facing differences and conflicts in intercultural
communication.
For those who struggled with accepting themselves in the beginning,

a positive change was found at the end of the class: they learned that
their own difference was not a deficiency; instead of simply avoiding or
obliging others during conflict situations, they now chose to explain their
own differences to others. For example, a few students who were really
shy in the beginning became more and more outspoken in class discus-
sions, despite their red face and nervousness when they spoke. A student
pointed out his change toward acceptance of himself as who he was in the
final reflection paper:
As I have said in mid-term cultural identity paper, I am a little introvert

person. I always feel a kind of inferiority when l sense that I can’t talk with
others freely. At this class, I can participate in a lots of funny games and
lively discussions. I think the class atmosphere is pretty good. It helps me
overcome my weakness in a way. Besides that, I can accept myself confi-
dently. Cultural diversity told me there are many different kind of people,
some people tend to be outgoing, and others tend to be opposite. It’s
unnecessary for excessive self-blame. Just be myself.
In sum, the course was the most effective in prompting openness,

toward new cultures on the one hand and one’s own native culture and
oneself on the other.
5.3 Incorporation
When the first few teaching moves were enacted more successfully, the
last teaching move “seeking creative solutions” also facilitated incorpora-
tion of needs from different parties. Students’ creative solutions to simu-
lated conflict situations can be seen as a sign of incorporation. They no
longer withdrew or avoided the problems but actively sought help from
different parties. In the fifth semester of teaching the course, for example,
in the scenario of interpreting for a professor, whose English was difficult
to understand, at his academic talk, the students no longer chose to pre-
tend that they understood. Instead, there were several steps they would
apply:
Take a break
Speak to the speaker privately
Ask the speaker to slow down
Ask the speaker for handout/outline/notes of his talk
Apologize to the speaker
Stop translating word for word but only summarize the main ideas
Turn to the audience for help
Such change suggested students’ willingness to consider multiple par-
ties involved and the potential in solving conflicts in a win-win manner.
In their final reflection papers, some students described an incorpo-
ration of different cultures, be it cultures of a nation, an ethnicity or a
regional group. For example, a student reflected on her experience grow-

ing up in a family with mixed Han and Hui ethnicity. In the mid-term
paper she described a conflict with her mother’s family who were Muslims
when she and her Han friend secretly had a pork hamburger for lunch. At
a young age, she could not understand why she couldn’t eat pork while
her friends could, and her attitudes had made her mother angry.
I didn’t think there was anything wrong because I was Han and I was not
supposed to obey the eating taboo. So when my mother called me to come
home for dinner from the window of house on the third floor I responded
to her that I had have a Chinese hamburger so I was not hungry in a high
voice which can be heard all around the yard. Immediately, expression on
my mother’s face became serious and she asked me to be back at once.
Doubtlessly, what was waiting for me was her scold and others’ showing
cold shoulders on me. I cried sadly and repeated again and again that I was
different from her and I was a Han and I didn’t have to be like her to not
eat pork. But she did not want to listen and became more and more angry.
In the final paper, she stated she now had a deepened understanding of
her multicultural family, knew how to handle conflict properly and was
“doing better” transitioning from one culture to another. She identified
herself as a mixed Han and Hui person.
Recalling some conflicts and confusion again, I don’t feel angry or sad any-
more, but have deeper understanding of the influence of this cross-ethnicity
family culture on me … Some unhappy experience taught me a lesson that
although you don’t belong to a specific cultural group, when you are in this
specific situation, it’s better not to do things going against its rules.
Everyone has his right to keep his own belief but it is also our responsibility
to respect others’ and try not to bother them … I now understand this
cultural difference between ethnicities more and have found the proper
way to handle this. The transition from one culture to another is not easy,
but I believe I am doing better and better.
One student seemed to have developed a productive orientation by

transcending polarities and integrating the strengths of “extroverts” and
“introverts”, thus a “more complete person”:
I have become a more complete person, and I regard this word to be more
beautiful and graceful than any other word in this world. Through this
course, I become a better extrovert: I learn to observe, respect, communi-
cate, and love different people around me, I learn to maintain an open
heart always ready to connect, listen and share. Through this course, I also
become a better introvert: understanding and handling the difference tak-
ing place every day and everywhere through the means of self-reflection …
When difference and similarity are one, when conflict and unity are one,
then grace is within us.
Further research is needed here for identifying approach, methods

and techniques that facilitated incorporation at a deeper level such as the
quote above.
6 Conclusion
To implement the new goals for English language teaching for intercul-
tural communication in China, the chapter has discussed the effectiveness
of classroom innovations in a content-based College English class, LCC,
in facilitating students’ development toward productive bilingualism.
Through three cycles of planning, acting, observing and reflecting, the
revised teaching steps and techniques were able to help students develop
toward a fuller status of productive bilingualism.
Bringing about real change was not easy. The initial teaching was
faced with students’ unawareness of potential problems in intercultural
communication, unawareness of their own assumptions and incapabil-
ity of incorporating cultural perspectives. To address these challenges,
the new curriculum, guided by TLT, emphasized two teaching steps
(creating a disorienting dilemma and resolving it) and five teaching
moves (cultivating awareness, examining frames of reference, decon-
structing stereotypes, reconstructing open attitudes and seeking creative
solutions). The teaching steps were difficult to enact at the beginning,
due to students’ incapability to distinguish description from judg-
ments, their fear and anxiety in unfamiliar situations. The teacher used
techniques of empathizing, group work, personal sharing and non-

evaluative feedback to strengthen students’ confidence and acceptance
of themselves.
The teaching steps and techniques were on the whole effective in help-
ing students develop toward productive bilingualism, characterized by
transcendence of polarities. Openness toward both self and others was
achieved successfully through methods and techniques that prompted
criticalness. Students became more aware of their own prejudice and
biases, accepting themselves, and learned to understand others from mul-
tiple perspectives. They also improved significantly in providing creative
solutions to conflict situations, a sign of incorporating different cultures
and perspectives.
Although the students in this study had not yet achieved the degree
of productiveness documented in Gao’s (2001, 2002) study of “best for-
eign language learners in China”, their substantial progress during the
course demonstrated probabilities of cultivating productive bilingualism
through transformative learning in classroom settings and potentials for
the students’ continuous development toward fuller productive bilin-
gualism in future. Further research is needed in looking at how in-depth
criticalness and incorporation can be achieved. Further, although there
were positive changes toward productive bilingualism in the classroom, it
was not yet clear whether the students will apply their learnings in action
outside the classroom, and continue to develop toward productive bilin-
gualism in their lives. Future studies are expected to look into the effects
of pedagogical efforts in the long run, and what participants actually do
in real intercultural situations.
Lastly, the study highlighted the transformative potential of using
action research for teachers who seek changes in their own classrooms.
Compared to following a revised curriculum imposed by researchers or
policy makers, action research enabled teachers to develop and own the
methods and materials for the classroom they themselves knew the best.
It is hoped that the study will serve as an example for English teachers in
China who also seek classroom innovations to address the new demands
brought by the changing contexts of English learning and teaching.
ppendix: Weekly Calendar of Language,

A
Culture and Communication
Week Topic Assignment Goal

1 Introduction Knowledge orientated: To
2 Cultural diversity have a general
3 Language and understanding on cultural
culture differences, and the
4 Intercultural relationship between
interpersonal language and culture.
relationships To create class community
5 Family culture and Journal 1 To define culture as learned
the primary
socialization
process
6 Communication To help students notice,
styles: online and describe and interpret
offline cross-cultural differences
7 Non-verbal Ethnographic and similarities, especially
communication observation and in communication styles in
field notes different modes
8 Gender and
communication
9 Language and Journal 2 To help students reflect on
identity in how their ideas and
intercultural attitudes toward self and
communication others are formed
10 Language attitudes Journal 3
11 Stereotypes, Research
prejudice and proposal due
discrimination
12 Movie showing: Action oriented: to help
Shanghai Calling students apply effective
13 Conflict and strategies in
conflict communicating, managing
management conflicts and emotions
14 Intercultural across contexts
adaptation
15 Presentation Final research Assessment
report due
16 Presentation Final reflection Assessment
letter due
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13
Contemporary Research in Intercultural
Teaching in China: A Critical Review
Citing Li
1 Introduction
Increasingly intensified global exchanges have made it essential for peo-
ple to develop foreign language competence, which in turn has led to a
need for more qualified teachers and a flourishing of foreign language
education programs. As is known, linguistic competence alone is insuf-
ficient for individuals to develop better cross-cultural understanding and
overcome the complexities of cross-cultural collaborations. To address
this challenge, it is crucial for language education programs to develop
teachers with appropriate intercultural competence and understanding
of how to facilitate language learners’ intercultural language competence.
It is also important for language education researchers to explore related
teaching practices.
This work is supported by Shanghai Peak Discipline Program (Class I): Foreign Language and
Literature and Shanghai International Studies University research grant (20161140007).
C. Li (*)
Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China

