Contextual Influences on Instructional

Practices: A Chinese Case for an

Ecological Approach to ELT
GUANGWEI HU
Nanyang Technological University
Singapore

This article reports on a study investigating English language teaching

(ELT) practices in secondary-level classrooms in China. A sample of 252
secondary school graduates from different parts of the country com-
pleted a questionnaire on various instructional practices. Analyses of
the data revealed that whereas classroom instruction in socioeconomi-
cally developed regions has taken on some features of communicative
language teaching (CLT), instructional practices in the less developed
areas are still characterized by traditional language teaching method-
ologies. The regional differences in instructional practices are traced to
various economic, social, and cultural factors. The analysis shows that
what transpires in the foreign language classroom is inevitably shaped
and constrained by contextual influences. This conclusion high-lights
the need for an ecological perspective to replace the technological one
that predominates in international endeavors to reform language
education. The article concludes by discussing what the adoption of an
ecological approach entails in the Chinese contexts for ELT.

C hinas rapid socioeconomic development in the last 25 years has

created an escalating demand for English proficiency (Cortazzi &
Jin, 1996b; Maley, 1995; Ross, 1992). Since the early 1990s, the Ministry
of Education has stepped up its effort to reform ELT and improve its
effectiveness in response to a growing dissatisfaction with the quality of
English instruction in the formal education system (Adamson & Morris,
1997; Hu, 2002b). As a major component of the ELT reform drive, an
imported methodology, CLT, has been vigorously promoted because
traditional teaching methodologies are thought to form the crux of the
problems with ELT in China (Hu, 2002a). The top-down promotion of
CLT has been informed by what Tudor (2001) calls a technological
perspective on language teaching (p. 8). Such a perspective assumes
that a well-developed methodology will lead in a neat, deterministic

TESOL QUARTERLY Vol. 39, No. 4, December 2005 635

manner to a predictable set of learning outcomes (p. 9). The techno-
logical perspective is clearly manifested in the Syllabus Revision Teams
(2000) commentary on the 2000 national junior secondary English
syllabus. The new syllabus was developed to interface with recent
developments in language education by updating teaching methodology,
incorporating progressive and scientific theories on language teaching
and learning, and applying new research findings about language
development.
The Chinese policy makers are not alone in taking a technological
perspective on foreign language education and viewing CLT as the
solution to the perceived problems. As a matter of fact, reform endeavors
informed by a technological perspective are the norm rather than the
exception around the world (Coleman, 1996b; Tudor, 2001). For ex-
ample, a recent study (Nunan, 2003) on educational polices and
practices in seven Asian countries and regions found that all the
educational systems have officially subscribed to some form of CLT in
their top-down efforts to improve the effectiveness of classroom teach-
ing. Similar foreign language policies are also found in other Asian
countries and other parts of the world (Ho, 2003; Holliday, 1994; D. F. Li,
1998). As noted by the researchers, however, there is almost invariably a
gap between policy imperatives and classroom realities in those places.
This gap raises the important question of what factors prevent official
methodological prescriptions and other policy directives from being
implemented in many English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) classrooms.
Motivated by that question, this study examines ELT in Chinese
secondary schoolsa sector of the education system which has been at
the forefront of recent ELT reform efforts, is affecting the largest
number of English language learners in the country, and has a vital role
to play in raising the national level of English proficiency (Hu, 2002a).
Specifically, this study addresses three questions: (a) What differences
and similarities in instructional practices exist in secondary-level EFL
classrooms across China? (b) To what extent has the officially promoted
CLT methodology been incorporated into classroom teaching? (c) What
contextual factors interact with the ELT reform policies to facilitate or
inhibit the adoption of the officially espoused teaching methodology in
different parts of China? Given the predominance of the technological
perspective over the global landscape of foreign language education, a
study of ELT practices in China, where the reform endeavors embody a
technological view on pedagogical effectiveness, can have wider implica-
tions for the international TESOL community.

636 TESOL QUARTERLY

BACKGROUND

Since English was first taught in China in the 1800s (Bolton, 2002),
first grammar-translation methodology (GT) and later audiolingualism
(ALM) have enjoyed considerable popularity (see Fu, 1986). CLT was
brought to China in the late 1970s by international ELT specialists
working in some Chinese universities. Initially, it failed to receive support
(L. M. Yu, 2001). In fact, there was strong resistance to it (Burnaby &
Sun, 1989; X. J. Li, 1984). Until recently, Chinese and Western ELT
specialists have had a heated and continual debate on the necessity,
appropriateness, and effectiveness of adopting CLT in China (e.g.,
Anderson, 1993; Burnaby & Sun, 1989; Cortazzi & Jin, 1996a, 1996b; Hu,
2002a; Jin & Cortazzi, 1998; X. J. Li, 1984; Liao, 2004; Rao, 1996).
Despite a lack of consensus among researchers regarding the appropri-
ateness of CLT for China, the Ministry of Education (known as the State
Education Commission between 1985 and 1997) was impressed by the
high profile that the methodology enjoyed internationally and was
convinced that it would provide the best solution for the widespread
problem of students low competence in using English for communica-
tion even after years of formal instruction in the language. Consequently,
CLT was promoted intensively in a top-down manner through syllabus
design and materials production (Adamson & Morris, 1997; Hu, 2002b).
Recent research (e.g., Hu, 2003; Zheng & Adamson, 2003) suggests that
CLT has gained some ground. However, indications also show that the
adoption of CLT practices does not occur across the board but varies as
a result of local contexts (Hu, 2003). Furthermore, it is important to
note that certain quarters tend to equate CLT simplistically with so-called
good and progressive pedagogy (e.g., Liao, 2004; L. M. Yu, 2001).
A basic assumption underlying this study is that methodology is not
only relevant to research on classroom practices in China but may also
provide a framework for investigating the design and procedures of
classroom instruction. Some researchers and language educators may
find such a research perspective suspect. The notion of methodology has
attracted many criticisms in recent years and has lost the popularity that
it once enjoyed. Some researchers and language educators question the
usefulness of the notion because classroom practices subsumed under
different methodologies can be very similar (Brown, 2000; Swaffar,
Arens, & Morgan, 1982). Others contend that methodologies do not
capture teachers thinking or reflect what actually transpires in class-
rooms (Katz, 1996). Some note that methodologies reflect a top-down
view of teaching and marginalize the role of teachers by prescribing for
them what and how to teach (Richards, 1987). Others observe that
methodologies are often based on assumptions rather than research

