A Study of Chinese University English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) Teachers' Beliefs, Practices and Identities

Abstract

The 21st century has seen the Chinese government initiating multiple nationwide reforms to improve the efficiency of its English education at all educational levels, which promotes a shift from teaching discrete linguistic knowledge to emphasizing the development of students’ communicative competence. Against this backdrop, teachers and their cognitions have been placed at the center of attention because they are the key decision makers in the classrooms, and their beliefs about how English should be learned and taught as a foreign language are one of the most influential constructs in shaping teaching behaviors and practices. With a holistic interest in understanding English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching within the Chinese tertiary context, focusing on the mental lives of Chinese tertiary English teachers of non-English majors, or College English (CE) teachers, this study set out to investigate the intersection between CE teachers’ beliefs, practices and identities, which has not been addressed adequately in the existing literature. Adopting a mixed-methods research design, this study involved collecting both questionnaire data to identify dimensions of Chinese tertiary EFL teachers’ collective cognitions and practices, and interview and observation data to elucidate the complex interrelationships between them. Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) results of the questionnaire data suggested that the collective beliefs of this cohort of teachers are a hybridity of a communicative orientation and sporadic traditional conceptions on the pedagogical level. Correspondingly, their practices demonstrated a mixture of both student-centered activities fostering communicative abilities and language-based didactic teaching activities. In terms of identities, teachers were found to identify strongly with the roles as the motivator/advocate for English learning, the facilitator for English learning, and the reflective practitioner and researcher, but generally resisted being recognized as textbook-centered scripted teachers. The in-depth multiple case study, drawing on narrative interviews and classroom observations, further probed into individual teachers’ beliefs systems, practices and identity formations. In spite of the intention to engage in communicative language teaching, the plural contextual discourses of social heteroglossia embedded in CE teachers’ working environments made teachers swing between the orientations of traditional approaches and communicative language teaching. Within this conflictive context, teachers drew on multiple I-positions which involved a dynamic range of positioning and repositioning activities as a strategy to cope with the dilemmas. Conceptualizing the CE teacher’s mind as a polyphony containing multiple discourses and voices, three patterns of identity formation were identified: (a) the active identity resolver referred to the teachers who did not allow themselves to be crippled by the unfavorable contextual discourses but chose to confront challenges by exercising agency to resolve the conflicts and tensions; (b) the passive identity resolver referred to those who were sensitive to disrupting discourses and developed emotional blocks giving rise to adoption of a passive, safe strategy by returning to the traditional teaching approach; (c) the identity seeker referred to the CE teachers who were aware of the competing discourses and were striving to define their own positions to create meaningful learning conditions for students in tertiary settings. The stories and experiences of the participants indicated the complex, dynamic, dialogic interplay between beliefs and practices, and crafting a teacher self or an identity mediating both cognitions and behaviors as sense-making mechanisms. The study has contributed to our current understanding of CE teacher’s cognitions about English language teaching and learning after ten years of a nation-wide College English reform, which is expected to inform the ongoing CE teaching and teacher development programs. It is argued that top-down reforms which neglect teachers’ subjectivities, internally persuasive discourses, and identification with the promoted teaching methodology can be hardly effective. Supporting teachers in situated identity construction and investing in the identity capital is essential for future reform initiatives. Implications of the study and recommendations for further research are also offered.