290 C. Li
As a result of the growing interaction between China and other coun-

tries worldwide, the Chinese language has emerged as an attractive and
strategic language for increasing numbers of language learners in many
countries. This requires language educators and policy makers to consider
how they can be empowered with capacities beyond linguistic knowledge
to develop deeper appreciation of socio-cultural processes associated with
the Chinese language and China.
For these reasons, I provide a contemporary overview of the field of
Chinese language teacher education, with a specific focus on their beliefs
and practices relating to intercultural teaching. In the following sections,
I will first briefly comment on the varied research scope of Chinese lan-
guage teachers with regard to intercultural teaching and the problems
they have faced. I then suggest that it is an emerging field of inquiry and
examine in turn a number of central themes highlighted in the current
literature. They are: (1) Intercultural communicative competence (ICC);
(2)Teacher beliefs and practices relating to promoting intercultural com-
petence; (3)Chinese language teachers in different pedagogic contexts; (4)
Professional development of Chinese language teachers. For each theme,
I highlight salient findings that either corroborate or complement studies
in the field. I draw three general conclusions in light of the review: (1)
there is a lack of empirical evidence in relation to the changes in teachers’
beliefs and practices over longer periods of time; (2) there is a need for
international, large-scale research with a comparative perspective and (3)
concerted efforts from teachers, teacher educators, program designers of
both pre-service and in-service teacher training, as well as researchers, are
needed to work on practical solutions to obstacles currently in the way of
successful intercultural teaching.
2 Overview
The past 15 years have seen an increasing number of articles published
in both Chinese and international journals and books that have reported
on research and interventions designed for teachers, with teachers and by
teachers, about intercultural teaching. They cover different geographical
regions and contextual particularities as well as different research pro-
cedures. Developing students’ intercultural competence while learning
13 Contemporary Research in Intercultural Teaching in China... 291
foreign languages requires both teachers and teacher educators to equip

themselves with intercultural sensitivity and to be skilled enough to help
students develop this too. In order to support the intercultural learning
process, language teachers need sufficient knowledge, appropriate atti-
tudes and a range of competencies and skills for teaching ICC in a for-
eign language. However, due to the lack of interdisciplinary components
in most Chinese language teacher education programs, it is not surprising
that they turn out to be ill-prepared to adequately address intercultural
concepts in classroom teaching (Deardorff, 2009). So far, the picture
with respect to the pedagogy of promoting intercultural competence
remains mixed, and the question of how teacher beliefs and practices
impact students’ learning is insufficiently explored. There also seems to
be lack of understanding among teachers with respect to the significance
of intercultural competence.
Furthermore, the volume of research that focuses particularly on
Chinese language teachers and their beliefs and practices relating to inter-
cultural teaching appears to be still modest. Relevant research, publica-
tions in Chinese journals in particular, remains largely anecdotal rather
than empirical. The following section provides a bird’s eye view of the
salient conclusions of these studies, thematically organized in terms of
their emphases.
3 F our Themes in Recent Research

(2000–2015)
I used Scopus to retrieve the contents of 5 Chinese and 13 international
journals published between 2000 and 2015 (see Table 13.1) that included
the terms “intercultural teaching”, “teacher education” and “Chinese lan-
guage teachers” in their keywords and/or abstracts. I confined the search
of journals mainly to the field of Chinese language education and teacher
education. The first round of search yielded a total of 152 Chinese articles
and 237 international articles. I then deleted 91 articles because some
of them either focused on the teaching of specific linguistic aspects of
Chinese (i.e. vocabulary, syntax, etc.) or on various issues with regard to
the development of intercultural competence of English language learn-
ers/teachers. Next, I screened all the abstracts and filtered the irrelevant
292 C. Li
Table 13.1 List of the included journals (5 Chinese and 13 international)

(2000–2015)
Chinese journals 世界汉语教学 Chinese Teaching in the World
语言教学与研究 Language Teaching and Studies
中国外语教育Foreign Language Education in China
中国外语 Foreign Languages in China
外语界 Foreign Language World
International journals Language, Culture and Curriculum
Language Teaching
TESOL Quarterly
ELT Journal
Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching
Language Awareness
Contemporary Issues in Technology and Teacher
Education
Intercultural Education
International Review of Applied Linguistics
Teaching and Teacher Education
Australian Review of Applied Linguistics
Modern Language Journal
Language and Intercultural Communication
Table 13.2 Number of articles published according to the thematic area

(2000–2015)
Chinese International
journals (No. of journals (No. of
Thematic area articles) articles)
Intercultural communicative 78 94
competence
Teachers’ beliefs and practices relating 5 14
to promoting intercultural teaching
Chinese language teachers in different 20 44
pedagogic contexts
Professional development of Chinese 13 30
language teachers
Total 116 182
ones. I then categorized the articles based on their thematic emphasis

which is most pertinent to the intercultural teaching research in this
review (see Table 13.2). This section provides a synthesis of the results
published in these articles.
3.1 Intercultural Communicative Competence
Articles that deal in general with the concept of ICC clearly outnumber
those that center on the other three themes (as in Table 13.2). The main
emphasis of these studies is to conceptualize, construct, propose, discuss
or assess models of ICC. While most studies are centered on the theoreti-
cal definition of the construct, there are a few others that consider more
practically the possible ways of cultivating, developing and promoting
learners’ intercultural competence. Within this broad area, there are three
specific groups that stand out in terms of the number of articles they
contain: (1) definitions and models of ICC; (2) the teaching of the lin-
guistic and cultural aspects of the Chinese language (i.e. the contextual-
ized use of grammar, vocabulary and syntax); (3) intercultural pedagogy
on teaching the Chinese language.
Definitions of intercultural competence all vary to some extent in all
of these articles (Atkinson & Sohn, 2013; Baker, 2011; Deardorff, 2009;
Lu & Hong, 2013; Taguchi, 2014) and tend to fall into three categories:
attitude, skills and knowledge. In general, most researchers see intercul-
tural competence as a multifaceted concept that covers emotional, con-
textual and interpersonal intelligence and helps form ‘a person who is
emotionally caring yet controlled, sensitive to interpersonal dynamics
and genuinely perceptive when in complex and highly interactive situa-
tions’ (Lonner & Hayes, 2004, p. 92). A variety of models of intercultural
competence have been proposed to facilitate its promotion in language
teaching (Byram, 1997; Deardorff, 2008; Zhang, 2014; Zhang & Yang,
2012). Despite the fact that the purpose, methodology and theoretical
framework of these model constructions differ from each other, most of
the models feature in the nature of being interdisciplinary, encompassing
a variety of disciplines and therefore applicable to the theoretical explora-
tion and interpretation of discipline-specific research topics, for example,
social psychology, business management and language education. This
is undoubtedly conducive to conducting research on the concept and
model of ICC from multiple levels and perspectives.
Among the plethora of existing models of ICC (see Deardorff, 2008),
the one proposed by Byram (1997) has probably been the one that
has greatly influenced the research done after the year 2000, due to its
294 C. Li
distinctively pedagogic value. It is also the one model that has been most
frequently used in formal language learning contexts. It has three fun-
damental features: (1) it proposes an attainable ideal, the intercultural
speaker, and rejects the notion of the native speaker as a model for foreign
language learners; (2) it is a model for acquisition of ICC in an educa-
tional context and includes educational objectives; (3) as it has an educa-
tional dimension, it includes specifications of locations for learning and
of the roles of the teacher and learner; helps foreign language teachers to
plan more deliberately than they often do, to include intercultural com-
petence in their pedagogical aims. In this conceptualization, intercultural
competence involves successfully mediating between different cultures,
and this naturally entails teachers’ competence for facilitating learners’
development. Byram’s model, mostly considered as a pedagogical model,
particularly highlights teachers’ roles in helping promote learners’ ICC.
Chinese researchers have made endeavors to define, construct, validate
or assess ICC (Fu & Gu, 2015; Zhang & Yang, 2012; Zhao, 2014).
However, these explorations are mostly theoretical discussions and
empirical studies are apparently scant as compared to the volume pro-
duced outside China. Among these discussions, Zhao (2014) made a
rather important claim that in the field of Chinese language education
and against the backdrop of the “going out” of the Chinese culture, the
promotion of ICC should be regarded as not only a salient pedagogical
strategy but also as a useful learning strategy. Reaching such a concep-
tual consensus may on the one hand enable learners to enhance their
learning motivation as well as learning efficiency, and on the other hand,
facilitate the teaching of the Chinese culture at a very early point of lan-
guage learning. Fu and Gu (2015) proposed their own model based on
a state-of-the-art review and synthetic analysis of the purposes, method-
ologies, ontological considerations and dimensions of 20 ICC models so
far in China. They concluded that the construction of these models in
the field of language education in China features multidisciplinarity and
great diversity, and claimed that their model helps situate the cultivation
of ICC in foreign language education in general. To a certain extent,
these theoretical and empirical explorations among the Chinese research-
ers and language educators have so far laid the foundation for further
research attempts in this direction.
3.2 eachers’ Beliefs and Practices Relating