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 637

(Richards & Rodgers, 2001). Some point out that it is inherently difficult
to research the effectiveness of different methodologies and that the
results of comparative method studies are typically inconclusive (Ellis,
1994; Freeman & Richards, 1993). Others dismiss the whole notion as a
futile search for the best methodology, given the great diversity of
teaching and learning contexts (Bartolome, 1994; Tedick & Walker,
1994). Finally, methodologies, especially those originating in the West,
have been criticized for embodying a politically and culturally imperialist
stance (Pennycook, 1989; Phillipson, 1992). Because of these perceived
problems, Richards (1987) suggests that the language teaching profes-
sion should go beyond teaching methodologies and focus on exploring
the nature and conditions of effective teaching and learning. In a similar
vein, Kumaravadivelu (1994) calls for a shift away from the conventional
concept of method toward a postmethod condition which motivates a
search for an open-ended, coherent framework based on current theo-
retical, empirical, and pedagogical insights (p. 27).
These criticisms draw attention to a number of methodology-related
problems and help to foster an awareness of the problems that may arise
from the uncritical promotion of and a paralyzing obsession with the
best methodology. It is important to point out, however, that the
perceived problems often do not originate so much in methodologies
per se as in their misuse. As Larsen-Freeman (1999) and Holliday (1994)
have cogently argued, methodologies are valuable when they are used
sensitively, sensibly, and inquiringly. Moreover, the criticisms do not
negate the usefulness of examining classroom instruction from a meth-
odological perspective in contexts where one or another methodology is
clearly exerting an influence on teachers work. In this regard, the influx
of criticisms leveled at methodology itself is revealing: It suggests that
methodologies can influence classroom teaching in one way or another,
though such a state of affairs is considered undesirable, counterproduc-
tive, or problematic by the critics. Furthermore, some of the criticisms
themselves imply the need to research the interactions between teaching
methodologies and contextual influences.
These considerations have led to the position taken in this article that
to the extent Chinese EFL teachers are concerned with methodology, it
can offer a useful framework for examining ELT practices in Chinese
schools. In this regard, there is no shortage of indications that teaching
methodology is a deeply ingrained notion in China and affects classroom
teaching in at least five ways. First, policy directives on educational
reform hold that teaching methodology is crucial to the quality of
teaching (e.g., Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, 1985). All
these reform directives call for the replacement of traditional teaching
methodologies with innovative and progressive ones. In response to the
call, curriculum standards and syllabuses for secondary-level ELT devote

638 TESOL QUARTERLY

much space to methodological issues (see Curriculum and Teaching
Materials Research Institute, 2001; Ministry of Education, 2001). Second,
several widely used textbook series have been written in the spirit of
recent teaching methodologies (Adamson & Morris, 1997; Hu, 2002b),
and the teachers books accompanying them provide detailed method-
ological guidance or prescriptions. Third, to develop an understanding
of major teaching methodologies is one of the professed goals of English
language teacher education programs (EFL Teacher Education Curricu-
lum Taskforce, 1993). The major professional course found in all the
teacher education programs is explicitly called Textbooks and Teaching
Methodology. Fourth, issues of methodology feature prominently in
teachers staff-room talk, discussions after peer lesson observations, and
semestral work reports. Finally, teaching methodology is one of the most
discussed and researched topics in major Chinese journals of foreign
language education for researchers and teachers.
As this brief discussion shows, the notion of methodology has been
given much prominence by Chinese policy makers, curriculum design-
ers, textbook writers, researchers, and teachers. Given this situation, to
dismiss teaching methodology as irrelevant to research on what occurs in
EFL classrooms is to underestimate its influence on classroom teaching
in China. Although this article argues for the usefulness of examining
instructional practices from a methodological perspective, this argument
should not be construed as suggesting a simplistic linkage between good
teaching and some teaching methodologies on the one hand and bad
teaching and other teaching methodologies on the other. On the
contrary, the article supports the view that teachers choice of a particu-
lar teaching methodology is shaped by a myriad of contextual influences
and that a methodologys appropriateness cannot be investigated inde-
pendently of the social context of teaching (Tedick & Walker, 1994;
Tudor, 2001).

THE STUDY

Participants

The study involved 252 Chinese students attending a 6-month, full-

time communication skills program at a university in Singapore between
2001 and 2003. They had just completed their secondary education and
enrolled at 16 major Chinese universities before they came to Singapore
and attended the intensive English program. They were aged between 18
and 21. Of the participants, 31% (n 78) were female. Based on a
placement test, their English proficiency ranged from a low intermediate
to a low advanced level.

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 639

 To address the three research questions presented earlier, the partici-
pants were grouped according to two criteria. The first criterion was
whether a participant had completed his or her secondary education in
a coastal or inland province. The categorization of the provinces was
based on a geo-economic schematization found in Hayhoe (1996). The
second criterion was whether the secondary school in question was
located in the capital city or in another part of the province. The two
criteria were intended to reflect differences in socioeconomic develop-
ment between provinces and within a province. That is, the coastal
provinces have been more developed in the last 2 decades than the
inland provinces, and the capital city of a province, as its chief adminis-
trative, economic, and cultural center, has been generally the provinces
most developed area (Hayhoe, 1996). The two criteria resulted in four
groups:1
1. CC Group: Students from capital cities of coastal provinces.
2. OC Group: Students from other places in coastal provinces.
3. CI Group: Students from capital cities of inland provinces.
4. OI Group: Students from other places in inland provinces.
Table 1 presents the demographics of the four groups.
As can be seen in Table 2, which presents the participants self-
reported biodata and background information about their formal En-
glish instruction, the study represented 225 secondary schools. The four
groups did not differ in age but varied considerably in the percentage of
students who started formal learning of English in primary school (3 to
4 contact hours a week), with the CC and the OI Groups having the
largest and the smallest percentage, respectively. All the remaining
students started formal English instruction in secondary Grade 1, and,
like the rest of the participants, had 4 to 5 hours of weekly instruction
throughout junior and senior secondary education (6 years in total).
Because of the differences in the starting grade, the CC Group out-
stripped the OC and the OI Groups by at least one year of formal English
instruction. The last column of Table 2 gives the number of students in
each group who used, as their core English textbooks, the Junior/Senior
English for China series developed by the Peoples Education Press under
the Ministry of Education. Although all the students in the OI group
used the two series, half of the CC Group used other textbooks, some of
which were published abroad.

