301TESOL QUARTERLY Vol 38 No 2 Summer 2004

Technology and Curricular Reformin China A Case StudyXU FANGSchool of Foreign Languages Soochow UniversitySuzhou Peoplersquos Republic of China

MARK WARSCHAUERUniversity of California at IrvineIrvine California United States

This article reports on a 5-year study of a technology-enhanced educa-tional reform initiative at a university in eastern China A faculty teamattempted pedagogical and curricular reform to better prepare Englishmajors to use new technologies for international communicationcollaboration and research The team developed several project-basedcourses and incorporated technology into traditional lecture coursesWithin a broader study of the reform program two project-basedcourses were examined using participant observation interviews sur-veys and text analysis The project-based instruction improved learningprocesses and outcomes by increasing authentic interaction allowinglearners greater autonomy and providing content more relevant tostudentsrsquo lives and careers However few faculty were willing to teachproject-based courses because such instruction demands a great deal oftime and effort and because student-centered learning clashes withmore traditional norms and incentives in Chinese higher educationThe study concludes by assessing the reform effortrsquos overall gains andshortcomings and its implications for future educational restructuringin China

TESOL professionals around the world face challenges brought aboutby economic and technological changemdasha new international eco-

nomic order informationalism (Castells 2000) characterized in part byglobal English(es) changing employment patterns and diffusion of newtechnologies (Warschauer 2000) Nowhere are these changes occurringmore dramatically than in China which has one of the worldrsquos fastestgrowing economies and most rapidly changing societies After operatingas a closed society for decades China is quickly integrating with theworld economy at least in its industrialized eastern region Thesesocioeconomic developments have caused many Chinese educators to

302 TESOL QUARTERLY

question the countryrsquos traditional approach to English language instruc-tion which was meant to foster reading ability alone rather than two-wayoral and written communication Because so much of todayrsquos globalcommunication in English takes place in computer-mediated environ-ments language education reform efforts in China as elsewhere areintertwined with new ways of thinking about how to use technology ininstruction

Chinese educational reforms are seldom reported to the outsideworld but the studies that have appeared (eg Littlewood 1999Pennington amp Cheung 1993 1995) suggest that the communicationchannels and the social and cultural context often constrain educationalchange particularly at the level of individual classrooms and teachersThese findings help to frame the current study which examines thesocial and cultural context of an effort to introduce technology-enhancedproject-based learning to English classes at a Chinese university We firstpresent some requisite background information on English languageteaching and technology in China and then turn to a case study of twocourses within a larger higher education reform effort

TERTIARY ELT IN CHINA

A typical English major will enter a Chinese university with about 6years of experience studying English and will then follow a 4-year programthat provides foundational training in reading listening speaking andwriting in courses arranged by skill area (eg ldquoExtensive ReadingrdquoldquoEnglish Grammarrdquo ldquoOral Englishrdquo ldquoEnglish Compositionrdquo) Within thisprogram a core course called ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo appears to begeneral but in practice narrowly focuses on helping students understandwritten English

ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo is taught using traditional grammar-transla-tion methods (see Dzau 1990a) that require teachers to explain in detailword meaning and usage sentence formation and English grammarthe course also includes audiolingual methods that feature pseudocom-munication activities such as memorization and role-playing dialoguesThese methods fail to promote extensive reading skills and can evenhelp to fossilize poor reading styles thus hindering students from everreading efficiently (Li 1984) Because students are taught to focus oneach word in a text and to examine the text carefully for any unknowngrammatical phenomenon they often miss the thread of the argumentthe relationship between the parts of a text and the textrsquos main idea(Dzau 1990b p 83) And if Chinese studentsrsquo reading skills remainpoor their listening and speaking skills are usually weaker and theirwriting skills are the weakest because they do not use language for real

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 303

communicative purposes in ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo or any of theirother courses