T
to Promoting Learners’ Intercultural
Competence
Studies in this area have seen a growing interest in how intercultural under-
standing and competence can be promoted in language classrooms and how
teachers engage with cross-cultural issues in teaching (see Byram, 2012;
Driscoll, Earl, & Cable, 2013; Ferri, 2011; Forman, 2014; Gandana & Parr,
2013; Larrinaga & Amurrio, 2015). Nevertheless, the vital issue of whether
and how culture is actually taught continues to receive little research atten-
tion. In language teacher education research, it has been widely acknowl-
edged that teachers’ beliefs directly affect their perceptions of both teaching
and learning in the classroom (Borg, 2003). Unfortunately, a limited num-
ber of studies have focused on foreign language teachers’ perceptions of the
intercultural dimension of language education (Sercu, 2005).
Among the few studies that have analyzed the dilemmas, issues, prob-
lems and obstacles that teachers face, and also one of the largest-scale studies
conducted so far, Sercu (2005) investigated 424 foreign language teachers
from 7 countries and focused on teachers’ beliefs regarding the cultural
dimension of foreign language education and the teaching of intercultural
competence. The findings showed that teachers in all countries mentioned
the same reasons for not getting round to culture teaching more often.
Sercu’s (2006) international study further corroborated with these find-
ings and showed that due to the insufficient amount of culture teaching,
language teachers’ profiles failed to demonstrate adequate knowledge, skills
and attitudes associated with intercultural competence. In a more analyti-
cal article of the development of the intercultural dimension of language
teachers in recent years, Byram (2014) observed that despite the wide-
spread acknowledgement of the intercultural dimension of language teach-
ing in policies and curricula as well as textbooks, most of the teachers felt
that little or no preparation for teaching cultural aspects was present. He
concluded that the question of teacher training remains largely unresolved
and it is difficult to know what is happening in practice.
Several researchers have described the characteristics that language
teachers should have when engaged in intercultural teaching. Willems
(2000), for example, argues that foreign language and intercultural
296 C. Li
teachers ought to be favorably disposed toward the integration of inter-

cultural competence teaching in language education, willing to teach
intercultural competence, and know how to do so. Byram (2012) also
suggested that teachers need to learn to facilitate student competence in
terms of curiosity, involving teacher skills in interpreting, discovery and
critical cultural awareness. Davis, Cho, and Hagenson (2005) claimed
that it is important for teachers to set up explicit objectives concerning
learning in order to allow the teachers to evaluate if they have achieved
their intentions.
Among the very few Chinese journal articles that probed into teach-
ers’ beliefs and practices (e.g. Chen & Xue, 2010; Zhang, 2014), Zhao
(2014) believed that intercultural teaching in Chinese language educa-
tion could be implemented at three levels: (1) to integrate culture into
language teaching in classroom; (2) to systematically teach culture with
the purpose of learning and using the socio-cultural knowledge of the
Chinese; and (3) to organize cultural events and activities in order to
accompany Chinese language learning. These practices, if implemented,
can help learners gradually learn about the Chinese culture along with
their increased language proficiency. However, due to the lack of empiri-
cal investigation into this issue, whether such practices are implemented
or not in Chinese language classroom teaching remains unclear.
Most of the above studies have either theoretically discussed a model/
framework or employed surveys of teachers as their only data collection
instrument. As a result, they have been heavily reliant on teachers’ self-
perceptions about cultural teaching. Moreover, no study to date, at least
not in the articles published in the journals included in this review, has
longitudinally tracked the changes in teacher beliefs and practices, if any.
3.3 hinese Language Teachers in Different

C
Pedagogic Contexts
In the past 15 years, the research scope of relevant literature has visibly
expanded to the field of the internationalization of the Chinese language,
particularly with the geographical expansion of Confucius Institutes and
Confucius Classrooms across the globe. An increasing number of Chinese
researchers, both at home and abroad, have either theoretically discussed

or empirically investigated the various dilemmas and conflicts that the
Chinese language teachers are confronted with in different pedagogic
contexts (Cai & Zhu, 2012; Chen, 2013; Jia, 2014; Jiang & Hao, 2011;
Ruan, Duan, & Du, 2015; Wen, 2011). However, these studies still do
not suffice to present a clear, panoramic view of the current status quo
with regard to teachers’ beliefs and practices in relation to the promotion
of learners’ ICC. Nor do they adequately add to our understanding of the
difficulties and obstacles that Chinese language teachers have to tackle in
different cultural and educational contexts.
Moreover, despite the rising importance of Chinese language education,
there has been only limited research of Chinese language teaching practices
in classrooms that employed contemporary pedagogy (Orton, 2011).The
rapid development of Chinese as Foreign Language (CFL) teaching and
its attendant challenges have strengthened the need for a research agenda,
particularly research into classroom teaching and learning in a variety of
contexts. Only recently has the range of research broadened to teaching
and learning of non-Western languages as foreign languages, including
CFL (Chinese as a foreign language, Cai & Zhu, 2012; Ruan, Duan, &
Du, 2015; Sun, Meng, & Wen, 2015; Yu & Watkins, 2008). The relevant
literature has demonstrated the conflicts and tensions that Chinese teach-
ers face within the Western pedagogical context and the need for profes-
sional development. In this sense, exploration of the use of an intercultural
approach in the CFL teaching and learning of culture is overdue. I have
selected the following papers for review not only because of their thematic
approach but also because they studied Chinese language teachers in differ-
ent geographical and cultural contexts.
Scrimgeour and Wilson (2009) critiqued the pedagogy represented in
resources produced for the International Curriculum for Chinese. They
criticized its representation of culture as “[…] an additional optional
component separated from communication and conceptualized mainly
as knowledge of cultural artifacts” (p. 36). Moloney (2013) is one of the
few studies that explored how pre-existing cultural and pedagogic differ-
ences affected teacher responses to a professional development interven-
tion in intercultural training. It also attempted to identify broader issues
in terms of developing a larger-scale program of Chinese teacher training
298 C. Li
to support more effective learning among Australian school learners of

Chinese. The findings indicated that initial levels of professional knowl-
edge of intercultural pedagogy among the group of teachers were low but
there was a willingness to adopt new practices and to better engage with
students in the Australian school environment. The study found that the
teachers’ voices unanimously confirmed the need and desire for further
training and resources to support learning and teaching, which suffi-
ciently demonstrates the importance and necessity of promoting inter-
cultural competence among Chinese language teachers. This also clearly
indicates that teachers’ beliefs and practices may shift when they are given
an opportunity for professional development, especially when they are
willing to change. Therefore, studies that track the possible changes and
shifts in teachers’ beliefs and practices over a certain period of time may
add to our understanding of how teacher training programs can be more
effectively designed and implemented to foster teacher growth as best as
possible.
Among the bulk of research conducted by Chinese scholars who work
outside China, Zhu and Li, (2014) should be considered as a key project
that gets to the core issues under discussion. They examined the conse-
quences of the deliberate and concerted policies and efforts to promote
a particular variety of Chinese as a global language for its learners. They
interviewed some of the students studying Chinese in the Confucius
Institutes and the Confucius Classrooms in the UK, and found a number
of problems related to the teaching and learning of the Chinese culture.
For example, some students did not want to be taught anything beyond
what was in the textbooks and what the teachers were offering to teach,
while others explicitly rejected the idea of learning culture through learning
language. There is one extreme case of a student who thought the Chinese
culture represented by the teacher was inauthentic, as the cultural element
taught by the teachers focused mostly on fairly stereotypical customs and
traditions. The issue is then called into question regarding the legitimacy
and authenticity of the teachers as representatives of the Chinese culture.
Based on the interview data, the researchers discussed in depth the role of
the teacher in mediating the learning of culture and expressed their skepti-
cism that many teachers may only have a superficial knowledge of Chinese
culture, including the traditional customs that they try to teach.
3.4 rofessional Development of Chinese Language

P
Teachers
A couple of articles consider both conceptually and empirically the impor-

tance of professional development of Chinese language teachers (Byram,
2014; Zhu & Li, 2014). Byram (2014) claimed that the most important
area for development is in teacher education, and that there is still a lack
of understanding among teachers with respect to the significance of inter-
cultural competence and its relationship to linguistic competence. The
urgency in designing and implementing effective pre-service as well as
in-service teacher training programs geared to different contexts seems to
have also been fairly recognized as one of the important themes of inves-
tigation in a number of reviews and empirical studies conducted by the
Chinese scholars who work inside China (Chen, 2013; Guo, 2013; Jia,
2013; Jiang & Hao, 2011; Wang, 2010; Wen, 2011; Zhu, 2014).
Wang (2010) pointed out that it is time for the professional develop-
ment programs of Chinese language teachers to focus more on teacher
reflectivity and discussed the relationship between the teacher’s reflec-
tive practice and their Chinese language teaching. Jiang and Hao (2011)
examined the practical knowledge of the Chinese language teachers
through stimulated recall protocols. The findings showed that among the
seven types of pedagogic knowledge that teachers may consider and use
in their teaching, general pedagogic knowledge and linguistic knowledge
were the two most frequently used while the knowledge about literature
and culture turned out to be the least used. Furthermore, as compared
to expert teachers, novice teachers reported lower frequency of using
intercultural communicative knowledge. Thanks to the knowledge accu-
mulated over years of teaching, expert teachers were capable of using
much more intercultural communicative knowledge than novice teach-
ers, which reflects, to some extent, that the amount of intercultural com-
municative knowledge and the ability to apply it effectively to classroom
teaching may suffice to serve as an important criterion that sets apart nov-
ice teachers from expert teachers. These findings have salient implications
for professional development programs: first, given that Chinese language
teachers mostly teach students from different cultural backgrounds, it is
crucial for them to stay aware of the cultural diversity of the student
300 C. Li
groups. Therefore, training programs should include modules to assist