1
Admittedly, the two criteria gave only a simplified and broad representation of the relative
levels of economic, social, and cultural development of the different regions. Nonetheless, it
can be argued that such classifications were adequate for an exploratory study that aimed to
identify broad patterns of ELT practices rather than present fine-grained ethnographic
descriptions.

640 TESOL QUARTERLY

 TABLE 1
Demographics of the Participants

Coastal Inland

Capital Other Capital Other

Province city place Province city place

Beijing 4 Anhui 6 6
Fujian 2 7 Chongqing 8
Guangdong 3 16 Gansu 0 2
Jiangsu 7 12 Guizhou 0 2
Liaoning 9 14 Heilongjiang 4 8
Shandong 8 18 Henan 3 6
Shanghai 5 Hubei 4 11
Tianjin 3 Hunan 3 10
Zhejiang 7 8 Jiangxi 4 6
Jilin 3 9
Shaanxi 7 5
Shanxi 2 3
Sichuan 7 10
Total 48 75 51 78
Note. Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, and Chongqing are municipalities rather than provinces.

Data Collection and Analysis

Data collected for the study included the 252 participants responses
to a questionnaire, 40 focused interviews, and response essays written by
a subgroup of 75 participants.

Questionnaire

A questionnaire was developed and administered to the participants

shortly after they began the intensive English program. The question-
naire consisted of three parts. The first part elicited biodata and

TABLE 2
Biodata and Background Information

Start of Average
English learning years of
Gender No. of (Primary/ English Textbooks
Group Age (M/F) schools Secondary) learning (PEP series)

CC 1820 26/22 43 25/23 7.6 24

OC 1820 55/20 65 21/54 6.6 55
CI 1820 34/17 48 17/34 6.8 32
OI 1821 59/19 69 7/71 6.1 78

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 641

background information as summarized in Table 2. The second part
aimed to find out what had motivated the participants to learn English in
secondary school by asking them to give and rank their main reasons for
learning the language. The third part was designed to elicit information
about secondary-level ELT practices. Before this part of the questionnaire
was constructed, a survey of the methodology literature was conducted to
identify classroom practices typically associated with GT, ALM, and CLT,
which are the three most influential ELT methodologies in China. The
survey aimed to identify features of each methodology in six areas of
interest: pedagogical orientation (e.g., knowledge about English or
ability to use it), instructional content and its presentation (e.g., gram-
mar rules or communicative functions), language practice (e.g., gram-
mar exercise or meaning-focused interaction), teacher and learner roles
(e.g., teacher dominance or active learner involvement), learning mate-
rials (e.g., materials written especially for learners or authentic materials),
and assessment (e.g., knowledge about English or ability to use it).
Altogether 40 features were identified (see Table 3, p. 645). Statements
were constructed to describe these features. These statements were
written in Chinese and free of terminology so as to avoid confusion and
misinterpretation by the participants. Below are examples of the state-
ments translated from Chinese:

The teacher explained grammar rules.

The teacher made the students memorize and recite dialogues/texts.
The teacher explained a text sentence by sentence.
The students used English to communicate their ideas.
The students engaged in pair or small group work.

The participants were asked to indicate whether the instructional

practice described by a statement had usually, frequently, occasionally, or
never occurred in their secondary-level English course.
Pertinent to the data collection instrument is a criticism of teaching
methodologies discussed earlier, namely the similarity of classroom
practices used to deploy them. In a comparative study of methodologies,
Swaffar et al. (1982) found that teachers subscribing to different
methodologies used similar instructional activities in their classrooms.
This led the researchers to conclude that methodological labels as-
signed to teaching activities are, in themselves, not informative, because
they refer to a pool of classroom practices which are universally used (p.
31). It is certainly not difficult to cite instructional activities that support
Swaffar et al.s conclusion, but that does not mean that one cannot
identify teachers methodological orientations by examining their class-

642 TESOL QUARTERLY

room practices. For one thing, Swaffar et al.s conclusion does not apply
to all classrooms or all practices associated with different methodologies.
The literature of ethnographic classroom studies has numerous class-
rooms where distinct sets of instructional practices are adopted as a
result of the different methodologies subscribed to (see, e.g., Holliday,
1994). For another, considerable research indicates that differences in
methodological orientations can be captured in quantitative terms
(Frhlich, Spada, & Allen, 1985) and that teachers committed to
principles underlying a particular methodology tend to frequently use
many instructional practices associated with it (Mangubhai, Marland,
Dashwood, & Son, 2004). Swaffar et al. also acknowledged this tendency
when they said that the differences among methodologies are to be
found in the ordered hierarchy, the priorities assigned to the tasks (p.
31). This means that the methodological orientations of classrooms can
be distinguished based on quantitative differences in the instructional
practices adopted in those classrooms. Finally, even when a mixture of
instructional practices associated with different methodologies is found
in the same classrooms, statistical procedures can help researchers
determine if the instructional practices form subsets that reflect different
underlying dimensions and then compare the classrooms on the identi-
fied dimensions. One such statistical procedure, which has been used in
this study, is factor analysis.2
Factor analysis is a statistical procedure for uncovering or confirming a
number of common factors underlying a set of observed variables by
studying the covariation among those variables (Hatch & Lazaraton,
1991; Long, 1994). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) is used to test the
expected relationships among a number of variables and the hypoth-
esized underlying dimensions in a dataset. CFA has been chosen for this
study because it could determine whether the instructional practices
covered by the questionnaire indeed formed three subgroups to reflect
the distinctions commonly made in the literature among the three
methodologies of interest (i.e., GT, ALM, and CLT). Based on the CFA
results, indexes (i.e., factor-based scales) were developed for further
statistical analyses (Kim & Mueller, 1994). These factor-based scales
reduced the large number of variables involved to several values without
losing the information found in the original variables (Hatch & Lazaraton,
1991). The factor-based scales were then used as dependent variables in
a multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) and post-hoc tests to
identify differences and similarities in the instructional practices re-
ported by the four groups of participants. The significance level was set
at .05 for all the statistical tests.

