Power relations in the enactment of English language education policy for Chinese schools

ABSTRACT

The scale of English language education in China is astounding, but recent research has shown that the latest national English education policy for Chinese schools has not been implemented successfully due to various reasons. One reason given for the lack of success is the impracticability of the top-down policy itself excluding teachers’ involvement and neglecting the contextual constraints. Building on the theoretical framework of multi-levelled actors in language planning and language policy, and drawing on some key concepts in relation to power in Critical Language Policy research, this paper explores how a national English language curriculum that emphasizes the international standards and norms in curriculum design has been enacted, ineffectively, by the key stakeholders through analysing the specific roles of three groups of key stakeholders involved in the English as a foreign language curriculum policy implementation.

KEYWORDS:

• English language education policy
• multi-level actors
• power relations
• Critical Language Policy
• curriculum enactment
• Chinese schools

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 See, for example, Adamson (2004) for a history of English education in China; Hu (2007) and Li (2007) for information about the EFL policy of making English as a compulsory subject in Chinese primary schools starting from 2001.

2 See, for example, Adamson (2004) and Wang and Lam (2009) for a brief history of the English language curriculum reforms for Chinese schools.

3 Shanghai achieved a successful performance in the Programme for International Student Assessment by emerging top among 65 participating countries in all 3 categories. One reason that was emphasized in Tan's (2013) book was that the education reform in Shanghai District was western-based in terms of teacher teaching, but the examinations were more practice-oriented and schools were given more autonomy to experiment with school-based curriculum design although they insisted on the high-stake examination to protect education quality.