These traditional teaching approaches are based on the notion thatlanguage learning involves a quantitative increase (liangbian) in knowl-edge Traditional wisdom suggests that memorizing the target languagersquosvocabulary and studying its grammar will automatically foster fluencyflexibility and appropriate use of language the final qualitative change(zhibian Dzau 1990a) This view holds that creativity will flow naturallyin time from discipline and proficiency in rote memorization so theteacher does not need to encourage it Even after learning language inthis way for a decade most English majors still experience starkpragmatic failure in authentic communication (see Yan amp He 1990)

Reforming ELT in China

Because China has recently entered the World Trade Organizationand plans to host the 2008 Summer Olympics it needs a more moderneducational system that prepares people to interact with a global societyGovernmental leaders educators and the public all believe that Englishlanguage proficiency combined with mastery of information technologycan facilitate interaction with the outside world and fortify Chinarsquos globalleadership Based on this belief the Chinese government has begun toemphasize both enhanced English language instruction and expandeduse of technology in education

As part of this effort the government recently announced that Englishinstruction in schools will now begin 3 years earlier in Grade 3 whenstudents are 9 years old As for educational technology the Chineseministry of education articulated a new education policy in the early1990s emphasizing networked education with the aim of connectingevery school to the Internet and integrating computers into the schoolcurriculum (Huang 2001) Educational units nationwide reacted to thismandate and by 2001 China had nearly 100000 elementary andsecondary schools that had integrated new technologies involving 50million students 3 million computers and 150000 computerized class-rooms (Huang 2001) A year earlier the China Education and ResearchNetwork (CERNET) reached a major milestone by linking every univer-sity in China to the Internet (Foster amp Goodman 2000) Along with thenational CERNET provincial and institutional language teaching andresearch networks have also helped to develop telecommunicationnetworks in higher education

Hence proponents of ELT curriculum reform have benefited fromsupportive governmental policies new national infrastructure and anincreasing use of computers in education Universities have the greatest

304 TESOL QUARTERLY

potential for carrying out technology-enhanced curricular and pedagogi-cal reform because they have advanced students and compared withprimary and secondary schools they have the best facilities and the best-trained instructors

Technology Benefits Reform

Using computers for communication research and project workprovides benefits such as increased interaction autonomous learningand perceived relevance (Barson Frommer amp Schwartz 1993 Kern1996 Soh amp Soon 1991 Tella 1991 for a review see Warschauer 1997)Computer-mediated communication helps learners by combining theinteractivity of speech with the permanence of writing Recording andarchiving othersrsquo words helps learners to notice internalize and adaptthem (Warschauer 1997 1999) an important aspect of second languageacquisition (Schmidt 1990 1993) In this case study we investigated theextent to which higher education in China benefited from computer-mediated project-based learning

METHODOLOGY

We conducted this study of a technology-enhanced ELT reformproject at a university in eastern China between 1998 and 2003 Thedesign incorporated an embedded case study model (Yin 2002) inwhich we selected two sections of revised courses for more focusedinvestigation within our broader study of the reform program Theguiding questions targeted aspects of teaching and learning in the classesas well as diffusion of the pedagogical innovations How did the reformprogram affect the English teaching materials and methods as well aslearning processes and outcomes What support existed for the reformeffort and what barriers or obstacles did it encounter

During the study the lead author was both an instructor and re-searcher within the reform project The second author a North Ameri-can professor and collaborator visited the school but did not work thereThis combination worked well The external researcherrsquos reflectiveoutsider perspective tempered the lead investigatorrsquos insider perspectiveand the internal researcher provided inside knowledge that helped toshape the outsiderrsquos conjectures

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 305

Site Participants and Courses

The study was carried out in the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) atJinhuang University ( JHU) a pseudonym (the name of the universityand names of participants have been changed for the sake of anonym-ity) The university is located in a wealthy area of eastern China in a cityemerging as an important technology center JHU a comprehensiveuniversity comprising six campuses with 40000 students is consideredone of Chinarsquos 100 elite universities and the government has funded itgenerously

A technology-enhanced educational reform project was launchedwithin the SFLrsquos English language program in 1997 The project aimedto prepare university English majors to use English for sophisticatedinternational communication collaboration and research in a variety ofacademic and professional settings To accomplish this task pedagogicaland curricular reforms de-emphasized rote memorization and insteadallowed students to conduct research projects communicate with otherstudents and scholars around the world and develop and publish newknowledge Reformers hoped that these changes would enable studentsnot only to develop their oral and written language skills but also tolearn to use new technologies to locate and evaluate information forinternational communication and research

