Language Teaching In China Research Articles

English Tense Teaching in Secondary Schools Based on the Perspective of Embodied-Cognitive Linguistics

As a new research focus, ECL has been applied to translation, contrastive study between English and Chinese, rhetoric and other fields, and also has provided a new perspective for language teaching. In junior middle school English teaching, tenses have always been one of the most important part. However, the traditional teaching mode of English tenses is hard to arouse students’ interest in learning, and also reduces the efficiency of teaching. Therefore, on the basis of reviewing and summarizing the development of ECL and its current researches in the field of English teaching, this paper aims to explore the strategies of English tense teaching in junior middle school, to provide some new ideas and directions for foreign language teaching in China.

Merits and Issues of Communicative Language Teaching in the Post-method Era

Post-method theory is not a specific teaching method but an approach of foreign language teaching. The Post-method is beyond the level of specific methods and there is no fixed set of teaching methods. Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) plays an important role in cultivating students' communicative competence. With the advent of Post-method era, English teaching in China is gradually breaking the situation of single method and exploring English classroom teaching from multiple perspectives. This study explores the merits and issues of Communicative Language Teaching in China’s English teaching pedagogy from the perspective of Post-method era, and reflects on the application of Communicative Language Teaching from the perspective of Post-method era. So that Communicative Language Teaching can play a better role in English teaching pedagogy in China.

Issues of English Teaching Practices and Their Implications for Teaching Strategies

Foreign language education in China has evolved significantly in response to the economic, political and cultural changes in China - Chinese foreign language education has entered a new era. There is no shortage of old and new problems presented in the process of foreign language teaching practice. The problems can be divided into three categories: those of language application, those of combining theoretical and practical methods, and those of evaluating the effectiveness of methods and models. Although instructional strategies do not solve all problems, they provide ideas for teaching practices that go a long way toward avoiding problems and bringing positive results to the entire teaching system

A collaborative autoethnography of developing a ‘Cultural Stories’ exercise for intercultural teaching in China

ABSTRACT Intercultural teaching often emphasizes exposure to and understanding of cultural differences. Although it acknowledges the importance of cultural self-awareness, little research has been done to explore how such a goal is achieved. This article adopts collaborative autoethnography (CAE) to explore the creation, development, and use of variations of the ‘Cultural Stories’ exercise to enhance cultural self-awareness in intercultural education. Three culturally diverse instructors (in background, generations, contact/integrated cultures) narrate developments of this process for foreign language teaching in China as creators, teachers, and researchers. Analysis focuses on: (1) transformative learning process and experience of using the ‘Cultural Stories’ exercise; and (2) enhanced pedagogical understanding of intercultural teaching in China gained through developing and using this exercise. Results indicate that: (1) cultural stories have the potential to shape or start transforming students’ originally essentialized understanding of culture and identity, and (2) contextualized pedagogical implementation and reflective professional commitment help inspire and bring greater reflection or transformation to the teachers’ understanding of intercultural teaching. Implications of this instructional intervention and the research process are also discussed.

Reflections on The Professional Ethics of Foreign Language Teachers in China's Universities in The Context of The New Era

As an important constituent force of university education and teaching, the professional moral quality of foreign language teachers in colleges and universities will have a very great influence on the professional moral factors of college students and, at the same time, the improvement of their teaching quality will have a very significant impact on the overall development of students. Since the occurrence of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in 2020, many foreign language teachers in colleges and universities have diversified their teaching methods and in such a context, strengthening the professional and ethical quality of foreign language teachers in colleges and universities has a very important impact on the professional development of teachers. In order to better improve the level of education in colleges and universities and to better promote students’ development, this paper explores foreign language teachers in colleges and universities play a certain developmental role in helping the professional development of college foreign language teachers.

Deep Integration of Rasch Model and English Classroom: Language Teaching Development under Information Technology

The informatization of education is an important part of the industrialized informatization of our country and an inevitable path for the development of contemporary education. The development of informatization as well as industrialization is driving the changes of the times and the continuous innovation of people’s way of thinking, living habits, and educational methods. The continuous innovation of computer technology and the widespread use and popularization of various classroom methods of English teaching have led to the continuous optimization and upgrading of English teaching at the higher education level in China. However, with the rapid spread of university education and the varying levels of English teaching in higher education institutions, there are a series of problems that need to be solved in the process of transformation of information technology teaching. Therefore, this paper examines the deep integration of the Rasch model and the English classroom from a practical context: language teaching development under information technology. Through an in-depth discussion of theories such as language teaching and information technology development, the development of language teaching in China’s English classrooms is studied using the Rasch model analysis method. It is concluded that our teachers’ English teaching methods are relatively backward, not sufficiently matched with the current needs of our students, and the teaching methods are relatively homogeneous. And based on the problems, it is proposed that firstly, educators should have objective information literacy and orientation criteria; secondly, high-quality and content-rich English training units should be developed to facilitate implementation; and finally, suggestions are made to promote the development of information materials in the context of teaching practice.