novice teachers with not only intercultural communicative knowledge
but also the ability to convert it into practical knowledge; second, teacher
reflection should constitute an important component in the training
cycle. Zhu (2014) observed that the lack of qualified teaching staff has
increasingly become one of the bottlenecks in promoting Chinese as a
global language. Perhaps as a result, the localization of Chinese language
teachers has increased, as has collaborative teaching between local and
Chinese teachers.
Zhu and Li (2014) cast doubt on the effectiveness of teacher training
programs in China, such as the possible lack of attention to culture and
discussion of the learners’ identities, their learning styles and the envi-
ronment for learning and teaching Chinese in different countries. These
training programs mostly featured a focus on comparative analysis of
the structures of Chinese and English, and courses on teaching methods
which emphasize the importance of teaching specific aspects of the lan-
guage, that is, pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and the use of mul-
timedia in teaching. It is therefore important to note that the situation
discussed in this project raises a crucial yet underexplored issue of the
role of the Chinese language teacher in mediating culture and cultural
knowledge, and has implications for teacher training and development
programs.
A brief review of the studies in this area has clearly shown that the
intercultural knowledge at the initial stage of teaching seems to be
relatively lacking and the teaching of cultural knowledge mostly fails
to be integrated into the development of learners’ intercultural compe-
tence. Intercultural aspects tend to be restricted to the superficial level of
Chinese traditions and customs alone.
4 Concluding Reflections
Given its centrality in language teaching in general, it is perhaps sur-
prising that intercultural teaching has not yet been awarded adequate
attention in Chinese language teacher education research. Nevertheless,
with their conceptual, methodological and substantive diversity, the four
groups of studies reviewed in this chapter can perhaps provide a basis for
further research in this field.
1. The theoretical discussions on and empirical validation of the concept

and model of ICC is, beyond doubt, a well-established domain of
enquiry. As a central dimension of teacher preparation, intercultural
competence enables teachers to better facilitate the learning of stu-
dents with different cultural backgrounds and help them develop the
skills to survive in a culturally diverse world. In this vein, intercultural
competence should be placed at the foundation of future teacher edu-
cation and development programs. Based on Byram’s classic model
(1997), teachers need to explicitly include intercultural competence
objectives, reflected in each lesson planned as well as the entire course.
By so doing teachers can better evaluate their objectives and assess-
ment of the learning outcomes.
2. Although this body of work reflects key issues in language teacher
education (e.g. the varying impact of teacher beliefs on practice), it
also highlights additional themes for further expansion of our under-
standing of this field: (1) changes in teachers’ beliefs and practices, and
(2) differences between novice and experienced teachers in terms of
their beliefs and practices. There is little explicit discussion of these
two themes in the present literature but these are clearly important
issues that need to be addressed more in continuing work in the field.
More longitudinal studies of Chinese language teachers are required
both in teacher education programs and in practicing teachers, which
will shed light on teachers’ evolving conceptions. Such research can
enable us to track how language teachers’ beliefs and practices are
accumulated and transformed. In addition, over the research process,
teachers can also monitor how their own beliefs and practices change
through journal writing or portfolio for self-reflection. In this way,
greater self-awareness is created along with teachers’ increased
reflectivity.
3. One of the central issues to emerge is the role of a comparative and
international perspective in the field of intercultural teaching research.
The range of contexts studied to date is perhaps not sufficiently repre-
sentative of Chinese language teaching settings, although a number of
302 C. Li
cultural contexts have been covered, that is the USA, the UK, Australia
and China. While significant progress has been made in this field of
research, there is yet much scope for the continued strengthening of the
empirical base. More systematic research projects are needed with scope
for replication across more cultural and pedagogic contexts. Teachers
can reflect on their own beliefs and teaching practices in comparison
with other teachers in different pedagogic settings, and preferably start
to exchange ideas as to how to integrate an intercultural dimension into
one’s teaching objectives and how to collaborate as a team.
4. One further suggestion that follows the above observations is that it is
crucial for teacher educators responsible for designing international
Chinese teacher training programs to exemplify how teachers can
actually promote the acquisition of intercultural competence in their
classes, that is, what they practically do in their daily teaching. These
programs therefore must resolve the question of what is really happen-
ing in teachers’ classroom practice.
5. The bulk of work in the literature reflects a range of research methods,
aside from the purely theoretical pieces. These are largely qualitative,
though there is also contribution of quantitative work to the under-
standing of this domain. Data elicited from a qualitative design can
provide insights deep into teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding
intercultural teaching. These insights may include both interpersonal
and contextual factors that affect the implementation of intercultural
competence teaching.
6. Research agendas in the field of intercultural teaching need to be con-
ceived within an overall unifying framework that incorporates and
synthesizes the four major dimensions in this review. This may provide
a starting point for future research which reflects more focused atten-
tion to specific issues and indicates clearer relationships among these
dimensions.
In response to the pressing need for educating teachers for intercultural

teaching, this chapter draws attention to the value of teachers and teach-
ing in a globalized world and by doing so, helping millions of language
learners become more interculturally competent. I have demonstrated
in this review that despite the surge in interest in teaching Chinese to
an increasing number of learners around the world, studies in this field
have not been able to timely and effectively offer solutions to the various
problems and obstacles in the way of Chinese language teachers. I hope
that the next ten years will bring more attention to this field.
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306 C. Li
Citing Li is an associate professor at the School of English Studies at Shanghai

International Studies University and a Fulbright Scholar at UC Berkeley. She
holds a PhD from the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include
intercultural communication, teaching Chinese as an international language
and qualitative research methodology.
14
Assessing Learner Autonomy:
Development and Validation
of a Localized Scale
Lilan Lin and Hayo Reinders
1 Introduction
Higher education in China has seen major changes in recent years. One
of these changes relates to an increased focus on developing in learn-
ers a capacity for lifelong learning. This focus is also evident in the area
of language education. A wide range of initiatives has been carried out
across the country to encourage learners to take greater responsibility for
their own learning. These include the establishment of self-access centers,
the provision of online resources to complement classroom-based educa-
tion, and more broadly a shift of focus in formal education to develop-
ing self-directed learning skills as well as a range of twenty-first-century
learning skills, including critical thinking, collaboration, negotiation and
so on. In the area of language education, these and related concepts have
L. Lin (*)
Anhui Jianzhu University, Hefei Shi, China
H. Reinders
Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand

308 L. Lin and H. Reinders
usually been viewed through the lens of learner autonomy. The field of
language learner autonomy has seen a great deal of academic activity in
the last 30–40 years. There is now a large body of research and prac-
titioners’ experiences from an increasingly wide range of settings, both
geographic and with learners of different backgrounds and ages, to enable
educational providers to draw on as a foundation for the development
of programs and resources to meet changing requirements within the
Chinese education system. Although the concept of autonomy has been
defined, operationalized and implemented in many different ways, a
shared aim of all such endeavors is to help learners develop the necessary
attitudes, metacognitive awareness, as well as practical skills to take on an
active role in determining their own learning.
In the Chinese context, many efforts have been made in recent years to
draw on the existing research in order to implement a focus on autonomy
in language education, primarily in the tertiary sector. It is important
that the impact of such initiatives be investigated. However, as in other
countries, this is hampered by the fact that autonomy is notoriously diffi-
cult to measure. As a concept that includes a psychological, as well as cog-
nitive and a political dimension, the development of identifying changes
in learners as a result of an educational intervention is a major challenge.
Efforts in China so far have not been able to achieve this, largely because
of a number of limitations in the available instruments. In this chapter,
we therefore propose a new scale to measure learner autonomy, to be used
in Chinese institutions of higher education. We will begin by providing
a brief review of learner autonomy and its assessment, before describing
the Chinese context. In the main part of the chapter, we describe the
development of our scale for learner autonomy.
2 Learner Autonomy and its Assessment

2.1 Learner Autonomy in China
Research on learner autonomy in the Chinese EFL (English as a for-

eign language) context began in the 1990s. The early research was mainly
14 Assessing Learner Autonomy: Development and Validation... 309
restricted to the introduction of the theories and practices of autonomy

in Western countries, and few empirical studies were carried out. Since
the year 2004, however, there has been a remarkable growth of interest
in the research on autonomy. There are specific reasons why the issue
of learner autonomy is of great concern in the current Chinese tertiary
EFL context. In a dramatic move to popularize higher education, China
launched a program to boost university enrollment in 1999, which
brought about a challenge to the way how College English, a compulsory
course for all non-English majors in their first two years of university
study across China, was taught. In addition to general criticism of the
course and its perceived ineffectiveness and inefficiency, it was argued
that College English should teach students how to use English effectively
and enable them to exploit linguistic and other resources available to
them for their own purposes.
This led to the launch by the Chinese government of the College English
Teaching Reform and the publication of the College English Curriculum
Requirements (Requirements hereafter) in 2004. The Requirements, a set of
official guidelines for College English teaching, states, for the first time
in the history of such guidelines in China, that one of the objectives of
College English is “to enhance students’ ability to study independently”
(The Requirements, 2004, p. 5), and it further emphasizes that “an impor-
tant indicator of the successful reform of the teaching model is the devel-
opment of individualized study methods and the autonomous learning
ability on the part of students” (the Requirements, 2004, p. 23).
Concurrent with the implementation of autonomy-based pedagogi-
cal programs in Chinese colleges and universities, the past decade has
witnessed a proliferation of empirical research, conducted in six principal
areas: (1) survey on students’ autonomous learning ability (Xu, Peng, &
Wu, 2004); (2) effects of pedagogical programs on the development of
autonomy (Xu, Tang, & Liu, 2010); (3) relationship between strategy
use and autonomy (Tan & Zhang, 2015); (4) effects of strategy train-
ing on autonomy (Shi, 2010); (5) impact of technology on autonomy
(Lv, 2015) and (6) relationship between autonomy and proficiency gains
(Lin & Chen, 2009). The most commonly used method of eliciting data
in the autonomy-related empirical research is the survey questionnaire.
Unfortunately, scant attention has been paid to how assessment measures
should be developed and used to ensure valid data analysis and, there-
fore, the quality of research. Built on a well-established framework, this
chapter reports on the process and methods used to develop a psycho-
metrically tested scale that can be used to assess Chinese tertiary EFL
students’ autonomy.
2.2 Assessing Autonomy
The assessment of autonomy is difficult as “autonomy is a multidi-

