Translating policies into practice: the role of middle-level administrators in language curriculum implementation

Abstract

This study explores middle-level administrators' perceptions of the implementation of English as a foreign language curriculum policies in the Chinese tertiary context. Drawing on data collected from interviews with the department heads of six universities in a north-western city in China, the article examines their perspectives on the national language policies and their roles in ensuring the implementation of these policies. The findings revealed a discrepancy between policy-makers' intentions and administrators' implementation. Policy-makers designed general, open-ended and abstract policies to offer local universities some flexibility and autonomy in their delivery. However, administrators as intermediary individuals interpreted the open-endedness of the curriculum policies in a different way than the policy-makers had intended. Instead of using the built-in flexibility to tailor methods of helping students to gain proficiency, they placed their emphasis on only one outcome – students' good scores on the national English test. The findings of this study point to the critical role that the department heads as middle-level administrators must play in translating policies into practice, as well as underscoring the need for them to provide the necessary motivation and resources for the implementation to occur. These findings are relevant not only in the Chinese context, but also in other educational systems, as language curricula share commonalities in other ESL and EFL countries, which can learn useful lessons from the current study.

Keywords:

• China
• curriculum policies
• implementation
• middle-level administrators

Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Fellowships, Ontario Graduate Scholarship (OGS), Walter F. Light Graduate Fellowships, Queen's Graduate Award and the Elliott/Upitis Travel Fellowships. I would like to thank Drs Liying Cheng, Ruth Rees and Lyn Shulha for their assistance in providing me with constructive feedback.

Notes

1. The ranking of Chinese universities is considered to be semi-official, and is based on student populations, enrolment, research, teaching capacity, etc.

2. I interviewed four national policy-makers from Syllabus, Textbook and Testing Teams in order to gain a perspective on the over-arching policies (see Appendix 2 for the interview data).

3. Abbreviations in this section stand for: AD for administrator; IN for interview; 01 for the first university and 02 for the second university; LU for large university; MU for medium university; SU for small university; 01 for page number in interview transcripts.