Discusión general

In the previous two sections, I have explored participant EFL teachers’ felt space in relation to it as being situated within a global and a Chinese context. In the

following section, I have investigated these participants’ felt space within their school contexts in relation to the physical and academic environment in which they operate. I have done this on the basis of examining their descriptions of their

experience and relevant government documents. This has enabled me to consider infrastructure as well as academic environment for the reform.

According to Priestley (2002), ‘[E]ducation reforms have been characterized by a tendency of central governments to divest themselves of responsibility for

day-to-day management of schools’ (p. 124). In line with this, I have examined the school context in which participant EFL teachers have been working, as the school context plays its own part in influencing lived experience of teachers implementing the EFL curriculum reform. As Goodson and Cole (1994) suggest, relevant

micro-political and contextual realities of school life plays an important role in determining a successful curriculum reform. Remillard (1999) argues that different school contexts play a significant role in contributing to teachers’ beliefs and understanding of teaching. On the basis of these discussions, I have considered that details of the school contexts provide the means by which an investigation of what EFL teachers may value and have concerns about the current EFL curriculum reform in Chinese secondary schools may be conducted. As Fullan (2000) argues:

There was actually great pressure and incentives to become innovative, and this resulted in many schools adopting reforms for which they did not have the capacity (individually or organizationally) to put the reforms into practice. Innovations, thus, were adopted on the surface with some of the language and structures becoming altered, but not the practice of teaching (pp. 6-7).

Infrastructure

In the following section I focus on new contexts in which participant EFL teachers have been situated, that of issues that relate to schools’ infrastructure. I have considered such issues on the basis of Fullan’s (2000) suggestion, that no

substantial reform can take place or be sustained if it lacks strong teaching work and corresponding infrastructure. As I have stated in Chapter 5, a total of six schools were chosen for my investigation, schools which exhibit two sets of contrasting features within Liaoning Province. There are five schools in Site A, as schools in this site tend to have between three and five teachers working in EFL. Such a small number in any one school is inadequate for my research needs in relation to data collection. One school constitutes Site B, as it employs more than 20 teachers in the

EFL field, which provides me with a suitable range of teacher experience to explore. Inviting between three and five teachers from a total of five schools in Site A has provided me with a similar range of experience as that of teachers in site B. Since the infrastructures of all five schools in Site A are similar, I have considered issues of infrastructure as they apply to the Site A schools as a whole, while using one school in Site B.

The schools in Site A are located in the mountainous area of a less developed region in Liaoning Province. The Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of

China has experienced a number of amendments since its promulgation in 1986

(Wei, 2008). The current EFL curriculum reform began to be implemented

throughout the whole country in 2001. The latest policies make it clear that that the central and provincial governments are expected to take up the main responsibility for rural compulsory education (Wei, 2008). The policies have brought about a number of changes in these rural schools, including the reconstruction of school buildings and shifting from broken sheds or huts in which children had been schooled up until then. Some of the schools in rural or less developed regions have been equipped with teaching and learning facilities such as computers, tape

recorders, wall maps and supplementary teaching and learning materials. Such efforts have been aimed at narrowing the quality gap between rural and urban education provision and pursuing equity in education, which is also the focus of the current curriculum reform in Chinese secondary schools (Ministry of Education, 1998).

Despite such policies and their implementation, my research has indicated that there are still some problems regarding quality gaps and equity in education provision in some rural or less developed regions, particularly in North East China such as in Site A. I have come to this conclusion by examining participant EFL teachers’ experience, which indicates that the infrastructures of their schools have been improved to some degree in consequence of government policies. Nonetheless, they still have inadequate facilities, with cassette recorders and tapes being the only provision of support for their language teaching on top of basic items such as classrooms, blackboards, chalk, and students’ stationery and textbooks. These schools cannot afford to provide for themselves modern technological facilities

such as computers or laptops, computer software, video projectors or other such equipment. The majority of EFL teachers in the questionnaire state that they only have cassette recorders and tapes, and no other facilities, not even wall maps. Teachers in Site A indicate that their schools have no other financial sources beyond what they receive by way of government support. They accordingly have no sister school or exchange programs with overseas countries because of financial problems and their locations.

Interview data have further confirmed this point, as Jiang says:

Our EFL teachers still do not have enough facilities, and they don’t even have wall maps. At the moment, teachers only have one tape-recorder and sometimes cannot get the relevant tapes either.

This EFL teacher considers that although the governments in this region have endeavoured to improve the conditions of rural schools, and in the mountainous ones in particular, they still lack adequate facilities for teaching and learning. Her experience of inadequate facilities is at odds with documented teaching and learning strategies to be used to support EFL curriculum reform, which focus on encouraging teachers to integrate information technology with teaching and learning (Huang, 2004; Ministry of Education, 2001a). It is a comment that recurs in the interview data from Site A. It is also in accordance with a Chinese proverb: One can't make bricks without straw.

In the process of conducting data collection in Site A, I have been informed by teachers that their schools have not developed relationships with any other schools in any other countries. This, they say, is because of their remote location not making their schools attractive options to possible English-speaking exchange students. Their financial disadvantage has also meant that the schools themselves do not present as attractive propositions to such students. Aside from this, there is no money to send teachers or students to other countries for the sorts of exchanges envisaged in the Outline.

The school in Site B is located in a developed coastal city in Liaoning Province, and it is one of the key schools in this region. This school is a newly-established one which possesses what the teachers consider to be adequate facilities for teaching and learning, where each classroom is equipped with a whole set of modern teaching facilities such as a computer, a large-screen projector, and a television set. Most of the teachers in this school have a computer each, and relevant software, as well as the teaching materials they require to implement the current EFL curriculum reform. According to these EFL teachers, this school can provide almost everything required for teaching and learning in their field. The school has also developed sister school or exchange relationships with a number of secondary schools in other countries such as the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Korea, Singapore, and Japan. Because of this, teachers and students have opportunities to go abroad for exchange studies, suggesting that they have more opportunities to communicate and interact with foreign students and teachers than those in Site A. It is a school that has created an appropriate environment for EFL teaching and learning as outlined in the current EFL curriculum reform.

During the interviews, almost none of the EFL teachers in Site B talked about inadequate facilities as influencing their teaching. The funding for this school is not only obtained from Central and Provincial Governments, but also from a number of sponsors in the form of parents and companies. Historically, the schools in this region receive strong support from parents’ committees, especially for upgrading necessary education resources. Such infrastructure in this school provides a strong and stable basis for EFL teachers to implement the current EFL curriculum reform in their school. Interview data represents an impressive image of the school, which is different from that from Site A.

A comparison of the schools in both sites based on participant EFL teachers’ stated experience of them has provided a general picture of infrastructure across both sites. Participants’ descriptions of their experience in Site A indicate that they are

provided with inadequate teaching facilities and no officially supported opportunities for travel experience abroad. Such problems relate to these five schools’ location in less developed regions of North East China and being short of adequate financial support as they depend entirely on what support is provided by