mensional construct” (Benson, 2005, p. 51) and is “not a single, easily
described behavior” (Little, 1991, p. 7). But this does not mean that “we
should not attempt to measure it. If we aim to help learners to become
autonomous, we should at least have some way of judging whether we
are successful or not” (Benson, 2005, p. 54). Most research in autonomy
is descriptive or qualitative. Self-assessments, portfolios and interviews
are common instruments to elicit data from learners or their teachers
about students’ perceived level of autonomy. Despite their usefulness in
providing a deep understanding of issues in specific contexts, quantitative
data would enable this to be complemented with broader generalizations,
more objective judgment and significant labor- and time-saving benefits.
Attempts have been made to develop quantitative measurements of
autonomy in language learning. Cotterall (1995, p. 195) drew on data
of learners’ beliefs to identify six factors underlying autonomy: the role
of the teacher, the role of feedback, learner independence, learner confi-
dence in their study ability, experience of language learning, and approach
to studying. But she had difficulties in replicating the clusters of beliefs
on which these factors were based in subsequent studies (Benson, 2005,
p. 79).
Targeting Hong Kong university students, Chan (2001) conceptual-
ized autonomy as beliefs on the five dimensions: aims and motivation of
language learning, perceptions of the teacher’s’ role and their own, learn-
ing styles and preferences, learners’ perceptions of autonomous learn-
ing and the extent to which they consider themselves as autonomous
learners. Chan used a combination of interview questions about learners’
learning experience, their perceptions of learner autonomy and their own
autonomy as well as three sets of questionnaires that asked about learners’

views on the teacher’s role, their own role and their learning styles. But
she did not provide any psychometric data on the test and the develop-
ment of the questionnaires.
Dixon’s (2011) 50-item measurement of autonomy was developed out
of a long list of 256 items. Through exploratory factor analysis (EFA),
he found six clusters: linguistic confidence, information literacy, social
comparison, locus of control, metacognition and self-reliance. Dixon
compared teacher estimates and questionnaire data to check its reliability
and validity. Apart from the small-scale data, Dixon’s measurement has
been challenged for his way of “labelling of the factors” (Cooker, 2012,
p. 77). But Dixon concluded with an important message that learner
autonomy may not be measured in an abstract sense, but using a ques-
tionnaire serves a useful purpose when the data it provides are viewed in
context and in consultation with learner (2011, p. 313).
Murase’s (2015) study involved two stages. Based on a concep-
tual model of autonomy within the technical, psychological, political-
philosophic and social-cultural categories, Murase developed a 113-item
scale out of the initial 143 items by conducting the confirmatory factor
analysis (CFA) to 90 students, a small sample size for conducting factor
analysis. According to Byrne (2001, cited in Worthington and Whitaker,
2006, p. 815), “the application of CFA procedures to assessment instru-
ments that are still in initial stages of development represents a serious
misuse of this analytic strategy”. In Stage 2, Murase added EFA and CFA
among a group of 1517 students. But there is a lack of clarity in the pro-
cedures with respect to the use of samples in EFA and CFA, factorability,
extraction methods and rotation methods.
The learner autonomy profile (LAP) is a scale designed for general
education rather than for language learning, consisting of four subscales.
Following Confessore’s (1981) conceptual model of autonomy, Meyer
(2001), Carr (1999), Derrick (2001) and Ponton (1999), respectively,
developed and validated instruments that assess learners’ dimensions
of “desire,” “resourcefulness,” “initiative” and “persistence” (cited in
Confessore & Park, 2004). But the four instruments treat learner auton-
omy as an amalgam of psychological constructs of behavioral intentions,
non-observable behaviors.
Apart from the autonomy measurements mentioned above, attempts

have been made to gauge students’ autonomy using scales designed
for self-direction, such as the Self-directed Learning Readiness Scale
(SDLRS) developed by Guglielmino (1977), the Oddi continuing
learning inventory (OCLI) developed by Oddi (1986), or the General
Causality Orientations Scale (GCOS) designed by Deci and Ryan (1985)
to understand the nature of causality of behavior.
As can be seen from the above, the challenges to the above measure-
ments lie in both the operationalization of learner autonomy and the
validation of the measurements. Since “autonomy is both contextually
variable and a matter of degree” (Benson, 2007, p. 23), “the culturally
constructed nature of the classroom needs to be taken into account”
(Ho & Crookall, 1995, p. 237) in the development of autonomy-related
measurement. Thus, measurement designed to assess Chinese students’
autonomy needs to be appropriately contextualized to fit into its context
and to match different aspects of autonomy with the characteristics and
needs of its learners.
2.3 Assessing Learner Autonomy in China
Despite the growth of empirical research on autonomy in the Chinese

EFL context, there are only three published studies on the assessment
of EFL students’ autonomy in the Chinese academic journals. For the
majority of those that do use questionnaire survey (Fu & Yang, 2007;
Lv, 2016; Ouyang & Xie, 2009; Shao & Zhao, 2011; Shi, 2010; Xiao,
Wang, & Cao, 2011; Zhang, 2009), however, there is a lack of transpar-
ency not only in how the construct of autonomy was conceptualized and
operationalized, but also in how the instruments were developed.
Xu and Wu (2004) designed a five-dimensional scale for English
autonomous learning: (1) understanding teaching goals and require-
ments; (2) setting learning goals and plans; (3) effectively using learn-
ing strategies; (4) monitoring strategy use and (5) evaluating the English
learning process. They used the following procedures in the development
of the scale: (1) consultation with experts on the model of Chinese non-
English majors’ autonomy; (2) contributions from colleagues to the item
pool; and (3) a pilot study. Xu and Wu’s (2004) measurement focuses on
self-management skills in the English learning process. But their research
only used descriptive analysis and correlation analysis, which are not
enough to support the validity of a newly developed scale.
Hu (2011) reported how he designed a two-dimensional scale to eval-
uate university students’ autonomy in language learning. Using EFA, he
developed a scale which consisted of willingness (motivation and confi-
dence) and capacity (knowledge and skills in self-management).
Ren and Gao’s (2012) scale focused on Oxford’s (2003) model of
autonomy: technical, psychological, social-cultural and political-critical
autonomy. But the problem of the scale lies in the operationalizations of
the four perspectives. For example, Ren and Gao operationalized techni-
cal autonomy simply as memory, cognitive and compensation strategies,
psychological autonomy as changes in beliefs, affectives, metacognitive
strategies and learning styles, while social-cultural autonomy was opera-
tionalized as social strategies. However, the assumption that successful
strategy use is equivalent to learner autonomy is “not warranted by the
best strategy research” (Little, 2000, p. 23). Problems still exist in the
political-critical subscale. Ren and Gao (2012) defined political-critical
as control of ideology, power and authority. No information was given as
to why they defined it this way.
The findings from these studies indicate the need for further research
in autonomy assessment in China. First, previous studies fail to present
a comprehensive picture regarding the multidimensional nature of the
construct of learner autonomy. As a result, there are some inherent limi-
tations in the design of the scale to assess autonomy. The items in Xu and
Wu’s (2004) scale refer to self-management skills, those in Ren and Gao’s
(2012) to learning strategies. Although Hu (2011) included psychologi-
cal autonomy in his study by adding “willingness” in his scale, the core of
the psychological dimension—students’ beliefs and consciousness about
how they should take responsibility and how they see their ability to learn
is not mentioned in the scale.
Second, development of the scales has not been accompanied by stan-
dardized psychometric steps, leading to possible concerns about their
validity. Xu and Wu (2004) did not conduct a factor analysis to s upport
the validity of the newly developed scale. Both Hu (2011) and Ren and
Gao (2012) only conducted EFA, but not CFA or validity analysis. The
absence of a valid assessment measure makes it difficult to interpret
research findings and make generalizations.
As assessment is “essentially social activities, influenced by unique
affordances and constraints of a particular educational context” (Matuga,
2006, p. 317), it is clear, from the above, that a significant amount of
work remains to be done in China, as well is in other contexts, to develop
meaningful, locally relevant tools for measuring autonomy. Our purpose
in the rest of this chapter is to describe, in some detail, the process that we
went through in constructing a scale to be implemented in one university
in eastern China.
3 Methods
3.1 The Context
This research was conducted in a Chinese university, where College English

teaching, as in most colleges and universities in China, was character-
ized by large class sizes and a teacher-centered approach. The impetus
for the curriculum reform in this university came from dissatisfaction
with the status quo in teaching and learning on the part of the teachers,
the students, as well as the university authorities. Dissatisfaction existed
in particular with regards to a lack of individualization, meaning that
learners were expected to proceed at the same pace, a lack of freedom
of choice for students, lack of concern about individual differences, the
widespread use of summative assessment, and an extreme dependence
on the teacher. In response to the Requirements, a teaching reform was
initiated at the university, and funded by the local government, to pro-
mote learner autonomy through innovation of the curriculum and the
teaching modes employed.
It was decided that a major focus of the reform should be identifying
ways in which students can be encouraged and supported in taking more
control of their learning. An extensive engagement with the literature
and prior operationalizations of learner autonomy led to our conceiving

the construct as consisting of three main elements (Candy, 1991; Holec,
1981; Little, 1991; Reinders, 2011; Wenden, 1991): (1) learner’s ability
in self-management of their language learning; (2) learner’s consciousness
of and attitudes toward autonomy and (3) autonomous learning practice.
The current research focused on all three aspects and empirically tested
this hypothetical construct.
3.2 Participants
Sophomores were chosen to complete the questionnaire anonymously.

