Chinese teachers’ views of culture in their EFL learning and teaching

Abstract

Although there is an emphasis on culture in English as a foreign language (EFL) education, a review of the literature reveals a lack of empirical research on this topic. This article aims to help fill this gap with a case study of one context — EFL in China. The present paper first describes relevant background from the literature and then outlines a descriptive case study of 16 Chinese EFL teachers’ views of culture in both their EFL learning (during a summer intensive EFL teacher training programme) and teaching (at the middle school level). The participating teachers/learners were interviewed towards the end of their programme, and their answers provide the data for this study. The findings reveal participants’ major support for the role of culture in their EFL learning, but also suggest the need for a greater understanding of how to incorporate culture into their own EFL classes. The findings also suggest that more needs to be done for culture to be incorporated more explicitly into EFL curriculum, an...