| In the educational world, there is a growing amount of scholarship directed toward China. Much Western writing has focused on the supposedly deficient aspects of Chinese education: rote memorization, large class size, teacher-centered methodology. While there are those who challenge the deficiency view of Chinese education---Watkins and Biggs, Jin and Cortazzi, Tsui, Li, and Pratt, among several others---thorough-going descriptions of Chinese teachers' emic conceptions of how they conceive of what they do are rather few and isolated.;In this study, Chinese-born foreign language teachers' lived experience of foreign language teaching was investigated. Interviews with and observations of tertiary foreign language teachers in both the United States and mainland China were conducted. Phenomenological data analysis of the transcripts revealed four structures of the teachers' lived experience: the Chinese educational context; the student; the teacher; and foreign language teaching itself. The structural descriptions revealed several salient features, among them: the overwhelming influence of the high-stakes examination system in China; the Confucian-influenced educational culture; student-focused teaching; the influence of situational factors on Chinese teachers' practice. Of special interest was the constituent "Chinese responsibility" in the lived experience of the teacher. Several questions were raised, and further directions for research were suggested. |