The reason we decided to choose them was that they had had one-year
self-access listening experience during the time surveyed. It was assumed
that they could give more information about this mode based on their
experiences. The present study used three samples. Sample 1 provided
the data for the EFA, Sample 2 for the CFA and Sample 3 for a second
CFA. One of the criteria for data in factor analysis is the sample size.
The proposed guideline for minimum ratios of participants to items is
5:1 or 10:1 (Worthington & Whittaker, 2006, p. 817). As there were 52
items in the initial version of the scale, Sample 1 comprised 588 subjects.
Sample 2 comprised 380 subjects for the 42-item scale and Sample 3 was
another 455 subjects for the 38-item scale.
3.3 Data Analysis Procedures
The development of the scale uses a process recommended by Worthington

and Whittaker (2006). Following an extensive initial conceptual development
stage, item creation was undertaken and tested using the Delphi technique,
EFA and CFA, before examination of its reliability and validity.
All quantitative survey responses were coded, entered into the data edi-
tor and analyzed using the SPSS 10.0 in the EFA and reliability analysis,
and AMOS (analysis of moment structure) version 6.0 in the CFA.
4 he Process of Constructing a Scale

T
for Learner Autonomy
4.1 Item Generation
The first task was the creation of the item pool to reflect the content of
the target construct, that is, the three dimensions of learners’ attributes
in autonomy. Self-management skills were demonstrated as the following
skills students believe that they possess: defining objectives, defining and
selecting appropriate materials and activities, defining pace of learning,
monitoring learning, evaluating the process and evaluating the outcomes
(Holec, 1981). Learners’ psychological autonomy focused on their con-
sciousness and willingness to take control of one’s learning as reflected
in their attitudes towards their own role, their confidence to take con-
trol of their own learning (Little, 1991; Reinders, 2011; Wenden, 1991),
and their metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness interpreted as
their knowledge about how well they perform on learning tasks, and the
demands and procedures of second language learning, and strategies for
English learning (Broady & Kenning, 1996; Reinders, 2011). Learning
practice was interpreted by a series of specific behaviors in natural con-
text of learning that show how learners exercise their self-management
skills and their attitudes and awareness towards autonomy (Candy, 1991;
Hedge, 2000; Reinders, 2011).
The draft scale was composed of three parts. The first part was a brief
demographic questionnaire for the purpose of collecting information
about students’ name, class and their previous English learning experi-
ence. In the second part, students self-reported (using a five-point Likert
scale) their learning management skills, their attitudes and consciousness
of autonomy on 44 questions. In order to make a comparison between
what students think they are capable of and/or feel what they should do,
and what they actually do, an open-ended questionnaire was designed
in order to understand what kinds of learning practice were regarded as
autonomous by students. Eighty juniors at the university who had been
using self-access listening resources in the past two years and ten teach-
ers of English at the university were asked to list 20 activities associated
with autonomous learning behaviors. Their lists of items were collected

and compared with what the literature describes about the profile of an
autonomous language learner and then summarized into 28 items, which
could be thought of as manifestations of autonomous language learning
behaviors. These 28 items formed the initial third part of the question-
naire, again using a five-point Likert scale.
4.2 Validation
To test content validity of the scale, the Delphi technique (Linstone &
Turoff, 1975) was used to gain consensus among an expert panel on the
content validity of the 72 items thought to reflect learner attributes in
autonomy. The expert panel comprised 11 expert teachers from four dif-
ferent universities. Each panel member was asked to complete the ques-
tionnaire anonymously and independently, and evaluated each item to
determine the degree to which the items measured the three constructs—
self-management skills, autonomous psychology and autonomous behav-
iors among Chinese tertiary EFL learners. After two rounds, and having
excluded items for which less than 80% agreement was reached, 52 items
were retained from the initial 72-item pool.
In order to test construct validity a combination of exploratory and
confirmatory procedures was followed to confirm the factorial stability
of the proposed scale. According to Fabrigar, MacCallum, Wegener, and
Strahan (1999), EFA is used in the initial stages of scale development to
explore potential hypothetical relationships between factors and items,
with CFA used subsequently to validate such relationships. Before the
EFA, an item analysis was performed through corrected item–total cor-
relation, which was used for purification purposes because unimportant
items may confound the interpretation of the factor analysis. Eight items
were discarded because they had low (less than 0.30) corrected item–total
correlation, which improved the reliability of the scale from Cronbach’s
alpha 0.932 to 0.952.
Then the suitability of the data for EFA was assessed by means of
the Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy and
Bartlett’s test of sphericity. For this research, the KMO computed was
Table 14.1 KMO and Bartlett’s test

Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling 0.956
adequacy
Bartlett’s test of sphericity approx. 1.400E4
chi-square
Df 946
Sig. 0.000
0.956 (>0.7) and Bartlett’s test correlation matrix was 0.000 (Table 14.1).
The results show that the sample was appropriate for EFA.
EFA assesses the construct validity and determines how many latent
variables underlie the complete set of items during the initial scale devel-
opment so that the items that do not measure an intended factor may be
eliminated. In the EFA phase, first, factor extraction using the principal
component was conducted to determine the smallest number of factors
that could be used to best represent the interrelations among the set of
variables. According to Kraiser’s criterion, only factors with an eigenvalue
of 1.0 or more are retained for further investigation. The resulting eigen-
values were plotted, revealing three distinct factors arising from the item
pool to be retained for interpretation (Table 14.2). (Lin, 2013).
Second, factor rotation was employed in order to present the pattern of
loadings in a manner that is easier to interpret. According to Comrey and
Lee’s (1992) pattern, coefficients greater than 0.71 are considered excel-
lent, greater than 0.63 are very good, greater than 0.55 are good, greater
than 0.45 are fair and greater than 0.32 are poor. Two items did not load
on any of the components using a cutoff loading of 0.45 and were sub-
sequently eliminated from the scale. After poor items were deleted from
the scale, a 42-item scale was arrived at (Table 14.2).
Factor 1 was clearly the most important one since it accounted for
33.6% of the total scale variance (Table 14.2). It was defined by 16 of the
pool items. Since all these items had to do with the students’ use of self-
management skills, it was labeled Self-management Skills.
The statements clustered as Factor 2 were defined by another 16 items
and accounted for 12.6% of the variance (Table 14.2). Since this fac-
tor relates to students’ autonomous learning behaviors such as plan-
ning, implementing, monitoring and evaluating learning activities, and
Table 14.2 Exploratory factor analysis

Factor Item Factor loading Eigenvalue Variance
Factor 1 28 0.862 14.1 33.6%
30 0.797
33 0.705
29 0.698
32 0.691
34 0.656
27 0.651
31 0.639
18 0.616
22 0.558
36 0.549
14 0.550
26 0.544
24 0.538
35 0.509
16 0.495
Factor 2 40 0.705 5.29 12.6%
46 0.682
44 0.679
51 0.675
50 0.669
41 0.671
43 0.665
45 0.665
39 0.647
47 0.642
52 0.623
42 0.622
38 0.620
49 0.617
37 0.618
48 0.572
Factor 3 8 0.802 1.74 4.2%
10 0.750
2 0.712
9 0.716
23 0.684
25 0.627
20 0.519
7 0.516
21 0.472
17 0.459
Lin (2013), p. 76
reviewing and reviewing strategies and strategies to improve their learning

p
outcomes, this factor was labeled Autonomous Learning Behaviors.
Factor 3 consisted of ten items and accounted for 4.2% of the variance
(Table 14.2). An examination of this factor revealed that all these items
represent students’ willingness and consciousness to take responsibility
for their own learning (Items 2, 7, 8, 9 and 10), their confidence in
their ability to work independently of the teacher (Items 17 and 20) and
their metacognitive and metalinguistic awareness in language learning
(Items 21, 23 and 25). This factor therefore was named Autonomous
Psychology.
CFA is intended to test the hypothesis that a relationship between
the observed variables and the underlying latent construct exists and
to confirm the extent to which the new scale is replicated in the new
sample data. To continue the investigation of the construct validity of
the developed instrument produced by the above EFA, CFA was con-
ducted in a separate sample using the developed 42-item version of the
scale from the EFA. The CFA was specified using the model extracted
from the EFA. The structural equation modeling (SEM) confirmatory
procedure was taken using AMOS to find good fit of the model to the
data in the new samples and support the factor structure of the scale.
Since no non-significant paths were found for possible item deletion in
model specification and estimation phases, model fit was evaluated by a
suggested minimum collection of the fit indices by Kline (2005, cited in
Worthington & Whittaker, 2006, p. 829), which included: (1) the ratio
of chi-square to degrees of freedom, which shows how well the model
fits the data with ratio of χ2 to df ≤ 2 or 3 indicating acceptable fit; (2)
a value of root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA) of about
0.06 or less as acceptable model; and (3) the comparative fit index (CFI),
and Tucker–Lewis index (TLI) with the value of 0.90 indicating accept-
able model fit.
The indicators of goodness-of-fit obtained through the analysis of the
42-item model did not indicate a good fit using the above cutoff line
(TLI = 0.847; CFI = 0.855). Modifications were sought four rounds
Table 14.3 Modification indices of M1, M2, M3, and M4

