D. Y. ZHANG ET AL.
role of Chinese teachers of EFL and accordingly their conse-
quent teaching behaviors, as compared to those of CLT teachers
based on Littlewood (1981).
The values and perception of being a teacher embedded in
Chinese traditional culture can be illustrated in the following
two proverbs. First, “师道尊严不可侵犯” (Teachers’ views
and dignity should not be attacked), which shows that teachers
are regarded and respected as authority figures who should not
be challenged in a hierarchical Chinese society. The other one
is “一日为师, 终身为父” (He who teaches me may be consid-
ered my father-figure for life). This proverb illustrates that a
teacher is regarded as one of the most influential persons in a
student’s life. In addition, they are also regarded as the source
of knowledge (Jin & Cortazzi, 1998).
The teachers’ specific teaching practice can be found in an-
other Chinese saying “传道授业解惑也,” which literally means
“telling students moral standards, teaching knowledge, and
answering questions.” Concerning the teaching behaviors of
Chinese language teachers, these traditional perceived views of
teaching practice can be identified in the present language
teaching. First, it appears that Chinese teachers of EFL need to
prepare educational materials and activities that can best benefit
students’ understanding of life and moral standards. Second,
teachers teach knowledge (e.g., explaining grammar points) and
make every effort to make students understand the language
points. This is supported by other researchers. For instance,
Hird (1995: p. 23) mentions that Chinese teachers offer students
a meticulous analysis of meaning in all its minute detail, which
leads to a painstaking understanding of every language item in
which students’ individual interpretation is not highly accurate.
Finally, answering questions and correcting students’ mistakes
is another characteristic of Chinese teachers of EFL. Further-
more, it is considered to be shameful if a teacher cannot correct
the mistakes or answer the questions (Harvey, 1985).
From the above-mentioned teachers’ values and teaching
behaviors, Chinese teachers’ role can be different. They are
guides for students’ future lives. They are also the knowledge
transmitters and students are the receivers (Scollon, 1999). In
addition, they are the dominators of the whole learning process.
However, it should be noted that they also play other roles,
such as classroom organizer, which will not be further dis-
cussed in this paper.
There are some obvious differences between traditional
teachers and CLT teachers in terms of the role they play, ac-
cording to Littlewood (1981) and the above discussion. The
main difference is that the CLT teachers are the “facilitators of
learning” who may decide not to correct mistakes, whereas
Chinese teachers are more likely to be “instructors” and “do-
minators” in the learning process. CLT teachers offer stimulus
and experience and have no direct control over students. In fact,
CLT teachers need to recognize that “learning does not only
take place as a direct result of… [their] own instructions” (Lit-
tlewood, 1981: p. 92). Chinese teachers play a very important
role in the whole learning process and have direct control over
students because they are the main source of language knowl-
edge.
These values and perceived role of Chinese teachers are so
rooted that they have become a barrier to adopting a new
methodology, according to the literature (Orton, 1990; Ellis,
1996; Lewis & McCook, 2002; Bax, 2003). For instance, Orton
(1990) discovered when she was giving a training course in
China that Chinese teachers need to undergo changes in their
behaviors but also in their values in order to adopt a new
methodology. She says: “On reflection it seems that for the
Chinese to adopt the approach proposed, they would not only
have to do more of, better and perhaps a little differently, what
they had always done, but they would also have to make radical
changes to some of their basic beliefs, values and consequent
ways of acting” (1990: p. 2).
Chinese Students’ Learning Style of English
China is such a large country with numerous variables and
differences in individual learning style. It is impossible to pre-
sent or generalize about the typical learning style of English.
However, it might be possible to point out some common ele-
ments learners share in learning English, which have been in-
fluenced by the continuous traditional culture. Here, I would
like to discuss two points. First, as Anderson (1993) discovered,
Chinese students learn to read, write, speak, and then compre-
hend aurally in exactly the reverse order stressed by Western
pedagogy. Reading and rote learning are particularly empha-
sized in learning a language in Chinese schools, which can be
traced back to thousands of years as proved by Chinese prov-
erbs “读书百遍, 其义自通” (Read a book a hundred times and
then the meaning of the book will come out) and “熟读唐诗三
百首, 不会写诗也会吟” (If you have been reading and are
familiar with three hundred Tang Dynasty [0618AD-0907AD]
poems, you will be able to read a poem out loud even though
you cannot compose one). Quite a number of Chinese students
believe that repeated reading, imitating the teacher, and reciting
can be helpful to English learning since it has long been proved
by their L1 learning. Another feature of Chinese students’ lan-
guage learning is that Chinese students think of themselves as
“being ‘active’, but not necessarily verbally, even in a language
class” (Jin & Cortazzi, 1998: p. 104). Jin and Cortazzi explain
that Chinese students “participate” by listening, by thinking
(questioning in mind), by asking questions after class, and by
discussing with each other after class. These learning features
do not coincide with the learning process of CLT.
In CLT, one of the main features of learning process is that
the learners learn by working on various communicative activi-
ties structured to suit all levels of ability. These activities are
learner-directed activities; in other words, the learners them-
selves conduct the interactions with or without teachers’ sup-
port (Littlewood, 1981). The communicative activities are based
on Vygotskian “Scaffolding Theories,” and ideas of natural
learning and providing learners with a learning context. For the
former, it has been found out that learners can learn more
through interactions with their peers in communicative activi-
ties (Donato, 1994). In terms of natural learning, Littlewood
(1981: p. 92) points out that learners should follow a sequence
of learning determined by their own natural process (or “inter-
nal syllabus”). A context supporting learning is also empha-
sized in CLT by conducting pair or group work. In all, the CLT
is a learner-centered approach with emphasis on learner autono-
my and interaction rather than simply on teacher-centered di-
rection (Maley, 1984).
According to my experience, the biggest problem for Chi-
nese students to accept CLT is that they may find it hard to
change their ways of learning, which are still being required
and used in learning other subjects. Another problem lies in
their dependence on teachers’ knowledge transmission rather
than other ways of learning; for example, learning through co-
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