Chinese EFL university teachers’ perceptions of culture teaching and their pedagogical practices

Abstract

ABSTRACT The paper investigates Chinese university EFL teachers' beliefs about culture teaching and their instructional practices in classrooms. A qualitative approach, combining interviews and classroom observations, was conducted with a group of 38 university EFL teachers in Shanghai, China. The findings reveal that culture teaching is perceived mainly as presenting factual information relating largely to products, less to practices and, in particular, perspectives, that the role of culture in EFL varies, depending on the nature of the course, students' language competence, and teachers' cultural awareness and competence, and that teachers lack explicit knowledge of culture theory as well as pedagogical skills.