MI Par change
M1 E29<−>E28 22.908 0.098
E50<−>E46 39.125 0.146
E43<−>E44 87.547 0.258
E45<−>E44 62.746 0.258
E47<−>E44 28.485 −0.130
E47<−>E43 28.587 −0.120
E42<−>E41 42.992 0.198
E37<−>E39 21.845 0.105
E48<−>E47 69.878 0.180
M2 E29<−>E28 23.114 0.098
E50<−>E46 40.585 0.150
E43<−>E45 24.024 0.156
E43<−>E47 24.881 −0.113
E43<−>E40 21.008 0.114
E42<−>E41 42.211 0.195
E48<−>E47 63.057 0.165
M3 E29<−>E28 23.030 0.098
E50<−>E46 37.433 0.142
E42<−>E41 43.009 0.199
M4 E29<−>E28 23.048 0.098
E50<−>E46 37.723 0.143
Note: M1: Model 1; M2; Model 2; M3: Model 3; M4: Model 4
based on the modification index (MI) (Table 14.3). One common strat-

egy is simply to remove the parameter with the largest MI, then see the
effect as measured by the chi-square fit index. But modifications should
be done on the basis of theory, not just the magnitude of the MI. This
process yielded an improved fit over the previous models (χ2/df = 2.283,
p < 0.001; TIL = 0.882; CFI = 0.889; RMSR = 0.058) and has 38 items
altogether. In order to determine the stability to establish predictive
validity of the revised model, Sample 3 was used and the re-specified
model tested in a second confirmatory approach, which shows that the
three-factor model for the 38-item AELS fitted the Sample 3 data well
(χ2/df = 2.487, p < 0.001; TIL = 0.912; CFI = 0.917; RMSR = 0.057)
(Lin, 2013).
Once the final model was established from the CFA, the internal reli-
ability of the modified AELS was evaluated.
4.3 Reliability
The measures of test reliability make it possible to estimate as to what

proportion of the total item score is error variance. An internal consis-
tency, which refers to the degree to which the items measure the same
underlying construct, was evaluated. One of the most commonly used
indicators of internal consistency is Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. Ideally,
Cronbach’s alpha coefficient should be over 0.7 before we can say that the
scale is internally consistent. The computed values of Cronbach’s coeffi-
cient alpha for the global scale, and the three subscales were 0.949, 0.934,
0.899 and 0.910, respectively, which is considered to have an excellent
level of internal consistency of the items in the global scale as well as in
the three subscales.
Another measure of the internal consistency for this research was the
split-half test. We split the test with the 380 sample into two and calcu-
lated the respondents’ scores on each of the half test. The split-half tests are
strongly correlated if the correlation coefficient is over 0.8. For this research,
the split-half coefficient of the global scale was 0.919 while the split-half
coefficients for the three subscales varied between 0.902 and 0.838.
4.4 Convergent and Discriminant Validity
To determine the construct validity of the AELS, both convergent valid-

ity and discriminant validity were assessed in the students from Sample
3. Convergent validity is the degree to which a trait is well measured by
its indicators while discriminant validity is the degree to which measures
of different traits are unrelated (Campbell & Fiske, 1959). In this study,
convergent validity was assessed by factor loading, the average variance
extracted (AVE) and composite reliability (CR).
Table 14.4 shows the standardized factor loading of all the indica-
tors in each factor is more than acceptable level (>0.5) after deleting six
low factor loading indicators. According to the criterion of Fornell and
Larcker (1981), all the three factors have a high level of AVE between
0.702 and 0.737 while their values of CR are 0.872, 0.935 and 0.934,
indicating high internal reliability.
Table 14.4 Convergent validity

Construct Item Factor loading λ2 AVE CR
Psychology 8 0.733 0.537 0.703 0.872
10 0.729 0.531
9 0.671 0.451
23 0.733 0.537
25 0.697 0.486
20 0.677 0.459
17 0.677 0.459
Ability 28 0.729 0.532 0.725 0.935
30 0.783 0.613
33 0.687 0.486
29 0.719 0.518
32 0.772 0.595
34 0.765 0.584
27 0.711 0.506
31 0.748 0.560
22 0.681 0.464
36 0.766 0.587
26 0.658 0.433
24 0.653 0.426
35 0.734 0.538
Behavior 40 0.726 0.527 0.738 0.935
46 0.763 0.582
51 0.769 0.591
41 0.681 0.463
43 0.707 0.501
45 0.737 0.543
39 0.736 0.541
52 0.796 0.634
38 0.689 0.475
49 0.803 0.645
37 0.701 0.492
48 0.742 0.551
For discriminant evidence, the cross-loadings between indicators were examined.

As shown in Table 14.5, indicators load much higher on the factor they measure
than on the other factors, indicating good discriminant validity of the final
32-item AELS.
To sum up, the above tests for the final model show that the 32 items consistently
measure the same construct of the AELS and the items within each factor are
highly correlated with each other.
Table 14.5 Matrix of loadings and cross-loadings

Item Psychology Ability Behavior
8 0.725 0.382 0.182
10 0.715 0.419 0.202
9 0.682 0.366 0.222
23 0.735 0.416 0.175
25 0.696 0.483 0.325
20 0.674 0.476 0.357
17 0.691 0.503 0.389
28 0.359 0.737 0.515
30 0.454 0.777 0.496
33 0.424 0.690 0.446
29 0.487 0.716 0.512
32 0.539 0.764 0.462
34 0.494 0.764 0.492
27 0.423 0.718 0.437
31 0.468 0.742 0.461
22 0.478 0.690 0.425
36 0.491 0.762 0.478
26 0.504 0.671 0.368
24 0.453 0.656 0.314
35 0.532 0.731 0.501
40 0.289 0.461 0.726
46 0.135 0.496 0.763
51 0.255 0.450 0.771
41 0.369 0.518 0.675
43 0.188 0.436 0.717
45 0.135 0.379 0.751
39 0.283 0.461 0.729
52 0.356 0.531 0.792
38 0.345 0.511 0.681
49 0.274 0.524 0.802
37 0.163 0.322 0.706
48 0.396 0.539 0.734
5 Conclusions
It is clear from this chapter that autonomy has received a considerable
amount of interest in China in recent years. A review of existing studies
and in particular reports on measurements of autonomy, however, shows
that there are a number of significant issues that will need to be addressed
in the future. The first of these, and foundational to all the others, is that
there is a lack of clarity around the concepts in relation to the topic of

autonomy. Without a shared understanding of what autonomy entails, it
will be difficult to move the field along. At the very least, it is important
for authors to clarify the theoretical framework on the basis on which
they investigate autonomy.
Another finding was that existing instruments do not adequately
report on the psychometric aspects of their development. It is important
that future reports include all relevant information so that a clear assess-
ment can be made of the value of any instrumentation used.
As a result of the above, there is still a significant need for work to
be done in order to create reliable instruments that have high construct
validity and high relevance in specific contexts. As the focus in education
in China shifts increasingly on developing learners’ ability to manage
their own learning, both within and outside of formal education, this
becomes all the more important.
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Lilan Lin is a professor and dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Anhui
Jianzhu University in China. Her research interests include learner autonomy,
assessment, blended learning and language teaching.
Dr. Hayo Reinders (www.innovationinteaching.org) is a professor of educa-

tion and head of the department at Unitec in New Zealand and dean of the
Graduate School at Anaheim University in the United States. He is also the
editor-in-chief of the journal Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching. His
research interests include educational technology, learner autonomy and out-of-
class learning. He has published over 20 books, of which the most recent ones
are on teaching methodologies, digital games and second language acquisition.
He edits a book series on New Language Learning and Teaching Environments for
Palgrave Macmillan.
Index
A College English syllabus, 117

academic, 245–7, 250 College English teaching, 309, 314
academic literacy, 203 College English Test (CET), 43, 119
advanced, 252–4 College Entrance Examination
Applied Linguistics, 198, 204, 206, (gaokao高考), 42, 43, 50
214, 217, 218 collocations, 250, 251
assessment, 144–6, 310–12 communication, 10, 12
assessment for learning (AfL), 17–32, community of practice, 178
68 confirmatory factor analysis, 317,
assessment of learning (AoL), 69 320
constructivism, 178
contemporary, 5–7
B content and language integrated
bilingual, 209 learning (CLIL), 89, 180
content based learning (CBI), 180
content-based instruction (CBI), 91,
C 235–7
China, 63–8, 71–6, 79 context, 197, 199, 203, 209, 210,
Chinese, 3, 5, 11, 12 215, 219, 220
Chinese as a Foreign Language, 297 conventions, 198, 199, 210–12
College English curriculum, 225 corpora, 248, 249, 252–4

