EFL Instructional Practice In Middle Schools In China:An Ecological Perspective

In the past 40 years,China's social-economic development and increasingly close international trade have put forward the higher requirements for the communicative competence of the general public.Since the early 1990s,many people have been dissatisfied with the quality of English language teaching and China's Ministry of Education has carried out several rounds of educational reforms to improve the level of English language teaching.Educators in general believed that the traditional-based teaching method rooted in traditional Chinese culture is the crux of English language teaching(ELT).Therefore,the Ministry of Education began to introduce the Communicative Language Teaching method(CLT)originated from the west and considered it the best solution to address problems in English language teaching in China.CLT was officially promoted in a top-down manner through the curriculum design and the compilation of new-edition textbooks.However,this kind of technological teaching reform has not achieved the desired effect and there is still a huge gap between the actual English language teaching practice and the policy requirements.Scholars in both China and Western countries have begun to discuss the necessity,suitability and effectiveness of implementing CLT in China.With the advent of the post-teaching method era,some scholars began to explore the contextual factors affecting the implementation of English language teaching methods.However,most of the studies remained at theoretical level and has a lack of empirical evidence.Therefore,this study aims to fill in this gap by exploring English language teaching from ecological perspective.Using a combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods,this study discussed the implementation of ELT methodology in different regions of China,and put forward suggestions on improving the effectiveness of ELT reform.This study selects two middle schools in AH province as participants.The two schools are located in different regions with different teaching conditions.AQ is a middle school located in the urban city of AH province.It is equipped with the advanced teaching facilities and teaching force of high quality.However,TH is a rural middle school in the national level poor county.The teaching condition is poorer than that in AQ because of the inadequate teaching resources and unprofessional teachers.This paper aims to answer the following three questions:1)What are the differences and similarities of English instructional practice in the two middle schools?2)What is the gap between the officially promoted CLT methodology and the teaching methodology used in real English teaching practice?3)What contextual factors have facilitated or hindered the implementation of the officially promoted ELT methodology in different regions of Ch na?The design of the research instruments is based on the 40 characteristics in six dimensions of the three typical teaching methodologies proposed by Hu(2005).Besides,575 participants(545 students and 30 teachers)from AQ secondary school and TH secondary school were invited to complete the questionnaire,with a response rate of 95%.The research then interviewed 12,with 8 students and 4 teachers.In addition,a two-week classroom observation was conducted to the 4 teachers in the two schools.All the data collected from the questionnaire were analyzed by using SPSS 18.The study results in some meaningful findings.First,secondary level English language teaching practice in socioeconomically developed regions and less-developed areas both show a mixed orientation of traditional methodology and innovative Communicative language teaching method.However,CLT is preferred by the urban secondary school while traditional methodology including grammar translation method and Audiolingual method are still predominant in rural secondary schools.Second,this study discovered a deep gap between the officially promoted CLT and actual classroom teaching practice.It is clear that some educational policies from the government have not been successfully implemented in rural secondary school.Third,the application of ELT methodology in different regions is restricted by a host of economic,social,cultural,policy and other contextual factors,mainly including:a)the educational infrastructure and quality of the teaching force;b)the different availability of authentic English learning materials;c)the various values and use of English in the rural and urban areas;d)the requirement of college entrance examination;e)the influence of Chinese traditional learning culture and some educational policies.These findings all point to the heavy influence of economic,policy,social,cultural and other contextual factors on the implementation of English language teaching in different regions.This study also highlights the necessity to conduct educational reform and to improve national English proficiency from ecological perspective instead of the technological perspective.