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System 30 (2002) 85–105 http://www.77cn.com.cn/locate/system

Chinese students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classroom Zhenhui Rao

School of Education, University of South Australia, Holbrooks Road, Underdale, South Australia, 5032,

Australia Received 30 October 2000; received in revised form 23 June 2001;

accepted 28 August 2001

Abstract

This article reports the views of 30 Chinese university students on the appropriateness and effectiveness of communicative and non-communicative activities in their English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) courses in China. Using multimethod, qualitative research procedures, the researcher discovered that the perceptions of these students sometimes surprised their teachers, and that the students’ perceived difficulties caused by Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) had their source in the differences between the underlying educational theories of China and those of Western countries. The results suggest that, to update English teaching methods, EFL countries like China need to modernize, not westernize, English teaching; that is, to combine the ‘‘new’’ with the ‘‘old’’ to align the communicative approach with traditional teaching structures. It is apparent from the study that only by reconciling com-municative activities with non-communicative activities in English

classrooms can students in non-English speaking countries benefit from CLT. # 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Chinese students; EFL learners; Perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities; Learner behaviour; CLT; Difficulties in adopting CLT; Traditional teaching methods; Teaching English in China; Education settings; Culture

E-mail address: raozy001@students.unisa.edu.au (Z. Rao).

0346-251X/02/$ - see front matter # 2002 Elsevier Science

Ltd. All rights reserved. PII: S0346 - 251X(01)00050 - 1

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1. Introduction Z. Rao / System 30 (2002) 85–105

Recent attempts to introduce CLT into EFL teaching in China have provoked a great deal of comment and debate. Whereas some accounts have emphasized the value of adopting CLT in China (e.g. Li, 1984; Maley, 1984; Spenser, 1986), others have noted the importance of Chinese traditional ways of teaching and learning (e.g. Harvey, 1985; Ting, 1987; Sampson, 1990). However, the majority of accounts have focused on the need to adapt CLT to the demands and conditions for language learning and teaching in China (e.g. Scovel, 1983; Anderson, 1993; Rao, 1996).

Within this heated debate on English teaching methodology, the study of Chinese students’ response to CLT deserves particular attention. Do they enjoy activities involving communication and real use of language? Are they receptive to the teaching techniques that may be new to them? Do they agree that real-language activities emphasizing language content are more effective than non-communicative activities that stress formal correction? Do they believe that such activities are helpful to them as language learners?

With these questions in mind, researchers and English teachers have conducted extensive studies on Chinese students’ learning strategies. Most of these studies revealed that Chinese students’ learning strategies consisted of many of the following features: concentration on intensive reading as a basis for language study; a preoccupation with the careful, often painstaking examination of grammatical structure and a corresponding lack of attention to more communicative skills; the use of memorization and rote learning as a basic acquisition technique; a strong

emphasis on the correction of mistakes, both written and oral; the use of translation as a learning strategy (Maley, 1983; Scovel, 1983; Barlow and Lowe, 1985; Harvey, 1985). One exception this researcher has found in literature is a recent study made by Littlewood (2000), in which he discovered that ‘‘the stereotype of Asian students as ‘obedient lis-teners’—whether or not it is a reflection of their actual behaviour in class—does not reflect the role they would like to adopt in class’’ (Littlewood, 2000, p. 33).

All these research reports of Chinese students’ learning strategies in EFL learning, except Littlewood’s, have generally been based on anecdotal evidence and the intuitive sense of teachers and researchers. This sort of evidence can be valuable, but it is surprising that almost nobody seems to have actually asked Chinese students themselves to rate the extent to which they enjoy communicative and non-communicative activities. Recent researches have shown that the perceptions of teachers and their students do not always match (e.g. Kumaravadivelu, 1991; Block, 1994). Block (1994, 1996), for example, has found that ‘‘teachers and learners operate according to quite different systems for describing and attributing purpose to tasks’’ (1994, p. 473). Block’s findings are supported by Nunan’s study (1986), in which he found clear mismatches between learners’ and teachers’ opinions about which activities were important in the learning process.

In order to deepen our understanding of how students react to communicative and non-communicative activities, Barkhuizen (1998, p.

