Teaching English for Research Publication Purposes in China: Development and challenges

Abstract

<p>The number of full-time R&D personnel in China has ranked first in the world since 2013, reaching 7.13 million in 2019. In the same year, China’s sci-tech expenditure hit 322 billion US dollars, 2.23% of GDP and second only to the U.S. in absolute expenditure. The continuous expansion of the pool of R&D talent and sci-tech expenditure has translated into the country’s scientific output, which overtook that of the U.S. for the first time in 2017. Recently, it was revealed that China has also topped the world in the number of most influential articles. In contrast to this overall success in international publishing, it has nevertheless been commonly observed that the quality of average Chinese graduate students’ paper drafts is unsatisfactory and that they rely heavily on their supervisors and other mediators to shape their papers into publishable form. The rise of ERPP at Chinese universities in recent years thus addresses an urgent need to develop future researchers’ writing and publishing skills.</p><p>Following an outline of the background, I will first introduce EAP-oriented curriculum reforms at Chinese universities, featuring a few cases of curriculum structures built on an EGAP-ESAP trajectory. I will then survey ERPP-oriented courses taught by language teachers, highlighting their use of various pedagogies and their endeavour to involve content teachers in cooperation. This will be followed by a brief examination of some ERPP instruction undertaken by content teachers in their disciplines, where the involvement of language teachers was visibly absent. </p><p>With a traditional focus on EGP and the English teachers who teach students across disciplines being accorded a relatively low status, a major gap in the Chinese context is the training and professional development of EAP/ERPP practitioners as teachers and teacher-researchers. I will note initiatives and challenges in this area and discuss how the Chinese case may have wider implications for other contexts.</p>