Perspectives on Teaching and Learning English Literacy in China

171 Pages·2012·1.221 MB·English

by  Ran Hu, Bob Adamson (auth.), Jiening Ruan, Cynthia B. Leung (eds.)

Perspectives on Teaching and Learning
English Literacy in China
MULTILINGUAL EDUCATION
VOLUME 3
Series Editors:
Andy Kirkpatrick
Director, Research Centre into Language Education and Acquisition in Multilingual
Societies
Hong Kong Institute of Education
Bob Adamson
Head, Department of Curriculum and Instruction
Hong Kong Institute of Education
David C.S. Lee
Department of English
Hong Kong Institute of Education
Editorial Board:
Jan Blommaert, University of Tilburg, The Netherlands
Feng Anwei, University of Wales at Bangor, UK
Ofelia Garcia, The Graduate Centre, City University of New York, USA
Saran Kaur Gill, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Gu Yueguo, The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Hartmut Haberland, University of Roskilde, Denmark
Li Chor Shing David, The Hong Kong Institute of Education
Li Wei, Birkbeck College, University of London, UK
Low Ee-Ling, National Institute of Education, Singapore
Tony Liddicoat, University of South Australia
Ricardo Nolasco, University of the Phillipines at Diliman, Manila, The Philippines
Merrill Swain, Ontario Institute of Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
Virginia Yip Choy Yin, Chinese University of Hong Kong
For further volumes:
http://www.springer.com/series/8836
Jiening Ruan (cid:129) Cynthia B. Leung
Editors
Perspectives on Teaching
and Learning English
Literacy in China
Editors
Jiening Ruan Cynthia B. Leung
Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education College of Education
University of Oklahoma University of South Florida St. Petersburg
Norman, OK, USA St. Petersburg, FL, USA
ISSN 2213-3208 ISSN 2213-3216 (electronic)
ISBN 978-94-007-4993-1 ISBN 978-94-007-4994-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-4994-8
Springer Dordrecht Heidelberg New York London
Library of Congress Control Number: 2012953134
© Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2012
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Contents

