Chinese EFL teachers’ cognition about the potential of SFL genre-based pedagogy for teaching College English writing: A case study at a university in China

In China, there is increasing concern that, although developing students’ overall communicative competence has been the central goal of the current College English curriculum requirements (CECR) since 2004, this important goal has remained largely unfulfilled. This failure may be directly attributed to the lack of specification provided in the CECR as to how to support students to develop their writing skills (J. Gao & Huang, 2010), particularly within a communicative language teaching (CLT) framework. Another reason that may explain the insufficient fulfilment of the CECR is teachers’ beliefs about effective ways of teaching writing. According to Fullan (2001), achieving any successful curriculum innovation requires at least two essential components, comprising their pedagogical assumptions (e.g. beliefs) and teaching approaches (e.g. pedagogical assumptions underlying the new curriculum). However, the extent to which Chinese EFL teachers perceive CLT as the goal of the curriculum innovation, and the role of writing instruction within this curriculum, has not been sufficiently investigated in the context of applying College English curriculum innovation. Providing teachers with an effective approach for teaching writing in the CECR, and examining their beliefs regarding its implementation, appears to be a critical step in enhancing students’ overall communicative competence