The teaching of English for Special Purposes (ESP) has become the mainstream of English teaching in Chinese universities. This article, from a perspective of Educational Ecology, explored ESP lecturers' professional development in Chinese universities. Semi-structured interviews were conducted on 13 ESP lecturers who were in the interim of…

This is the first edited volume dedicated to both teachers and learners of second/foreign language (L2) pragmatics. It comprises a collection of studies that explore how teachers background and practices, and individual learners differences contribute to the teaching and learning of L2 pragmatics. Also included are chapters that present…

The overall objective of this study was to investigate the constraints that have occurred regarding the first-year English language teachers' professional identity construction at five Chinese universities. The approach adopted in the study was Narrative Inquiry. Interview data with five teachers were collected and analysed through a framework…

There have been widespread concerns over the decline of modern languages and waning interest in learning languages other than English (LOTEs) around the world, thought to be partly due to recent political events including Brexit and Trump's aggressive isolationism in the United States. By contrast, governments in Greater China have energetically…

The paper explores the perceptions of graduate students and supervisors on the effectiveness of Chinese EFL academic socialization through an interview study from the perspective of Discourse System (DS) proposed by Scollon and Scollon (2000). The investigation, which was conducted in one leading Chinese university of foreign studies in 2010, was…

This study investigated college EFL teachers' attitudes toward task-based language teaching (TBLT), regarding their familiarity with the idea of TBLT, their actual use of TBLT, and contextual factors that impede the implementation of TBLT in the higher education context in China. The study described here is a questionnaire survey with 26 valid…

The development of students' professional skills is an important issue in higher education in China. This research reports a 3-month study investigating engineering students' communication strategies (CSs) while they were interacting to do a 12-week mobile-assisted learning project, i.e., "Organizing and Attending a Model International…

This article reports on an exploratory study of English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' attitudes, beliefs, and professional knowledge about teaching EFL (TEFL) in a preschool setting in China. The investigation is structured on a two-dimensional grid based on Calderhead's (1996) categorisation of teachers' attitudes and beliefs and…

ELTeach is an online professional development program developed by Educational Testing Service (ETS) in collaboration with National Geographic Learning. The ELTeach program consists of two courses: English-for-Teaching and Professional Knowledge for English Language Teaching (ELT). Each course includes a coordinated assessment leading to a score…

This article serves as the introduction to this special issue of "Language Teaching Research" on content-based language teaching (CBLT). The article first provides an illustrative overview of the myriad contexts in which CBLT has been implemented and then homes in on the five studies comprising the special issue, each conducted in a…

This paper reports on a study of Chinese pre-service teachers' perceived problems in their teaching practicum. Reflective paper-writing was employed to investigate the views of 210 student teachers on an English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education programme in Central China. The findings highlight six major problems. The paper points out…

This paper on pedagogical training of TCFL (Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language) programs is based on the author's five-week study in the summer of 2008 at six Chinese universities. Based on class observations, interviews of teachers and students, and documents provided by the six universities, the author has found that their curriculum for…

This study explored how voice developed in the English writing of 57 Chinese teachers of English who participated in a three-week writing workshop during a summer institute in a large, urban school district in southeastern China. Teachers from grades three through twelve wrote daily in English in a workshop environment. Primary data sources were…

This article reports on one aspect of a larger study which aimed to explore the context-specific experiences of English teachers at tertiary institutions in China (Wette & Barkhuizen, 2007). Data were collected during a professional development program run in the summer of 2006. The program aimed to cover recent trends in the field of second…

Describes how intensive English-as-a-Second-Language training for professionals in China is conducted, explaining the importance of training Chinese professionals in English and illustrating this type of training by highlighting a new intensive course for adults at one Chinese chemical engineering corporation. Essential teaching principles for…