An Examination of English Language Instructional Strategies Used by Teachers in China

Abstract

Foreign language instructors inconsistently implement instructional practices to support Chinese high school students’ learning of oral English as a second language (ESL). The purpose of this basic qualitative study was to explore the perceptions of foreign language teachers working in the Hangzhou region of China, regarding their use of instructional strategies to support Chinese high school students’ learning of oral English language. Sato and McNamara’s general-purpose second-language oral competency theory , which suggests that instructional practices can be evaluated in terms of formal and interaction components, served as the basis for the conceptual framework to examine foreign teachers’ perspectives regarding instructional practices related to lesson plans, classroom management, and extrinsic pressures created by tests and assessments. Research questions were designed to obtain foreign language teachers' perceptions concerning implementation of instructional practices. Data were obtained from interviews with eight purposively sampled foreign ESL instructors teaching at a public school and learning center. Inductive, deductive, and NVivo coding were used to analyze data. Themes included preparation methods for ESL instruction, classroom management strategies for courses and individual

Keywords

References