During the 5-year study as many as three faculty members participateddirectly in the reform project teaching revised courses A larger groupcomprising between three and ten faculty members and representing asmuch as 22 of all faculty integrated new technology into instruction By2003 the studyrsquos last year more than 90 of undergraduates had takenat least one course that used technology in some way but only about 12were taking an explicitly revised course as seen in Table 1

TABLE 1

Computers and Participants

Number of Teachers Number of Students

InNumber In Using In Class(es)

Academic of Com- Reform Tech- Reform UsingYear puters Project nology Total Class(es) Technology Total

1998ndash1999 24 3 (75) 3 (75) 40 60 (102) 60 (102) 590

1999ndash2000 36 2 (47) 2 (47) 43 64 (87) 64 (87) 737

2000ndash2001 36 3 (65) 3 (65) 46 57 (74) 57 (74) 774

2001ndash2002 36 1 (21) 5 (104) 48 35 (46) 120 (157) 762

2002ndash2003 196 3 (67) 10 (222) 45 90 (123) 663 (907) 731

306 TESOL QUARTERLY

Two types of revised courses used new technologies which we havelabeled project-based revisions and add-on revisions (see Table 2) In theproject-based courses project-based learning became a major compo-nent of the course and students used technology to communicateconduct research and produce knowledge Among these was a newcourse established in 1998 ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo Stu-dents in this course learned how to use computers and the Internetmdashincluding writing e-mails searching the Web producing Web pages andauthoring PowerPoint presentations The course served as a technologi-cal aid to the other two revised project-based courses ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquo In addition the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse was partly revised so that in the Multimedia Group sections 30of the lesson time was devoted to project-based learning

The add-on courses maintained the fundamental teaching structurebut included technology as an instructional aid For example thelectures in ldquoGrammarrdquo were supported by PowerPoint slide showsldquoListeningrdquo incorporated news programs downloaded from the Internet

TABLE 2

Revised Courses

Project-based revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Internet for English Project-based Medium for communi- 1998ndash2003Learning ABC cation research and

knowledge productionEnglish for Tourism 1999ndash2001

Writing 2001ndash2002

Comprehensive English Project-based learning 1998ndash2003(30 of total lessontime)

Add-on revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Listening Downloading online Assistant instructional 1998ndash2003materials tool

Grammar Using PowerPoint in 2002ndash2003lectures

Extensive Reading Providing reading 2002ndash2003materials online

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 307

and other audio material and extracurricular reading materials forldquoExtensive Readingrdquo were posted on the course Web site

Both types of revised courses attempted to expand access to learningmaterials beyond those found in the textbook However because onlythe project-based revisions fundamentally changed the learning objec-tives and processes they are the main focus of our research We selectedtwo project-based courses for closer investigation a ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo section taught in 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo sectiontaught in 2000 We selected these sections because they providedvariation in both level of reform (one partially revised course and onecompletely revised course) and student tasks (long-distance collaborativewriting in one course and local student research and publication in theother) In these two sections the authors conducted more extensiveobservations and interviews and more thoroughly analyzed the studentwork and communications

Sources of Data

We examined a ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo class with 11 students fromApril to June 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class with 30 studentsfrom September 2000 to January 2001 Sources of data included partici-pant observation (in the two focus classes and in SFL staff meetingsweekly or biweekly in other revised classes once or twice per semester)informal interviews with students and student surveys (in the two focusclasses) analysis of student texts (eg student-student and student-teacher e-mail communications both in and outside class) and examina-tion of finished projects (eg final project Web page and PowerPointpresentation files student research reports and written self-evaluations)and other artifacts (eg SFL instructorsrsquo syllabi) From the ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo class we collected 474 incoming e-mails and 558 outgoinge-mails one class Web page and 11 written self-evaluations From theldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class we collected 30 student personal portfolios28 written self-evaluations and five group portfolios Each of the groupportfolios contained one group report and one group Web page andtwo portfolios contained PowerPoint slide shows Additional data camefrom extensive personal communications with SFL graduate and under-graduate student participants staff faculty members and administrators

