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English as a foreign language curriculum reform in China : A Study in reconstructionism

  • Authors: Zeegers, Margaret , Zhang, Xiaohong
  • Date: 2016
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: Spotlight on China changes in education under China's market economy Chapter 4 p. 53-66
  • Full Text: false
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  • Description: China has experienced a number of reforms in EFL teaching and learning since 1949, when The People’s Republic of China was established after years of struggle between the losing Chiang Kai Shek Nationalists and the winning Mao Zedong Communist forces. Given the association of the English language with the western imperialism that China had just fought so hard against, competence in English was regarded as unpatriotic. A number of English-speaking countries, notably the United States of America (USA) insisting on a strong support of the Nationalist Party which had fled to Taiwan in 1949, did not recognise China. Indeed, the new Chinese government had its own concerns with illiteracy in mother tongues, at the time around 80% (Dietrich, 1986; Ministry of Education, 2002; Yang, 2010). English was hardly a priority for government then, although it had been in schools since the 19th century, the result of China’s encounters with the west at that time (Wang & Gao, 2008). Having eschewed all things western in 1949, the authorities took up Soviet models to inform their activities, receiving economic aid from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) (Yang, 2010). After the enormous upheavals of the revolution itself, China was in a period of reconstruction. The strong political influence of the relationship with the USSR on China’s foreign language education meant that Russian became the dominant foreign language taught throughout the country, with English removed from the secondary curriculum (Hu, 2002). Turning its attention to education, China found itself faced with problems that could be addressed through reconstructionism.

Generic skills training

How do I fault thee? Discursive practices on western higher education studies and the construction of international student subjectivities

  • Authors: Zeegers, Margaret , Barron, Deirdre
  • Date: 2011
  • Type: Text , Book chapter
  • Relation: Progress in Education p. 31-52
  • Full Text: false
  • Reviewed:
  • Description: In this chapter we focus on discursive practices of research higher degree supervision as crucial elements in constructs of international student subjectivities when undertaking studies in Australian universities. We position our discussion within an Australian context, but we would argue that the issues we raise regarding the supervision of such students are applicable to other western English-speaking countries that attract international Higher Degree Research students. In doing so, we focus on discursive fields emerging within domains of internationalization, globalization, and resistance. We examine processes and protocols in a number of Australian universities postgraduate divisions’ practices in the conduct of research higher degree supervision—in the context of increasing pressures towards internationalization within frameworks of globalizing influences. We take issue with western custom and tradition as privileged within the field of supervision of research higher degree students. We suggest variations of supervision of International candidates as intentional and systematic interventions, based on literature deriving from existing research of supervision which acknowledges the problematic natures of cultural relationships in relation to teaching, learning, and knowledge production, and student resistance within these fields. We examine issues of discursive practices and the problematic natures of power relationships in supervisor/supervisee protocols and possibilities suggested by alternative models of higher degree by research supervision of international students.
  • Description: 2003009323

Lessons from the other: What may be learned from Papua New Guinea's teacher training programmes

Making the familiar strange to pre-service teachers – practicum as ethnography

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