2
I thank one of the anonymous reviewers for recommending the use of factor analysis and
MANOVA in this study.

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 643

Interviews and Written Responses

The questionnaire required the participants to operate within an

externally imposed framework and could introduce subjectivity into the
data collected. Therefore, it was necessary to complement the question-
naire with less restrictive data-collection instruments that would allow the
participants greater freedom to respond from their own perspectives. To
this end, data were also elicited through focused interviews with 40
participants (10 from each group) and through essays written by 75
participants (CC 17, OC 19, CI 15, OI 24) in response to a
recent article discussing how the traditional Chinese culture of learning
has influenced ELT practices. The students who wrote essays were not
the same students who were interviewed.

RESULTS
Analyses of the interviews and response essays yielded patterns of
differences and similarities that were largely consistent with those
identified in the questionnaire data. Because of space limitations,
however, only the results from analyses of the questionnaire data are
presented in this article, though the interviews and written responses are
drawn on in interpreting and discussing the findings from the question-
naire data.
As a preliminary analysis, a CFA was run on the questionnaire data,
using SPSS (2002). To conduct the analysis, the response categories for
each questionnaire item were converted into a numerical scale ranging
from 0 (never) to 3 (usually). Because the literature generally associates
the 40 instructional practices with three teaching methodologies, a 3-
factor solution was imposed on the analysis. The maximum likelihood
method was used to extract the factors (Kim & Mueller, 1994; Long,
1994), and the factor solution was rotated using the direct oblimin
method to obtain a simpler and more readily interpretable structure
(Kim & Mueller, 1994). The three factors accounted for a reasonable
amount (44.78%) of the total variance in the data, with Factor 1
explaining 27.44%, Factor 2, 10.82%, and Factor 3, 6.52%. Table 3
presents the 40 questionnaire items classified according to the method-
ology literature and the results of the CFA.
Although a factor loading of .30 or above is conventionally considered
to be substantial, a cutoff value of .50 was used for reasons explained
later. Loadings above the cutoff are in bold typeface in Table 3. An
examination of the items with loadings above the cutoff on Factor 1
revealed that all 13 items describe instructional practices typically
associated with CLT in the methodology literature. Therefore, it made

644 TESOL QUARTERLY

 TABLE 3
Questionnaire Items and CFA Results
(Maximum Likelihood Extraction and Direct Oblimin Rotation)

Instructional Practice Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 h2

Pedagogical orientation
1. Focus on students knowledge about
English (GT) .477 .033 .629 .439
2. Predominant attention to reading
& writing (GT) .460 .014 .504 .316
3. Emphasis on formal accuracy (GT/ALM) .392 .051 .700 .501
4. Predominant attention to aural
& oral skills (ALM) .166 .711 .226 .542
5. Balanced attention to the four
language skills (CLT) .713 .134 .271 .521
6. Focus on students ability to use
English (CLT) .637 .064 .368 .428
Instructional content and presentation
7. Explanation of grammar rules (GT) .457 .180 .636 .485
8. Illustration of grammar rules (GT) .450 .109 .656 .475
9. Explanation of texts sentence by
sentence (GT) .484 .107 .653 .464
10. Parsing of sentences in texts (GT) .337 .089 .799 .646
11. Contrastive analysis of Chinese
& English (GT/ALM) .173 .115 .696 .534
12. Explicit & direct correction of
learner errors (GT/ALM) .175 .730 .255 .567
13. Use of English in conducting a lesson
(ALM/CLT) .305 .687 .245 .536
14. Inductive teaching of grammar (ALM/CLT) .703 .142 .391 .501
15. Teaching of communicative functions (CLT) .683 .049 .390 .487
16. Cultures of English-speaking peoples (CLT) .588 .045 .464 .398
17. Use of open-ended questions (CLT) .654 .134 .311 .431
Language practice
18. Grammar exercises (GT) .459 .213 .768 .666
19. Translation exercises (GT) .401 .131 .645 .432
20. Sentence pattern practice (ALM) .248 .738 .093 .572
21. Reading-aloud of dialogues & texts (ALM) .191 .690 .052 .515
22. Memorization of dialogues & texts (ALM) .224 .602 .219 .464
23. Prepared language performance (ALM) .309 .413 .416 .333
24. Teacher-student interaction in English (CLT) .110 .522 .153 .313
25. Games & activities resembling real-world
tasks (CLT) .721 .161 .307 .529
26. Constant exposure to new language
input (CLT) .450 .114 .146 .214
27. Communication in English among
students (CLT) .579 .066 .449 .370
28. Integrated practice in the four
language skills (CLT) .662 .086 .425 .451
29. Reading & writing about various topics (CLT) .465 .193 .317 .246

continued on page 646

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 645

 TABLE 3 (continued)
Questionnaire Items and CFA Results
(Maximum Likelihood Extraction and Direct Oblimin Rotation)