Sustainable Professional Development of German Language Teachers in China: Research Assessment and External Research Funding

The academic evaluation of teachers of languages other than English (LOTEs) has been extensively researched, especially from the perspective of academic publications. However, little attention has been paid to another key performance indicator in teacher assessment, namely, external research funding. Focusing on German language teachers (GLTs), this paper adopts a mixed methods approach to investigate the assessment requirements for LOTE teachers in terms of external research funding and the factors that may impact their accomplishments. Based on Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory and conservation of resources theory, we analyzed policy documents from the universities under investigation, examined “German or Germany-related” funding approvals, and conducted semi-structured interviews with eight GLTs to explore the environmental factors (individual context, institutional context, social context, chronological context) that may influence the survival of GLTs in terms of the requirements for external research funding. The findings indicate that factors from each ecological context interact with one another and have a combined influence on GLTs’ external research funding application activity. Moreover, there is an imbalance between the academic demands faced by GLTs and the resource support that is available to them. This imbalance may affect the survival and development of GLTs and is likely to have a continuing influence throughout their career. The study concludes by offering some suggestions at different levels to facilitate the sustainable professional development of GLTs.

A review of burnout in college English teachers in China.

College English teachers’ job burnout has become prominent in the field of education. Using China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) database, this review research on burnout of college English language teachers in China from 2006 to 2021. The review demonstrates key research areas including teacher burnout severity and influencing variables related to teacher burnout. Individual factors, such as age, gender, marital status, educational background, professional title, and years of teaching experience are associated with burnout rates. University type and level, teaching-related role overload, scientific research stress induced by promotion, limited job autonomy, a stern hierarchical organizational system, and opaque operating rules are influencing factors discussed. Possible ways to reduce burnout across micro, meso, and macro-levels, along with practical implications and limitations are discussed.

Action Research in Foreign Language Teaching in China

This paper begins by outlining the history of action research before arguing about the workability of action research in China’s foreign language teaching and research. It reveals the challenges that front-line teachers in China face, such as high research pressure, heavy teaching tasks, a lack of research guidelines, and insufficient teamwork, based on a survey of 273 foreign language teachers in colleges and universities from 24 provinces (/autonomous regions/municipalities directly under the central government) in China. After that, 37 papers published in CSSCI publications about foreign language teaching between 1994 and 2018 are reviewed, and recommendations for future action research in China are offered. Finally, the action-research model of “classroom-oriented research and research-based classroom teaching” is proposed as an achievable research framework for front-line teachers, incorporating information technology, multimodal teaching materials, and curriculum and course reforms under the guidelines of pedagogy, psychology, and linguistics.

Role of Communication Strategies in Organizational Commitment, Mediating Role of Faculty Engagement: Evidence From English Language Teachers.

Employees are critical stakeholders for an organization because they directly deal with the end-users and represent the entire firm. To recognize the strategic importance of the employees, organizations create communication programs to keep employees apprised of organizational issues. In this regard, this study examined the role of communication strategies (i.e., information flow, information adequacy, and information feedback) on organizational commitment. The study also investigated the mediating effect of faculty engagement between communication strategies and organizational commitment. Self-administered survey aided in acquiring data from 276 English language teachers in China. The analysis of the data was conducted using SmartPLS through the Structured Equation Modeling technique. The outcome of the study demonstrated that information flow and information feedback significantly impact organizational commitment and faculty engagement. The analysis also revealed that information adequacy significantly impacts organizational commitment but has no relationship with faculty engagement. The mediation analysis demonstrated that faculty engagement mediated the relationship between information flow and organizational commitment and between information feedback and organization commitment. However, faculty engagement did not mediate the relationship between information adequacy and organizational commitment among English language teachers in China. In theoretical terms, the study contributed in terms of incorporating different communication strategies and examining their effect on organizational commitment and faculty engagement. In practical terms, this study would be beneficial for the management of the educational institutes to develop different ways of enhancing communication strategies within the institute. This study also provided directions for the future, for example, conducting the study on other subject teachers, increasing the sample, carrying out the research in a different context, and adding different mediators and moderators in the existing model.