86) has called for ‘‘teachers to discover their learners’ feelings and beliefs about their language learning experiences and consequently to review and possibly change their teaching process’’. For this

Z. Rao / System 30 (2002) 85–105 87

reason, I undertook a case study of Chinese university students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in the English classroom. While this study was based on the studies previously done in second-language settings, there was a shift in focus to a foreign-language context. Next, by directly involving the students in the study, I explored their personal feelings and beliefs in English learning. Finally, I discussed the implication of the findings for EFL teachers in the Chinese context, as well as for those teachers who may share the same characteristics of English teaching worldwide.

2. Defining characteristics of CLT

There is considerable debate as to appropriate ways of defining CLT, and no single model of CLT is universally accepted as authoritative (McGroarty, 1984; Mar-kee, 1997). However, according to Richards and Rodgers (1986), CLT starts with a theory of language as communication, and its goal is to develop learners’ communicative competence.

CLT consists of a strong version and a weak version. The strong version of communicative teaching, according to Holliday (1994), advances the claim that it is not merely a question of activating an existing but inert knowledge of the language, but of stimulating the development of language itself. The weak version emphasizes the importance of providing learners with opportunities to use their English for communicative purposes and, characteristically, attempts to integrate such activities into a wider program of language teaching. Howatt (1984, p. 279) describes the former as ‘‘using English to learn it’’ and the latter as ‘‘learning to use English’’. What I must stress here is that

characteristics of CLT to be described below reflect only the definition of the weak version of CLT, which has become more or less standard practice in China in the past two decades.

The most obvious characteristic of CLT, according to Larsen-Freeman (1986, p. 132), is that ‘‘almost everything that is done is done with a communicative intent’’. In CLT, meaning is paramount. There are a variety of communicative activities (e.g. games, role plays, simulations, and problem-solving tasks), which give students an opportunity to practice communicating meaningfully in different contexts and in different roles. In the process of the performance of these activities, students’ native language is avoided and error correction may be infrequent or absent.

Another characteristic of CLT is that ‘‘activities in the Communicative Approach are often carried out by students in small groups’’ (Larsen-Freeman, 1986, p. 132). Students are expected to interact with each other in order to maximize the time allotted to each student for learning to negotiate meaning. Through these small group activities, the students are engaged in meaningful and authentic language use rather than in the merely mechanical practice of language patterns. Furthermore, CLT favors the introduction of authentic materials (Larsen-Freeman, 1986; Dubin, 1995; Widdowson, 1996). It is considered desirable to give learners the opportunity to develop strategies for understanding language as it is actually used by native speakers (Canale and Swain, 1980).

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Z. Rao / System 30 (2002) 85–105

The final characteristic of CLT is ‘‘its learner-centered and experience-based view of second language teaching’’ (Richards and Rodgers, 1986, p. 69). In CLT, classroom performance is managed not just by the teacher, but by all present. Teachers are not seen only as teachers, learners simply as learners, because both are, for good or ill, managers of learning (Allwright, 1984). Instead of being the dominating authority in the classroom, one primary role for the teacher is to facilitate the communicative process in the classroom where students feel secure, unthreatened and non-defensive.

3. The study

The study reported here used a case study approach to investigate Chinese stu-dents’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in EFL classroom.

3.1. Background: CLT in China

The last decades bear witness that China’s modernization program needs thou-sands of people with a working command of English. Realizing that the traditional grammar-translation method and audiolingual method could not help much to develop learners’ communicative competence, EFL teachers in China started introducing CLT into English teaching at both the secondary school level and tertiary level in the early 1980s. In most schools, students are encouraged, from the very beginning of English learning, to develop communicative competence through meaningful drills and communicative activities.

Accompanying the introduction of CLT was the publication of a series of new textbooks. Various kinds of English textbooks are now available to English teachers, who are free to choose any set provided that the whole school adopts it. The new textbooks incorporate a communicative perspective and more listening and speaking materials and activities relative to the older ones.

Nevertheless, the outcome of teaching English exclusively using CLT did not provide the expected results. On the one hand, students did not like to participate in communicative-type activities and preferred more traditional classroom work; on the other hand, teachers felt discouraged from continuing with CLT, both because of students’ negative responses and because of their lack of training in using CLT and low English proficiency. What is responsible for this phenomenon? Is CLT a viable approach for EFL teaching in China? To answer these questions, I investi-gated Chinese students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in the EFL classroom. Specifically, the study attempted to answer the fol-lowing questions:

1. What are the students’ perceptions of communicative and non-communicative activities in the EFL classroom; and

2. What are their perceived difficulties in an EFL class exclusively conducted by a teacher using CLT?

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