Instructional Practice Factor 1 Factor 2 Factor 3 h2

Teacher and learner roles

30. Teacher talk for most of class time (GT) .396 .081 .609 .384
31. Teacher-fronted instruction (GT/ALM) .351 .103 .714 .515
32. Teacher control over class (GT/ALM) .086 .648 .126 .423
33. Pair & small group work (CLT) .674 .150 .368 .461
34. Peer feedback & evaluation (CLT) .666 .109 .400 .451
Learning materials
35. Structure-based textbooks (GT/ALM) .166 .601 .145 .380
36. Adherence to prescribed textbooks
(GT/ALM) .197 .172 .423 .202
37. Teacher-developed materials (CLT) .391 .080 .201 .154
38. Authentic materials (CLT) .683 .053 .371 .468
Assessment
39. Knowledge about grammar & vocabulary
(GT/ALM) .425 .002 .780 .613
40. Ability to use the target language (CLT) .696 .082 .313 .485

sense to label the factor CLT practices. Similarly, all the items but one that
loaded on Factor 2 are practices commonly characterized as ALM; thus,
it was reasonable to interpret the factor as representing ALM practices.
The only exception, Item 24, is generally considered a CLT activity but
loaded on the ALM factor. In the interviews, most participants gave
routine classroom expressions and teacher-student dialogues patterned
on textbook models as examples of teacher-student interaction in
English. This way of thinking about teacher-student interaction would
explain why the item loaded on the ALM factor. As expected, all 13 items
that loaded on Factor 3 are widely regarded as typifying GT. Conse-
quently, it was reasonable to take the factor as representing GT practices.
It should be noted, however, that 9 of the 10 items classified under two
methodologies in the literature loaded on only one factor rather than
two. It should also be noted that 5 instructional practices (i.e., Items 23,
26, 29, 36, and 37) had loadings below the cutoff on all the factors.
Despite these minor discrepancies, there was a good match between the
factor structure and common classifications of the instructional practices
in the methodology literature.
The 2 statistic associated with the CFA was significant (2 1601.706,
663 df, p .001). The 2 test provides a goodness-of-fit estimate for a
factor solution. A significant 2 is often taken to indicate that the solution

646 TESOL QUARTERLY

deviates from the underlying structure of the data. The lack of a
statistically good fit to the data, however, did not necessarily mean that
the 3-factor solution was not valid or reliable. As noted by Bentler and
Bonett (1980), the magnitude of the 2 tends to increase with sample size
because when the sample size is large, small deviations caused by
substantively insignificant minor factors will be treated as significant
dimensions that cannot be accounted for by sampling variability (Kim &
Mueller, 1994, p. 110), giving rise to a large 2 value. Furthermore, Long
(1994) points out that uses of the 2 test as a measure of goodness of fit
are often unjustified in practice (p. 304) because the test is based on
several assumptions which are generally violated in applications of the
confirmatory factor model (p. 305). Because of these problems, Kim
and Mueller (1994) comment that it is not advisable to rely completely
on the 2 test in evaluating the adequacy of a factor solution; they
recommend substantive significance (p. 110) as a useful criterion for
deciding the adequacy of a factor model. Given the fairly large sample of
participants involved in this study, a significant 2 statistic would be
expected. It is more important that the adequacy of the factor solution
can be defended on the grounds that it achieved the main purpose of
the CFAto identify sets of instructional practices which would clearly
reflect different methodological orientations in Chinese EFL classrooms.
Based on the CFA, an index for each of the three methodologies was
constructed by summing the scores of each participant for all the items
that loaded on the relevant factor.3 To select only those items that
unambiguously clustered together and to alleviate the problem of giving
the same weight to variables whose loadings varied greatly (Kim &
Mueller, 1994), the cutoff value for factor loadings was raised from the
conventional .30 to a moderately high .50. As a further check of their
reliability, Cronbachs coefficients were computed for the factor-based
scales, and the results were acceptable: .91 for both the CLT and GT
scales and .87 for the ALM scale.
The factor-based indexes were subjected as dependent variables to a
MANOVA, with the groupings of participants as the independent vari-
able. As Table 4 shows, both the ALM and GT instructional practices
were reported by all the four groups as fairly often or frequently
occurring in their secondary-level English instruction. The group means
for the ALM practices ranged from 1.66 to 1.85, somewhat below the
level of frequently (equal to 2.00 in the numerical scale). The group
means for the GT practices were higher, ranging from 1.86 to 2.24.
However, there was clear between-groups variation regarding the CLT
practices, with the CC group mean being slightly below the frequently

3
See Kim and Mueller (1994) for a discussion of factor-based scales in practical research.

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 647

 TABLE 4
Descriptive Statistics

CC (n = 48) OC (n = 75) CI (n = 51) OI (n = 78)

Dependent
variable M SD M SD M SD M SD

CLT 1.94 6.58 1.49 8.60 1.78 5.88 1.02 6.43

ALM 1.78 6.04 1.73 5.46 1.85 6.55 1.66 4.64
GT 1.86 7.05 2.03 8.01 1.94 6.85 2.24 7.55
Note. M median, SD standard deviation; CLT communicative language teaching; ALM
audiolingualism method; GT grammar translation.

level at one end and the OI Group mean just above the occasionally level
(equal to 1.00) at the other end.
Table 5 presents the results of the MANOVA. The results rejected the
null hypothesis of no between-groups difference. Following Norus=iss
(1994) recommendation, the univariate test results were examined to
identify where the differences might be. The groups were found to differ
significantly for the CLT practices: F (3, 248) 35.345, p .001. The
groups also differed significantly for the GT practices: F (3, 248) 5.246,
p .003. However, they did not differ for the ALM practices: F (3, 248)
1.022, p .383. Post-hoc analyses (the Tukey honest significant differ-
ence procedure) revealed that all pairwise comparisons except the one
between the CC and CI Groups were significant at .05 for the CLT
practices. In the case of the GT practices, only two pairwise comparisons
(CC vs. OI and CI vs. OI) were statistically significant.
To sum up, the analyses identified several patterns of instructional
practices. First, secondary-level EFL classrooms in different regions of
China show a mixture of methodological orientations. This is reflected
in Table 4, which shows that with only two exceptions (OC and OI for
CLT), the group means of reported frequency for the ALM, CLT, and GT
instructional practices either approach or are above the frequently level.