요구분석을 통한 중국대학교 한국어학과 교육과정 개선 방향 연구

With the increasing exchanges in the fields of politics, economy and culture between Korea and China, the Korean language education in China has increased rapidly. At the same time, Korean language education needs more advanced education concepts and new curriculum to provide students with a high quality Korean language learning environment. Checking and supplementing the contents and effectiveness of the curriculum is a necessary condition to maximize education effects and foster high-level Korean talents who can communicate in a high-level manner. But there are not many previous studies that suggest improvement about Korean language curriculum of Chinese universities through needs analysis. The purpose of this study is to find an efficient improvement plan for the curriculum of the Korean language department of Chinese universities through needs analysis with the curriculum of Korean language department of Y University, which is recognized for its relatively high proficiency in China. To this end, detailed questionnaire surveys and interviews were conducted on two groups of students and teachers with six items such as ‘curriculum goal’, ‘course setting’, ‘classroom lecture’, ‘self-learning’, ‘capability evaluation’, and ‘textbook satisfaction’. Through the analysis of the results, we identified students and teachers’ perceptions and needs of the curriculum and derived problems of the curriculum. We also presented reasonable improvement directions to problems of the curriculum identified through this needs analysis.

Chinese Students' Perceptions of the Motivational Climate in College English Courses: Relationships Between Course Perceptions, Engagement, and Achievement.

Effective teachers create a motivational climate that engages students in course activities in ways that lead to increased learning and achievement. Although researchers have identified motivational climate variables that are associated with students’ engagement and achievement, less is known about how these variables are related in different courses and cultures. The purpose of the two studies presented in this paper was to contribute to this research literature by examining these associations within the context of college English courses in two Chinese universities. Specifically, we investigated the relationships between students’ perceptions of the motivational climate (i.e., perceptions of empowerment/autonomy, usefulness, success, interest, and caring), cognitive and behavioral engagement, and achievement. This is the first study to examine the connections between all of these variables in one path model in college English courses in China. We administered surveys at two different Chinese universities (n = 332 and 259) and used regression and path analysis to examine the relationships among the variables. We demonstrated that (a) students’ perceptions of the motivational climate were related to their cognitive engagement, (b) cognitive engagement was related to their behavioral engagement, and (c) behavioral engagement predicted their achievement. These findings are consistent with and extend the growing body of literature on motivational climate and engagement, and they highlight the importance of some motivational climate perceptions over others as significant predictors of cognitive engagement. We conclude that effective English language teachers in China do the following: help students to believe that they can be successful, trigger and maintain students’ interest, and empower students by providing them with choices in activities and assignments.

An Empirical Study on the Omission of Third-Person Singular -s in Writing

Enlightened by studies in inflectional morpheme in L2 speech, this article reports a survey on the use of third-person singular -s in writing by 6 L1 Chinese L2 English learners enrolled in Lancaster University in 2014. The results show that these undergraduate students omitted almost half -s marking in obligatory contexts but made little or no mistake when they actually used third-person singular -s. The students were more successful in using be form than -s form. The grammar of these students seemed to be “fossilized” in -s marking since they made no improvement after attending a pre-sessional program at Lancaster University. Whiling echoing the findings of previous studies on either Chinese or other English learners (adults or Children), this article concludes that the acquisition third-person singular -s is a challenge for adult Chinese English learners in writing. The implications for English language teaching in China are also discussed.

Research on Construction of Advanced English Teaching Based on Production-Oriented Approach

In view of the separation of learning and application in foreign language teaching in China, a Production-Oriented Approach theory (POA theory) of integrating learning and application in foreign language teaching is proposed. The theory takes unit tasks with potential communicative value as the teaching target, and students selectively learn input materials under the guidance of teachers, and finally achieve effective output and complete communicative tasks. This paper tries to apply POA theory to Advanced English Teaching by decomposing the overall goal to sub-goals within a unit task, so as to stimulate students’ enthusiasm for learning and willingness to produce.

Communication and the student experience in the time of Covid-19: An autoethnography

The Covid-19 pandemic creates physical barriers and raises issues about online learning and course design. These must be overcome in order to continue teaching three English language support papers in a transnational education programme. This autoethnography explores online communication strategies and their effect on students’ learning experience. Moodle logs, teacher observations and other qualitative data from the first year of emergency online teaching were evaluated. This analysis prompted several improvements to communication strategies. Additional forum activities, scaffolding and feedback have had a positive effect, and increased use of informal communication via WeChat has bolstered learner persistence. These findings can be applied to the design of other online and blended courses, especially those linked to English language teaching in China.