Data Analysis

We analyzed data using ethnographic methods In particular we usedpattern matching (Miles amp Huberman 1994 Spradley 1980) to interpret

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

302 TESOL QUARTERLY

question the countryrsquos traditional approach to English language instruc-tion which was meant to foster reading ability alone rather than two-wayoral and written communication Because so much of todayrsquos globalcommunication in English takes place in computer-mediated environ-ments language education reform efforts in China as elsewhere areintertwined with new ways of thinking about how to use technology ininstruction

Chinese educational reforms are seldom reported to the outsideworld but the studies that have appeared (eg Littlewood 1999Pennington amp Cheung 1993 1995) suggest that the communicationchannels and the social and cultural context often constrain educationalchange particularly at the level of individual classrooms and teachersThese findings help to frame the current study which examines thesocial and cultural context of an effort to introduce technology-enhancedproject-based learning to English classes at a Chinese university We firstpresent some requisite background information on English languageteaching and technology in China and then turn to a case study of twocourses within a larger higher education reform effort

TERTIARY ELT IN CHINA

A typical English major will enter a Chinese university with about 6years of experience studying English and will then follow a 4-year programthat provides foundational training in reading listening speaking andwriting in courses arranged by skill area (eg ldquoExtensive ReadingrdquoldquoEnglish Grammarrdquo ldquoOral Englishrdquo ldquoEnglish Compositionrdquo) Within thisprogram a core course called ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo appears to begeneral but in practice narrowly focuses on helping students understandwritten English

ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo is taught using traditional grammar-transla-tion methods (see Dzau 1990a) that require teachers to explain in detailword meaning and usage sentence formation and English grammarthe course also includes audiolingual methods that feature pseudocom-munication activities such as memorization and role-playing dialoguesThese methods fail to promote extensive reading skills and can evenhelp to fossilize poor reading styles thus hindering students from everreading efficiently (Li 1984) Because students are taught to focus oneach word in a text and to examine the text carefully for any unknowngrammatical phenomenon they often miss the thread of the argumentthe relationship between the parts of a text and the textrsquos main idea(Dzau 1990b p 83) And if Chinese studentsrsquo reading skills remainpoor their listening and speaking skills are usually weaker and theirwriting skills are the weakest because they do not use language for real

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 303

communicative purposes in ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo or any of theirother courses

These traditional teaching approaches are based on the notion thatlanguage learning involves a quantitative increase (liangbian) in knowl-edge Traditional wisdom suggests that memorizing the target languagersquosvocabulary and studying its grammar will automatically foster fluencyflexibility and appropriate use of language the final qualitative change(zhibian Dzau 1990a) This view holds that creativity will flow naturallyin time from discipline and proficiency in rote memorization so theteacher does not need to encourage it Even after learning language inthis way for a decade most English majors still experience starkpragmatic failure in authentic communication (see Yan amp He 1990)

Reforming ELT in China

Because China has recently entered the World Trade Organizationand plans to host the 2008 Summer Olympics it needs a more moderneducational system that prepares people to interact with a global societyGovernmental leaders educators and the public all believe that Englishlanguage proficiency combined with mastery of information technologycan facilitate interaction with the outside world and fortify Chinarsquos globalleadership Based on this belief the Chinese government has begun toemphasize both enhanced English language instruction and expandeduse of technology in education

As part of this effort the government recently announced that Englishinstruction in schools will now begin 3 years earlier in Grade 3 whenstudents are 9 years old As for educational technology the Chineseministry of education articulated a new education policy in the early1990s emphasizing networked education with the aim of connectingevery school to the Internet and integrating computers into the schoolcurriculum (Huang 2001) Educational units nationwide reacted to thismandate and by 2001 China had nearly 100000 elementary andsecondary schools that had integrated new technologies involving 50million students 3 million computers and 150000 computerized class-rooms (Huang 2001) A year earlier the China Education and ResearchNetwork (CERNET) reached a major milestone by linking every univer-sity in China to the Internet (Foster amp Goodman 2000) Along with thenational CERNET provincial and institutional language teaching andresearch networks have also helped to develop telecommunicationnetworks in higher education