TABLE 5
MANOVA Results

Statistic Value F Hypothesis df Error df p

Pillais Trace .312 9.612 9.000 744.000 .000

Wilks Lambda .688 11.034 9.000 598.850 .000
Hotellings Trace .451 12.272 9.000 734.000 .000
Roys Largest Root .449 37.084 3.000 248.000 .000

648 TESOL QUARTERLY

Second, the traditional instructional practices (i.e., those associated with
GT and ALM) still predominate or exist side by side with those
sanctioned by the officially endorsed methodology (i.e., CLT), despite
the top-down efforts in recent years to wean teachers from GT and ALM.
The predominance of traditional practices is particularly strong in the
less developed areas of China (where the OC and OI Groups had their
secondary education). Third, the extent to which the officially promoted
methodology has been taken up varies from region to region. Although
CLT practices have a fairly strong presence in secondary-level EFL
classrooms in urban centers (where the CC and CI groups completed
their secondary education), these practices are largely absent from
classrooms in the less developed areas. Because around 70% of the
secondary-level student population in China is found in these less
developed areas, recent ELT reform efforts have not had extensive
influence on secondary-level ELT in the country. Taken together, these
three patterns suggest that contextual factors are influencing which
teaching methodologies are used and how much prominence is given to
them in different EFL classrooms across China.

DISCUSSION

The regional disparity in secondary-level ELT that the study identified

can be attributed to a host of policy, economic, social, and cultural
factors. Because of space constraints, these factors are presented in two
broad groups.

Resource Factors

The regional disparity in instructional practices can be accounted for

in large part by regional differences in resources for ELT, which include,
among other things, curricula, school facilities, and the teaching force.
These differences are themselves products of recent policies and striking
discrepancies in socioeconomic development across China. In its mod-
ernization effort, the Chinese government, constrained by limited na-
tional resources, has adopted development policies in favor of the more
developed coastal regions and urban centers (Hu, 2003; Paine &
DeLany, 2000). Although they have brought rapid socioeconomic ad-
vances to these advantaged places, these preferential policies have at the
same time exacerbated long-existing regional discrepancies in socioeco-
nomic development (Hu, in press; Yang, 2001). To sustain economic
development in the advantaged regions and to address varying demands
on education resulting from the widening regional discrepancies in

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 649

socioeconomic development, the Chinese government has staged a
series of educational reforms that promulgate decentralization of educa-
tional administration and partial diversification of curricula (Chinese
Communist Party Central Committee, 1985; Lewin, Little, Xu, & Zheng,
1994; Tsang, 2000). These reform initiatives, together with uneven
socioeconomic development across the country, have not only perpetu-
ated existing regional differences in ELT resources but have also created
new ones.
In line with the principles of educational decentralization and
diversification, several economically developed coastal provinces and
large cities have been allowed to develop their own primary- and
secondary-level curricula and syllabi. The growing demand for English
proficiency from socioeconomic advances in these areas has not only
fostered more ELT in secondary schools but has also led to ELT in many
primary schools since the early 1990s (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996a; Hu, 2002b).
This study shows the effect of rapidly expanding primary-level ELT in the
socioeconomically developed areas: More than half of the participants
from the coastal capital cities and municipalities started to learn English
in primary school. One important outcome of primary-level ELT is that
by helping students develop some English proficiency, it affords second-
ary-level teachers a wider range of instructional possibilities, including
communicative language learning activities. Few primary schools in the
less developed areas, however, have taught English until recently, as can
be seen in the small proportion (9%) of the students in the OI Group
who received English instruction in primary school. The late start of
English instruction, coupled with pressures from standardized and
largely discrete-point high-stakes examinations, inclines secondary-level
teachers in the disadvantaged areas to adopt a knowledge-transmission
approach (Hu, 2003). The gap in curricular resources has been further
widened by the adoption of content-based English instruction (CBEI) in
a rapidly growing number of well-resourced schools in the developed
areas (How young is too young, 2001; Hu, 2002b). Because CBEI uses
English as a medium of instruction, its adoption has required prepara-
tory or parallel English courses to emphasize students ability to use
English and to take a communicative approach to developing their
language skills. The disadvantaged areas, however, have lacked the
necessary socioeconomic resources to implement CBEI in their schools.
Regional disparity in educational infrastructure constitutes another
important influence on instructional practices. Many schools in the
developed areas are now provided with the latest teaching facilities such
as state-of-the-art multimedia language labs (Ross, 2000). The availability
of modern educational hardware encourages new conceptions of educa-
tion and facilitates new teacher-student relationships as well as new
instructional practices. On the other hand, schools in the disadvantaged

650 TESOL QUARTERLY

areas tend to be inadequately equipped. Many of them do not even have
the financial resources to repair their dangerously dilapidated school
buildings, let alone obtaining up-to-date teaching facilities (Yang, 2001).
Because resources are scarce, as many as 60 students are sometimes
crowded into one classroom. It is difficult, if not impossible, for teachers
to give individualized, interactive instruction to classes of this size. The
general lack of adequate teaching facilities compels many teachers to
take a textbook-dependent, teacher-centered, and transmission-oriented
approach in their classroom instruction (Hu, 2003; Paine & DeLany,
2000).
A third resource factor has to do with the differences in professional
quality of the teaching force working in the coastal and urban areas and
the inland, rural regions. The economic prosperity and better living
standards in the coastal and urban areas have helped their schools attract
a disproportionate number of university graduates and lure many
qualified teachers from the inland, rural regions. Privileged schools in
large urban centers even recruit well-trained native speakers to teach
their English classes and to upgrade the language proficiency and
professional skills of their local staff. Furthermore, many urban second-
ary schools have close connections with prestigious universities that help
them with their in-service teacher training. In addition, local govern-
ments of the socioeconomically advantaged regions sponsor a growing
number of teachers for in-service training in overseas institutions (Hu, in
press). For these reasons, the majority of teachers in the more developed
areas are professionally trained, reasonably proficient in subject matter,
informed of recent developments in language teaching, and equipped to
implement new pedagogical approaches in their classrooms (Ng & Tang,
1997). By contrast, the less developed regions have a much lower
proportion of teachers who meet the minimum professional require-
ments set by the government (Hu, in press). A very large number of
teachers there, especially minban (community-sponsored) teachers work-
ing in rural community schools, have received neither a postsecondary
education nor formal teacher training (Hu, 2005; Wang, 2002). It is no
surprise that many of these teachers lack the necessary professional
preparation, language competence, and sociolinguistic knowledge to
cope with the demands of a teaching methodology such as CLT.

