Communicative language teaching (CLT) has been extensively discussed and researched, especially in an English as a second language (ESL) context. Some literature has also explored the adaptation of CLT in English as a foreign language (EFL) environments, such as in Asian countries like China. No research, however, has been conducted with consideration given to a specific group of teachers who teach non-English major students at the tertiary level in China. The present study was designed to investigate Chinese university teachers' perception of the implementation of CLT in non-English major programs in China. / This study first differentiates ESL and EFL environments, and then distinguishes the characteristics of CLT and of the traditional Chinese teaching methodology. Second, this study examines how the implementation of CLT is perceived by the university teachers of non-English major programs and whether there exist some constraints that impede the implementation of CLT at the tertiary level in China. / The results show that the adaptation of CLT to the Chinese context is welcomed by university teachers of non-English major programs. However, in the implementation of CLT in the teaching of non-English major students, there are difficulties arising from four directions, namely, the educational system, the EFL context, the cultural tradition, and the students. The results suggest that only by overcoming the difficulties from those four sources and by creating more favorable conditions for the implementation of CLT can teachers of non-English major programs in China implement CLT in their daily teaching practice.

Cloze procedure involves the skills of thinking, understanding , reading and writing based on the learners underlying knowledge of reading comprehension and writing subskills such as grammar and sentence construction. It is regarded as a very efficient test for measuring students integrative competence in English, and has been used in most of the important English tests in China. It is also used as a teaching instrument to help students to improve their reading competence. However, a majority of students perform poorly in cloze tests and they regard it as the most difficult and most unpopular part of the English test. The aim of this study was to find out the problem that Chinese students have with cloze tests and to determine whether they are associated with the inefficient use of reading strategies.

As is widely known, Japanese and Chinese not only share the common logo graphic orthography called ???kanji??? or ???hanzi??? respectively, but also share a number of kanji compounds as cognates, many of which share the same or similar meaning. The major objective of this dissertation is to investigate the roles of transfer and the difficulty in Chinese background learners??? (CBLs???) use and acquisition of Japanese kanji compounds and kanji words. In particular, under what condition and how CBLs transfer Chinese words into Japanese counterparts is investigated. The results of a lexicality judgement test, an oral production test, and a translation test showed that acquisition of partially deceptive cognates, which share the same orthography with partly the same and partly different meanings, was often prolonged. It was also found that the difficulty of acquisition of partially deceptive cognates varied according to their cross-linguistic semantic condition and task type. In the oral production test, CBLs frequently used L1 words by adapting them into L2 phonology both successfully and unsuccessfully when they had no prior knowledge of the L2 counterparts. In addition, negative transfer was detected even when CBLs had a correct knowledge of the L2 word. The results of the translation test revealed that CBLs are liable to misinterpret the meaning of partially deceptive cognates when one of their meanings happens to make sense within the context. Additionally, it is suggested that CBLs might create different types of interlanguage depending upon the cross-linguistic semantic condition and relative frequency of the L2 input for each meaning of the partially deceptive cognates. The transferability of polysemy was found to be constrained by prototype condition, learners??? existing L2 knowledge, and task type. While transferability correlated well with the perceived prototypicality of the L1 items in CBLs??? oral production, transfer was also at work for the less prototypical items in their comprehension task. The findings indicate that the transferability of Chinese words into their Japanese counterparts is constrained by multiple factors. Further, both positive and negative transfer influence CBLs??? production, comprehension, and interlanguage construction of Japanese vocabulary in a complex manner.

Magister Educationis - MEd / Cloze procedure involves the skills of thinking, understanding , reading and writing based on the learners underlying knowledge of reading comprehension and writing subskills such as grammar and sentence construction. It is regarded as a very efficient test for measuring students integrative competence in English, and has been used in most of the important English tests in China. It is also used as a teaching instrument to help students to improve their reading competence. However, a majority of students perform poorly in cloze tests and they regard it as the most difficult and most unpopular part of the English test. The aim of this study was to find out the problem that Chinese students have with cloze tests and to determine whether they are associated with the inefficient use of reading strategies. / South Africa

The purpose of this study was to examine script effects of the Chinese Language on Chinese ESL/EFL students· reading strategies, in comparison to those employed by ESL students from alphabetic orthographic backgrounds.

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Cohesion and coherence are important features for effective writing. Studies in contrastive rhetoric and text linguistics suggest that cohesion and coherence may vary across languages and cultures. This study examined cohesion and coherence features of Chinese ESL writings, explored the similarities and the differences between Chinese and English, and investigated the role of language transfer and interference in Chinese ESL writings. Four Chinese graduate students each composed two expository essays in English and two in Chinese and their writing sessions were videotaped. Essays were scrutinized for cohesion and coherence features, and along with transcripts, interviews and observations, they were examined for evidence of transfers and interferences. Findings indicate that the Chinese language depends more on lexical ties and similarities of structures whereas English employs more connectors. References in Chinese often take the form of lexical repetition and sometimes zero anaphora while English uses more pronouns and deictics. In addition, more ellipses are utilized in Chinese. Coherence features show that Chinese essays are more implicit and general while English writings emphasize explicitness with thesis statements and topic sentences. Chinese writings are writer-centered, and demand more of the reader to make sense of the text. Interferences and transfers were identified. Students were unable to use a variety of connectors that English offers in their own writings and often connections were missing and sometimes misleading. They occasionally failed to mark sentence boundaries; their essays often lacked a clearly defined thesis; and topic sentences were rarely used. The discussion was general, implicit, and writer-centered. / Ed. D.

Hu, Jingjing. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2013. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 257-270). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstracts also in Chinese.