A Revised Survey on Autonomy Awareness of Foreign Language Learners in China

As a goal of education and an effective approach to educational practice, learner autonomy is an integral part of learning of any kind. This survey aims at firstly confirming the results of previous study in the literature, and secondly disclosing more besides the existing results. Simulating the previous study on autonomy awareness made by the same author, this survey not only collects the attitudes of 80 college students by using the same questionnaire as previously, but also investigates the comments of 40 teachers, which is not included in previous studies. In addition, reflective self-reports by 4 of the students are also studied in this survey. This survey indicates that the results of previous studies are confirmed. However, it also shows that Chinese learners are ideologically ready but behaviorally not for autonomy in language learning. Four suggestions are put forward to foreign language teachers in China.

Remembering Sixty Years of Teaching Russian Language

The history of Russian language teaching in China has attracted the attention of many researchers in recent years. Against this background the personal testimony of a participant in the processes through which the teaching of the Russian language in the PRC went through is invaluable to the historians of education. Current article contains the translation of a memoir sketch written by one of the oldest and distinguished scholars in the field of Russian studies in the PRC, lexicographer, linguist, and teacher Huang Shizeng. This memoir sketchis dedicated to his educational and scholarly work at the Department of the Russian Language at Tsinghua University from 1957 to the 2000s. Teaching Russian language in China has always been linked to the history of bilateral relations. As before, during the second half of the 20th century it reflected all their ups and downs: after the formation of the PRC and until the early 1960s, the Russian language was the most studied in the country. Then there was a period of relative decline, and a few years later, with the beginning of the “cultural revolution”, the teaching of foreign languages has undergone a crisis. Since the 1980s, when the Chinese Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature had been established and soon joined the International Association of Teachers of Russian Language and Literature, the modern restorative stage of teaching Russian in the PRC has begun. The department of Russian language at Tsinghua University, founded in 1952, was to pass through all these stages.

BLENDED TEACHING OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE IN CHINA FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF ECOLOGY

It has been 15 years since the theories in ecology had been introduced to foreign language education in China. Researches from the ecological perspective on blended teaching of a foreign language are also thriving as the educational technologies are ever enhanced. In this study, the related CNKI (China National Knowledge Infrastructure) literature from 2010-2020 was collected, and CiteSpace was employed to review the exploration of the research hot-spots, trends, and limitations in this area. The results indicate that 1. in China, the main methods to realize the blended teaching are flipped classroom and MOOC; 2. a majority of the macroscopic researches are conducted to build an ecological mode for college English and higher vocational English while the microscopic researches are for teachers’ and students’ ecological niches; 3. with the advent of “Internet Plus” age, researches in China will march on to the “smart” ecology of blended foreign language education.; 4. though the studies are involved in diverse directions, there are limitations in this field due to a late start.

Theories and Practices of Language Education: An Interview with Prof. Zhuanglin Hu

In this interview, Professor Hu showed his insights in the linguistic basis of language education. Among the various schools of linguistic theories, he lays special emphasis on the influence of communicative grammar, systemic functional linguistics, pragmatics and cognitive linguistics on language education, in particular on foreign language teaching and learning in China. According to him, language education should fall within the scope of applied linguistics, and there should be a combination of the narrow-sense applied linguistics and the machine-oriented applied linguistics for better development of language education research and practice. Educational linguistics is considered as able to integrate language studies that focuses on the way to teach first, second or foreign language and education studies that emphasizes how to use a language in teaching different courses. Professor Hu highlighted the important role of functional linguistics in foreign language education in China, and drew our attention to the positive role of social semiotics in language teaching at all levels of education. He advocated to apply to language education the principle of Halliday’s “appliable linguistics”, according to which we should learn to find out for what purpose, under what condition and with what result a theory is better than other theories in practices in general and in language teaching in particular, while the task of an experienced teacher is to choose an appropriate approach to cope with a particular problem and the teacher himself/herself is expected to be a resource in language teaching. Professor Hu summarized the major stages of foreign language education since the founding of new China, and highlighted the shift of the objective in foreign language education in China from literature to language. He reminded us of the major challenges to foreign language education in China in the new century: including those due to the need of cross-discipline and crossspecialty personnel, the new development of technology, and the increasing importance of multiple intelligence and Internet education in foreign language learning. He also advocated the adoption of new teaching approaches in teaching Chinese as foreign language.

English language education in China is being challenged as against Chinese culture

English language education in China is being challenged as against Chinese culture