Sociocultural Influences

Along with the resource factors, some sociocultural factors also

underlie the regional differences in instructional practices. One such
factor is the varying availability of authentic English-language materials.
Rapid socioeconomic development in the advantaged regions and their

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 651

growing contact with the outside world have brought an influx of
cultural artifacts from English-speaking countries, such as newspapers
and magazines, TV programs, Web sites, movies, pop music, and literary
texts (Bolton, 2002; Guo & Huang, 2002; Jiang, 2003). These cultural
artifacts serve as authentic English-language materials and cater to the
different needs of English language learners in the socioculturally
advantaged regions. They provide the learners with considerable expo-
sure to authentic use of English and create a condition for them to learn
the language experientially. Given the availability of such materials, it is
not surprising that more than half of the participants from the devel-
oped regions reported frequent use of authentic learning materials in
their secondary-level English classes. By contrast, authentic English-
language materials are rare in the more isolated and less developed
regions. Students in these regions are exposed to English mainly
through a single set of textbooksin most cases, the Junior/Senior English
for China series. As a result, these students have little opportunity to
experience authentic English. This lack of authentic materials not only
makes developing communicative competence more difficult for them,
but it can also incline them to take an analytical approach to English
language learning (Hu, 2002a).
A second factor is the differing perceived values and uses of English in
the developed and less developed regions. Since the 1980s, the eco-
nomic progress of the advantaged coastal and urban areas has brought
along foreign investment, technological transfers, joint ventures, expatri-
ate management staff, overseas tourists, and commercial imports. This
influx of English-dominant culture has contributed to a growing de-
mand for English proficiency from a whole range of professions,
businesses, workplaces, and enterprises (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996a). Given
this increasing number of opportunities to use English for social and
vocational purposes, English proficiency has become an important social
and economic capital (Nunan, 2003). The value of English as capital is
reflected in the reasons given by the CC and the CI Groups for learning
the language: More than half of the participants (60.42% for the CC
Group and 56.86% for the CI Group) gave a career- or communication-
related consideration as their most important reason for learning
English. The more numerous opportunities to use English have height-
ened awareness of the importance of communicative competence in the
language and exerted pressures on classroom instruction to move away
from transmission of knowledge about English to the development of
students ability to use it for communication. The less developed areas,
however, offer fewer opportunities to use English for social and voca-
tional purposes. English has been largely restricted to the domain of
education (Zhao & Campbell, 1995). Students study the language mainly
to secure a place in a tertiary institution. This priority is clearly reflected

652 TESOL QUARTERLY

in the proportion of students from the OI Group who gave various
educational requirements as their most and second most important
reasons for learning English. More than 90% of these students studied
English mainly to pass various English tests and to obtain admission to
universities. Virtually all of the OI Groups interviews and response essays
clearly indicated the straitjacket effect of the high stakes tests on
classroom instruction.
A final sociocultural factor is the Chinese culture of learning, namely,
the expectations, attitudes, beliefs, values, perceptions, preferences, and
behaviors that characterize Chinese educational practices. Much has
been written on this topic (see, e.g., Burnaby & Sun, 1989; Cortazzi & Jin,
1996a, 1996b; Hu, 2002a; Paine, 1990; Rao, 1996; Watkins & Biggs, 1996;
C. C. Yu, 1984). To generalize somewhat, in the traditional Chinese
culture of learning, education is conceived more as a process of
knowledge accumulation than as a process of using knowledge for
immediate purposes, and the preferred model of teaching is a mimetic
or epistemic one that emphasizes knowledge transmission. It is also
generally agreed that the traditional Chinese culture of learning favors
teacher-learner roles, learner qualities, classroom etiquettes, and learn-
ing strategies that often conflict with those required by a learner-
centered teaching methodology such as CLT but are highly compatible
with teacher-centered methodologies such as GT and ALM. Although
the influence of the traditional Chinese culture is pervasive (Cortazzi &
Jin, 1996a), its strength seems to vary across China. As a result of the
increasing openness of the coastal and urban areas to the outside world,
people there have been exposed to foreign sociocultural influences via
movies, music, literature, television, radio, the Internet, overseas travel,
and contact with foreign tourists and expatriates living in China.
Consequently, they are more amenable to such influences and less
influenced by the traditional Chinese culture of learning. On the other
hand, no substantive exposure to sociocultural influences from abroad
has occurred in the less developed, isolated areas, where the traditional
Chinese culture of learning still prevails and influences instructional
practices pervasively. Some evidence in support of the varying cultural
influence comes from the response essays collected for this study. A great
majority (81.25%) of the participants from the CC and CI Groups
disagreed with the source article that some features of the traditional
Chinese culture of learning constrained the adoption of CLT and
provided counterexamples to show that a certain feature was largely
absent from their own learning processes or their teachers instructional
practices. By contrast, 83.33% of the participants from the OI Group
agreed that the various features were indeed major sources of resistance
to pedagogical innovations and gave personal examples as evidence of
the learning culture at work.