Introduction ..................................................................................................... ix
Jiening Ruan and Cynthia B. Leung
1 Social Ideologies and the English Curriculum in China:
A Historical Overview ............................................................................ 1
Ran Hu and Bob Adamson
2 English Language Teaching in Higher Education in China:
A Historical and Social Overview .......................................................... 19
An Cheng and Qiuying Wang
3 English Curriculum and Assessment for Basic
Education in China ................................................................................. 35
Yongqi Gu
4 Early Childhood English Education in China ...................................... 51
Zhenyou Y u and Jiening Ruan
5 Chinese Primary School English Curriculum Reform ........................ 67
Dongbo Zhang
6 Twenty-First Century Senior High School English
Curriculum Reform in China ................................................................ 85
Qiang Wang and Zehang Chen
7 English Curriculum in Higher Education in China
for Non-English Majors .......................................................................... 105
Meihua Li
8 After School English Language Learning in China ............................. 115
Ping Liu
9 English Teaching and Learning in Ethnic Minority
Regions in China: Challenges and Opportunities ................................ 129
Anwei Feng
v
vi Contents
10 Use of Technology to Support the Learning
and Teaching of English in China .......................................................... 145
Guofang Li and Xiaopeng Ni
Index ................................................................................................................. 161
Contributors
Bob Adamson is Professor of Curriculum Studies at the Hong Kong Institute of
Education. He publishes in the areas of language education, curriculum studies, and
comparative education.
Zehang Chen is Associate Professor of English and Language Teacher Education
at Beijing Normal University. Her research interests include ELT methodology,
pre-service/in-service language teacher education, material development, and
e-learning.
An Cheng is Associate Professor of English at Oklahoma State University. His
research focuses on the genre-based framework for learning academic literacy,
English for speci fi c purposes, and professional writing.
Anwei Feng is Professor of Education at Bangor University in the UK. He teaches,
supervises, and conducts research in areas of intercultural studies in education,
bilingualism and bilingual education, TESOL, international and comparative edu-
cation, and language in education for minority groups.
Yongqi Gu is Senior Lecturer at the School of Linguistics and Applied Language
Studies, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. He is also an adjunct
research fellow at the National Research Centre for Foreign Language Education,
China. His main research interests are learner autonomy and learning strategies,
vocabulary acquisition, and language testing and assessment.
Ran Hu is Assistant Professor of Reading Education in the College of Education at
East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina. Her research interests are
emergent literacy and biliteracy, teaching reading to students who speak English as
a second or foreign language, and cross-cultural learning and teaching.
Cynthia B. Leung , co-editor of this volume, is Professor of Literacy Education at
the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. Her research interests include second
language acquisition, early literacy, vocabulary development, and responses to
multicultural literature.
vii
viii Contributors
Guofang Li is Associate Professor at the Michigan State University. Her research
interests include second language and literacy education, family and community
literacy, immigrant education, and Asian and Asian American education.
Meihua Li is Professor of English at Xiamen University, China. Her research interests
are American literature, American women’s literature, ecoliterature, and translation.
Ping Liu is Professor of Education in the Teacher Education Department at
California State University, Long Beach. Her research interests include Bilingual/
ESL methodology and second language acquisition, comparative and international
education, and literacy development and assessment.
Xiaopeng Ni is Senior Instructional Designer at Cleveland State University. His
research focuses on technology integration, online teaching, and project/task-based
learning.
Jiening Ruan , co-editor of this volume, is Associate Professor of Reading/Literacy
Education at the University of Oklahoma. Her research interests include beginning
literacy development among Chinese monolingual and bilingual children, culturally
responsive teaching, and using technology to support teacher re fl ection.
Qiang Wang is Professor of English and Language Teacher Education at Beijing
Normal University. Her research interests include second language acquisition, ELT
methodology, curriculum development, action research, and preservice/inservice
language teacher education.
Qiuying Wang is Associate Professor of Literacy/Reading at Oklahoma State
University. Her research focuses on cross-linguistic studies of reading development,
cross-cultural studies of reading motivation, reading dif fi culties, early intervention,
and bilingual education.
Zhenyou Yu is Associate Professor in the Department of Pre-School Education at
China Women’s University, Beijing. His research interests are language develop-
ment and education, early literacy development and instruction, and ESL learning
and instruction in China.
Dongbo Zhang is Research Scientist at the Center for Research in Pedagogy and
Practice, National Institute of Education, Singapore. His research interests include
second language reading and vocabulary acquisition, bilingual children’s literacy
acquisition, and applied psycholinguistics.
Introduction
Jiening Ruan and Cynthia B. Leung
In this second book of our two-volume series on literacy teaching and learning in
China, we turn our attention to examining English education in contemporary China
from historical, philosophical, social, and cultural perspectives. The diverse collection
of papers in this volume seeks to provide our readers with a comprehensive, cross-
disciplinary look at various critical topics related to English literacy curriculum and
instruction in China. Together, the authors provide extensive discussion of the changes
in English education from its initial introduction to China in the thirteenth century
(based on historical evidence) to the latest English curriculum reform after the turn of
the twenty- fi rst century, and the philosophical, political, and socio-cultural in fl uences
underlying these changes. Special attention is paid to English education in the
period after 1949, a watershed moment in China’s history when the People’s
Republic of China (PRC) was founded. Dramatic changes in English education were
witnessed along with the social and political upheavals taking place in the country
during various historical periods.
The contributors of this volume come from various countries, and their scholarship
is grounded in different academic disciplines. Even so, many of their views and ideas
converge, and several common themes can be identifi ed across the chapters in this
volume. A theme that runs through all the chapters is the view that English education
in China is a socio-cultural phenomenon, strongly in fl uenced and swayed by the polit-
ical environment or milieu of the country at different stages in its contemporary history.
Various socio-cultural and political factors at the local, national, and international
J. Ruan (*)
Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education ,
University of Oklahoma , Norman , OK , USA
e-mail: [email protected]
C. B. Leung
College of Education , University of South Florida St. Petersburg ,
St. Petersburg , FL , USA
e-mail: [email protected]
ix
x Introduction
levels constantly interact to shape and change the status and direction of English education
in China, oftentimes in dramatic ways.
When English was initially introduced to China in Imperial times, it was consid-
ered a tool to support foreign trade and commerce. After the founding of the PRC,
English has become a school subject that is closely tied to the government’s and
society’s dominant social ideologies. Adamson (2 002 ) aptly described the tie
between the status of English and the historical and political environment: “At
worst, the language has been perceived as a threat to national integrity. At best, it
has been seen as a conduit for strengthening China’s position in the world commu-
nity” (p. 1). In a sense, English serves as a prism that re fl ects the government’s
attitude and level of openness towards Western countries. Through English curricu-
lum reforms and other government curriculum directives, such as the national
English syllabi, the Chinese government has put a tight rein on English education.
Its status changes according to the pendulum swing of the political climate in the
PRC, from sometimes being utterly downtrodden and forbidden to other times being
highly regarded.
Since the new millennium, English has enjoyed an unprecedented status in China
and has become a required school subject from third grade through college and
graduate school. The Chinese Ministry of Education developed and implemented a
series of English curriculum standards or requirements for schools at all levels. In
2001 , English Curriculum Standards for Full-time Compulsory Education and
Senior High Schools (Trial Version) was issued. In 2 003 , a separate curriculum
standards document was developed to speci fi cally provide guidance for English
curriculum and instruction in senior high schools. The most recent English curriculum
reform initiative began with the publication of E nglish Curriculum Standards for
Compulsory Education (2 011 V ersion) . At the college level, College English
Curriculum Requirements (Trial Implementation) was promulgated in 2 004 and
was later revised in 2 007 . Although not without issues and challenges, these reform
efforts have been generally successful and have led to improvement in the quality of
English education in China.
For the government and the general public, English pro fi ciency has become an
important criterion for a person’s education and career advancement. In many
circumstances, English even supersedes Chinese in terms of the weight it carries in
higher education and the job market, which has also become a source of contention
between its avid supporters and opponents.
Teacher shortages and teacher quality are subjects discussed in several chapters in
this book. After 1949, although brie fl y supported during the late 1950s, English was
often treated as a political scapegoat and was marginalized or abandoned in schools
until 1978 when China adopted the Open Door Policy and gradually reintegrated
itself into the world community. The preparation of English teachers was neglected
for several decades, and as a result, there was a severe shortage of quali fi ed English
teachers when English became an important school subject again in the late 1970s
and 1980s. Under the current curriculum reform, the government expects schools to
offer English starting in third grade as part of compulsory education for children in
China (Ministry of Education 2 001, 2011) . This new mandate further exacerbates the