Learning and Teaching Environments, DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-60092-9
330 Index
corpus, 248, 249, 252, 254, 255 English for international business
culture, 63, 65, 66, 69 (EIB), 102
curriculum, 199, 205 English for Specific Purposes (ESP),
curriculum innovation, 228–30 92, 223
English for specific purposes or
English for academic purposes
D (ESP/EAP), 174
disciplinary, 197, 207, 219 English medium instruction (EMI),
disciplines, 199, 204, 208, 209, 211, 160
216, 217 exploratory factor analysis (EFA),
318, 319
external motivation, 45, 53
E
EAP. See English for academic
purposes (EAP) F
educational reform, 225 facilitating transformative learning,
English, 6–10 261–83
English as a Foreign Language (EFL), faculty, 205, 216
63, 213 feedback, 200
Competence Scale for College A Framework of Reference for EFL
Students, 134 Teaching at Tertiary Level in
context, 200 Shanghai, 131
curriculum, 158
instruction, 235, 236
English as a medium of instruction G
(EMI), 123, 197, 209, 219 genre approach, 64, 66, 71, 72, 199,
English as a Second Language (ESL), 209–12
63, 217 grammar, 208
context, 198, 219
English for academic purposes
(EAP), 10, 124, 168, 204, 207, H
210, 223, 247, 248, 253, 254 higher education, 63, 71, 77, 78, 80
English for Additional Purposes, Hyland, K., 198, 199, 205, 210, 217
11–13
English for General Academic
Purposes (EGAP), 224 I
English for General Purposes (EGP), independent language learning (ILL),
223 58
Index
331
independent learning, 41, 45 O

individual, 6 ongoing reforms, 240–1
Information and Communication
Technology (ICT), 66, 77, 78
innovations, 63, 66, 68, 69, 71, 79 P
intercultural, 8, 10, 12, 13 paraphrase, 246
Intercultural communicative perceptions, 198, 199, 202, 206,
competence (ICC), 293 209, 216
internal motivation, 47 plagiarism, 246
Internationalization, 9, 197 poor motivation and attendance, 239
interview, 205, 206 primary, 63, 64, 66, 68, 69, 79, 80
problem-based learning (PBL), 180
process approach, 64, 71
J product approach, 64, 72
joint-venture university, 47, 51 productive bilingualism, 261–83
professional development, 299
L
L1, 198, 213, 218 R
L2 writing, 199, 200, 215, 216, 219 referencing, 246
academic, 203, 204, 217 reliability, 322
disciplinary, 197, 198, 202, 203, research, 67, 68, 72, 80
206, 207, 219, 220
language policies, 129, 131
language proficiency levels, 238, 241 S
large class sizes, 239 scale development, 317, 318
learner autonomy, 308–10, 312–15 secondary, 63, 66, 69, 70, 77, 79,
Leki, I., 201, 203, 217 80
self-motivation, 47, 51–3
situated learning, 178
M sources, 202, 208
material development, 146–7 Spoken English Test (SET), 43
metadiscourse, 250 students’ perceptions, 198, 232, 233
metasynthesis, 63 subject
contents, 197, 198, 207
tutors, 207, 211–13
N knowledge, 239–40
needs analysis, 230, 231 syllabus, 226
332 Index
T university, 198, 201, 203, 204,

teacher development, 148 218–20
teachers’ beliefs and practices, 295 university students, 197, 204
teachers’ perceptions, 234
teaching materials, 238, 239
teaching writing, 64, 68, 72 V
technology, 8, 9 validity, 315, 317, 318, 320–3
technology-enhanced CLIL vocabulary, 200, 208, 216
(TECLIL), 90
TOEFL, 44, 51, 53, 55, 56
token, 249 W
Total quality management (TQM), writing instruction, 63, 66, 67, 71,
102 73, 74, 77–80
Toulmin model, 70, 74 Writing-to-Learn, 199–201
translation, 208, 209, 219
Z
U Zhuanye English, 117, 118
undergraduates, 198, 202, 205

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What is the book about?

What is the book about?

What are some of the aims of the New Language Learning and Teaching Environments series?

What are some of the aims of the New Language Learning and Teaching Environments series?

NEW LANGUAGE LEARNING

& TEACHING ENVIRONMENTS

‘Innovation in language learning and teaching in China naturally deserves our

• Publish cutting-edge research into current developments and innova-

The series is a multidisciplinary forum for the very latest developments

More information about this series at

New Language Learning and Teaching Environments

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017947177

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

Cover illustration: Dong Wenjie / Getty Images

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

1 Innovation in China: An Overview 3

2 Assessment for Learning in English Language Classrooms

3 Learning to Speak in an Exam-Focused World: A Study

4 Innovations in Writing Instruction in China: Metasynthesis

5 Technology-Enhanced Content and Language Integrated

6 Debates Around the Orientation of TEFL in Chinese

7 From EAP Teaching to English-Medium Instruction:

8 ESP/EAP Through English-Medium Instruction:

9 Students’ Perceptions and Practices in L2 Disciplinary

10 The Implementation of EAP Instruction in a Local

11 Using Corpora to Investigate Chinese University EFL

12 Facilitating Transformative Learning Toward Productive

13 Contemporary Research in Intercultural Teaching in

14 Assessing Learner Autonomy: Development and Validation

Fig. 5.1 Log-in interface of the Wikispaces Classroom 96

Table 4.1 Empirical studies reviewed 80

Table 13.1 List of the included journals (5 Chinese and 13

1 L anguage Education in China:

© The Author(s) 2017 3

activated the “Four Modernizations” policy announced by Zhou Enlai

2 The Contemporary Landscape

broadcaster. They may also go to a private language institute after school.

There are tensions between official government policy and individual

3 Agents of Change in China

sectors of the educational pie, and, not surprisingly, technology as a tool

… to develop each student as a ‘whole healthy person’ with mental, physi-

3.1 Contact with People from Abroad

[The contact] may be a warm, positive experience in which both sides’

3.2 The ‘Internationalization’ of Education

3.3 The Impact of Technology

The field of CALL has received increasing attention in China in recent

4 In This Volume

findings was that successful learners engage in a considerable amount of

In the final chapter, Lin and Reinders discuss the development of

Stanley, P. (2013). A critical ethnography of ‘westerners’ teaching English in China:

David Nunan is Chair of the Research Committee, Director of the MA TESOL

Hayo Reinders (www.innovationinteaching.org) is Professor of Education

© The Author(s) 2017 17

2  ssessment for Learning: Definition, Key

Fourth is the important student role in assessment. AfL needs to acti-

1. be part of effective planning of teaching and learning;

3  aking Sense of the Chinese Contexts

English Curriculum Requirements (CMoE, 2007). All these three policies

1 Innovation in China: An Overview 3

2 Assessment for Learning in English Language Classrooms

3 Learning to Speak in an Exam-Focused World: A Study

4 Innovations in Writing Instruction in China: Metasynthesis

5 Technology-Enhanced Content and Language Integrated

6 Debates Around the Orientation of TEFL in Chinese

7 From EAP Teaching to English-Medium Instruction:

8 ESP/EAP Through English-Medium Instruction:

9 Students’ Perceptions and Practices in L2 Disciplinary

10 The Implementation of EAP Instruction in a Local

11 Using Corpora to Investigate Chinese University EFL

12 Facilitating Transformative Learning Toward Productive

13 Contemporary Research in Intercultural Teaching in

14 Assessing Learner Autonomy: Development and Validation

Fig. 5.1 Log-in interface of the Wikispaces Classroom 96

Table 4.1 Empirical studies reviewed 80

1 L anguage Education in China:

2 The Contemporary Landscape

3 Agents of Change in China

3.1 Contact with People from Abroad

3.2 The ‘Internationalization’ of Education

3.3 The Impact of Technology

4 In This Volume

2 ssessment for Learning: Definition, Key

3 aking Sense of the Chinese Contexts

4 AfL Research in China

4.2 Teacher AfL Practice

4.3 AfL and Teacher Assessment Literacy

5 Problematizing AfL in China

2 English Learning in China

3 Independent Language Learning

4.2 Design of the Study

4.3 Interview Questions

5.2 o What Extent Did Informants Supplement

1.1 Issues and Pedagogies Related to Teaching

1.2 hat Constitutes Innovations in Writing

3.1 F indings on Non-product-based Approaches

3.1.1 Pedagogical Innovations in Primary Education

3.1.2 Pedagogical Innovations in Secondary Education

3.1.3 Pedagogical Innovations in Higher Education

and rubrics of high-stakes English tests, and classroom instruction on argu-

of the in-class peer feedback and students’ concerns with interpersonal