Chinese And Western Classroom Cultural Differences And Their Implications For ELT In China

The present thesis aims at exploring the classroom cultural differences in Chinese and Western educational context, and generating probable implications for English Language Teaching in China. A research, which is designed to gather comparable information concerning different classroom cultures, is carried out among teachers and students both at home and abroad. The research questions are designed to investigate teachers'and students'notions, attitudes, and beliefs in class. The findings of the case study reveal distinctive features of Chinese and Western classroom cultures. The differences are mainly presented from the following points: people's understanding of language teaching; opinions on effective class forms; understanding of questioning; students'behavior in class; instructional notions; expectations of good teacher and students.Based on the cultural phenomena concluded from the research, the theoretical analysis of the formation of different classroom cultures is presented from social, educational, and cultural aspects. In the meanwhile, meaningful implications are listed through analyzing popular language teaching methodologies, Grammar-Translation Method and Communicative Language Teaching, from cultural perspectives. Since language teaching methods are laden with different cultural values, classroom activities such as group discussion and presentation are recommended for their cultural traits meet the need of Chinese students'psychology.