Title Page
Contents
Abstract 15
1. INTRODUCTION 19
1.1. Background 19
1.1.1. English curriculum reforms in China's secondary education 21
1.1.2. Problems: a need for reform 23
1.2. Purpose 27
1.3. Research questions 29
1.4. Significance 29
1.5. Organization of the dissertation 32
2. LITERATURE REVIEW 33
2.1. Curriculum 33
2.1.1. Curriculum Standards 33
2.1.2. Curriculum and syllabus 36
2.2. The SHECS: a curriculum innovation 37
2.2.1. Towards core competencies 38
2.2.2. Aims and objectives 40
2.2.3. Content 44
2.2.4. Teaching approach 50
2.2.5. English teaching paradigms underlying the SHECS 53
2.3. Literature review on curriculum implementation 58
2.3.1. Models for examining implementation alignment 58
2.3.2. Textbooks in the implementation of curriculum innovation 65
2.3.3. Teachers in the implementation of curriculum innovation 70
2.3.4. Factors influencing the implementation 77
3. METHODOLOGY 80
3.1. Research design 80
3.1.1. Contexts 81
3.1.2. Conceptual framework 83
3.1.3. Triangulation 87
3.2. Research methodology 88
3.2.1. Textbook analysis 89
3.2.2. Questionnaire 95
3.2.3. Interview 105
4. FINDINGS FROM TEXTBOOK ANALYSIS 113
4.1. Macro-level analysis 113
4.2. Micro-level analysis 118
4.2.1. Themes 119
4.2.2. Text types 123
4.2.3. Language competence 126
4.2.4. Cultural knowledge 144
4.2.5. Learning ability/Learning strategies 151
4.2.6. Thinking capacity/Learning activities 162
5. FINDINGS FROM THE QUESTIONNAIRE 166
5.1. General descriptions 166
5.1.1. Perception & Receptivity (PR) subscale 167
5.1.2. Beliefs and Orientation (BO) subscale 171
5.1.3. Teaching Practice (TP) subscale 177
5.1.4. Resources and Support (RS) subscale 183
5.2. Differences among teachers 189
5.2.1. Age and gender differences 189
5.2.2. District differences and school type differences 192
5.2.3. Differences in teaching length and academic qualification 194
5.3. Correlation among dimensions 197
6. FINDINGS FROM THE INTERVIEWS 200
6.1. Teaching materials 200
6.1.1. Evaluation of the teaching materials 200
6.1.2. Use of other teaching materials 203
6.1.3. Teachers' interaction with textbooks 204
6.2. Teacher beliefs and practices 206
6.2.1. Mistaking textbooks with the SHECS 207
6.2.2. Limited understanding 208
6.2.3. Gao, Da, Shang 211
6.2.4. Insufficient practice of language skills 212
6.2.5. Complicated beliefs and practice 216
6.2.6. Cultivation of nonlanguage competence 221
6.3. Influencing factors 224
6.3.1. Factors of curriculum and innovation per se 224
6.3.2. Local factors 225
6.3.3. External factors 238
7. DISCUSSIONS 246
7.1. Research question 1 246
7.2. Research question 2 248
7.3. Research question 3 253
8. CONCLUSIONS 259
References 266
Appendices 291
Appendix A. Survey Questionnaire 291
Appendix B. Semi-Structured Interview Protocol 293
Appendix C. A Snapshot of Each Textbook 297
Abstract (Korean) 299
Table 2.1. English subject core competencies 43
Table 2.2. Comparison of curriculum contents 49
Table 2.3. Models for examining curriculum implementation 60
Table 2.4. Stages of concern 65
Table 2.5. A synthesis of impeding factors 79
Table 3.1. Triangulation types 88
Table 3.2. Questionnaire structure 98
Table 3.3. Demographic information 102
Table 3.4. Informants of the interviews 110
Table 4.1. Textbook organization of the required course 115
Table 4.2. Unit design of textbooks 118
Table 4.3. Content requirements for thematic contexts 119
Table 4.4. Content requirements for text types 124
Table 4.5. Text types in the textbooks 125
Table 4.6. Content requirements for phonetic knowledge 127
Table 4.7. Phonetic knowledge in the PEP 128
Table 4.8. Content requirements for vocabulary knowledge 131
Table 4.9. Content requirements for grammar knowledge 138
Table 4.10. Grammar knowledge in the textbooks 139
Table 4.11. Content requirements for pragmatic knowledge 143
Table 4.12. Content requirements for cultural knowledge 145
Table 4.13. Content Requirements of Learning Strategies 151
Table 4.14. Learning strategies in the textbooks (a. PEP b. FLTRP) 157
Table 5.1. Descriptive statistics for each dimension 167
Table 5.2. Mean and standard deviation of PR 171
Table 5.3. Mean and standard deviation of BO 177
Table 5.4. Mean and standard deviation of TP 183
Table 5.5. Mean and standard deviation of RS 186
Table 5.6. Mean and standard deviation of RA 189
Table 5.7. Differences between genders 190
Table 5.8. Differences among age groups 191
Table 5.9. Differences between JX and non-JX regions 193
Table 5.10. Differences between school types 194
Table 5.11. Differences between teaching lengths 195
Table 5.12. Academic qualification differences 196
Table 5.13. Correlations among five dimensions 197
Figure 2.1. English subject core competencies 41
Figure 2.2. Curriculum content 45
Figure 2.3. Activity-based teaching approach 52
Figure 2.4. RAND's model 62
Figure 2.5. The CBAM 64
Figure 3.1. Research framework 84
Figure 3.2. Textbook evaluation scheme 90
Figure 3.3. Cognitive levels between Bloom's taxonomy and the... 92
Figure 3.4. Regional distribution of the survey 100
Figure 4.1. Distribution of thematic contexts 122
Figure 4.2. Example of phonetic learning activities (B1U4; B3U1) 130
Figure 4.3. Example of vocabulary learning sources (B1U5; B1U4) 133
Figure 4.4. Vocabulary size in textbooks 136
Figure 4.5. Distribution of culture types 146
Figure 4.6. Cultural content in 4P dimensions 148
Figure 4.7. Metacognitive content in textbooks 154
Figure 5.2. Teachers' responses to BO subscale 174
Figure 5.3. Teachers' responses to TP subscale 181
Figure 5.4. Teachers' responses to RS subscale 185
Figure 5.5. Teachers' responses to RA subscale 188