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 653

CONCLUSION
This study has identified some broad patterns of instructional differ-
ences in secondary-level ELT across China and related them to a number
of social and material factors. An overarching conclusion that can be
drawn from the study is that instructional practices in EFL classrooms are
fundamentally subject to contextual influences. This conclusion is in line
with a growing body of research (e.g., Canagarajah, 1993; Holliday, 1994;
Tudor, 2001; van Lier, 1988) suggesting that contextual factors can
impinge on language teaching and learning in numerous significant
ways. It also highlights a major cause underlying the failure of recent
Chinese ELT reform efforts to effect CLT in Chinas vast underdeveloped
regions. That is, the reform efforts have taken a technological perspec-
tive and made methodological prescriptions that disregard contextual
diversity.
Several implications can be derived from this study for policy efforts
directed at improving the effectiveness of ELT in China. One obvious
implication is that the Chinese government needs to greatly increase
investment in the infrastructure for ELT in the inland, rural regions and
narrow the gap in economic and material resources between these
regions and the more developed coastal, urban areas. There are,
however, limits to the governments ability to do so. Given the current
level of Chinas development, the great socioeconomic disparity between
different parts of the country, the meager educational resources avail-
able, and the huge student population in the underdeveloped regions,
there is every reason to believe that significant improvement of the
socioeconomic conditions and educational infrastructure of the under-
developed areas will take years to occur. This rather bleak prospect
makes it imperative to look for strategies that can improve the effective-
ness of ELT under the existing contextual constraints. This conclusion
leads to the second implication of the study: An ecological approach to
ELT offers a viable reform strategy.
An ecological perspective on ELT recognizes the multifaceted interac-
tion between the language classroom and the particular political, eco-
nomic, social, cultural, historical, educational, and institutional context
in which it is situated. Unlike the technological perspective, which is
based on an autonomous assumption about the universal effectiveness of
the best teaching methodology (Coleman, 1996a), the ecological per-
spective operates on an ideological assumption and rejects the notion of
universally appropriate ways of teaching and learning (Hu, 2002a).
Although it recognizes methodology as an essential element of language
teaching, the perspective stresses that a particular methodology, no
matter how logical the underlying principles are, offers a potential but
does not in itself guarantee that a given result will be obtained (Tudor,

654 TESOL QUARTERLY

2001, pp. 78). The effectiveness of a methodology depends crucially on
its appropriateness for the situated, local, and dynamic realities of
teaching and learning.
Though the very nature of the ecological perspective precludes a
priori specification of a specific set, or even several sets, of instructional
practices to be adopted for teaching English in China or in a particular
part of the country, it does not invalidate a general description of what
adopting such a perspective would mean for ELT policy efforts in China.
It would require that the policy makers recognize the many ways in which
social, economic, and cultural factors can influence instructional prac-
tices in the EFL classroom and grapple squarely with, rather than ignore,
contextual diversity. This approach would entail abolishing centrally
imposed pedagogy (i.e., curricular objectives, instructional strategies,
learning materials, and assessment procedures) inasmuch as such peda-
gogy inevitably downplays or disregards contextual divergences and
forces homogenization around assumed universal principles. This ap-
proach would also entail encouraging pedagogical practices that are
sensitive to a particular group of teachers teaching a particular group of
learners pursuing a particular set of goals within a particular institutional
context embedded in a particular sociocultural milieu (Kumaravadivelu,
2001, p. 538). In principle, then, whatever methodology works best in a
specific context to help students achieve their goals of English learning
should be adopted, be it a traditional one like GT or a more recent
innovation such as task-based methodology. In practice, however, no
single established methodology is likely to suffice because all the
established methodologies have been developed in particular contexts to
achieve particular instructional goals (Larsen-Freeman, 1999; Richards
& Rodgers, 2001). Although the contexts and instructional goals associ-
ated with a particular methodology are likely to overlap with those found
in a particular part of China, they would not likely match exactly. The
ecological approach necessitates adopting an informed pedagogical
eclecticism that encourages teachers to draw on practices associated with
different methodologies in light of student needs, contextual con-
straints, and instructional resources (Brown, 2000; Larsen-Freeman,
1999; Tudor, 2001).
A vital step toward ensuring the success of ecologically oriented ELT
policy efforts in China would be to overhaul and reform the English
language teacher education programs, especially the professional prepa-
ration components of the programs (Hu, 2005). Rather than prescribe a
particular methodology or a specific set of instructional practices for pre-
and in-service teachers, as is the current practice, the teacher education
programs need to raise their participants methodological awareness and
familiarize them with different methodologies and perspectives on
language teaching so as to enrich their repertoires of instructional

CONTEXTUAL INFLUENCES ON INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES 655

options. In addition, the programs need to help them develop a
contextual awareness, useful contextual analysis skills, and a situated
understanding of teaching and learning (Bax, 2004; Holliday, 1994).
The programs should also guide participants in developing a set of
guidelines, such as those found in Kumaravadivelu (1994, 2001) and
Richards and Rodgers (2001), for making effective and coherent peda-
gogical decisions.
Although an ecological approach is strongly recommended as a
productive solution, such an approach is not a panacea that can solve all
the major problems that plague ELT in China. One problem that it
cannot address concerns the large number of students in the underde-
veloped areas who are forced to study English simply because it is part of
the compulsory curriculum. These students have no use for English and
are not motivated at all to study the language. As a matter of fact, an
overwhelming majority of these students will never move beyond a 9-year
compulsory education. For these students, the question is not how to
teach them English but whether to teach them English. By its very
nature, an ecological approach answers the first question but not the
second one. That question, which is highly controversial, has been raised
and debated by a number of people (Niu & Wolff, 2003; Nunan, 2003).
Another problem that an ecological approach cannot solve completely
concerns the issue of social and educational inequity (Hu, 2005; Nunan,
2003). An ecological approach essentially tries to cope with and make
the best of existing contextual constraints but does little to eradicate the
fundamental social, economic, and cultural causes of inequity. Further-
more, it is entirely conceivable that pedagogical practices informed by an
ecological perspective to help students in different contexts achieve their
goals of learning English can lead to different forms of proficiency,
knowledge, and competence that are valued differently by society. Both
of these thorny issues are larger societal ones that would take more than
an ecological approach to address. This fact, however, should not
diminish the value of such an approach as a much more viable and
practical alternative to the technological perspective that is currently
taken by the policy makers.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I would like to thank editor Suresh Canagarajah and the three anonymous reviewers
for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of this article. Their valuable
suggestions have improved it in many respects. All remaining errors, however, are my
own.

656 TESOL QUARTERLY

THE AUTHOR
Guangwei Hu is an assistant professor at the National Institute of Education,
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His articles on language teaching and
learning have appeared in various academic journals, including Studies in Second
Language Acquisition and Teachers College Record.

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