Hence proponents of ELT curriculum reform have benefited fromsupportive governmental policies new national infrastructure and anincreasing use of computers in education Universities have the greatest

304 TESOL QUARTERLY

potential for carrying out technology-enhanced curricular and pedagogi-cal reform because they have advanced students and compared withprimary and secondary schools they have the best facilities and the best-trained instructors

Technology Benefits Reform

Using computers for communication research and project workprovides benefits such as increased interaction autonomous learningand perceived relevance (Barson Frommer amp Schwartz 1993 Kern1996 Soh amp Soon 1991 Tella 1991 for a review see Warschauer 1997)Computer-mediated communication helps learners by combining theinteractivity of speech with the permanence of writing Recording andarchiving othersrsquo words helps learners to notice internalize and adaptthem (Warschauer 1997 1999) an important aspect of second languageacquisition (Schmidt 1990 1993) In this case study we investigated theextent to which higher education in China benefited from computer-mediated project-based learning

METHODOLOGY

We conducted this study of a technology-enhanced ELT reformproject at a university in eastern China between 1998 and 2003 Thedesign incorporated an embedded case study model (Yin 2002) inwhich we selected two sections of revised courses for more focusedinvestigation within our broader study of the reform program Theguiding questions targeted aspects of teaching and learning in the classesas well as diffusion of the pedagogical innovations How did the reformprogram affect the English teaching materials and methods as well aslearning processes and outcomes What support existed for the reformeffort and what barriers or obstacles did it encounter

During the study the lead author was both an instructor and re-searcher within the reform project The second author a North Ameri-can professor and collaborator visited the school but did not work thereThis combination worked well The external researcherrsquos reflectiveoutsider perspective tempered the lead investigatorrsquos insider perspectiveand the internal researcher provided inside knowledge that helped toshape the outsiderrsquos conjectures

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 305

Site Participants and Courses

The study was carried out in the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) atJinhuang University ( JHU) a pseudonym (the name of the universityand names of participants have been changed for the sake of anonym-ity) The university is located in a wealthy area of eastern China in a cityemerging as an important technology center JHU a comprehensiveuniversity comprising six campuses with 40000 students is consideredone of Chinarsquos 100 elite universities and the government has funded itgenerously

A technology-enhanced educational reform project was launchedwithin the SFLrsquos English language program in 1997 The project aimedto prepare university English majors to use English for sophisticatedinternational communication collaboration and research in a variety ofacademic and professional settings To accomplish this task pedagogicaland curricular reforms de-emphasized rote memorization and insteadallowed students to conduct research projects communicate with otherstudents and scholars around the world and develop and publish newknowledge Reformers hoped that these changes would enable studentsnot only to develop their oral and written language skills but also tolearn to use new technologies to locate and evaluate information forinternational communication and research

During the 5-year study as many as three faculty members participateddirectly in the reform project teaching revised courses A larger groupcomprising between three and ten faculty members and representing asmuch as 22 of all faculty integrated new technology into instruction By2003 the studyrsquos last year more than 90 of undergraduates had takenat least one course that used technology in some way but only about 12were taking an explicitly revised course as seen in Table 1

TABLE 1

Computers and Participants

Number of Teachers Number of Students

InNumber In Using In Class(es)

Academic of Com- Reform Tech- Reform UsingYear puters Project nology Total Class(es) Technology Total

1998ndash1999 24 3 (75) 3 (75) 40 60 (102) 60 (102) 590

1999ndash2000 36 2 (47) 2 (47) 43 64 (87) 64 (87) 737

2000ndash2001 36 3 (65) 3 (65) 46 57 (74) 57 (74) 774

2001ndash2002 36 1 (21) 5 (104) 48 35 (46) 120 (157) 762

2002ndash2003 196 3 (67) 10 (222) 45 90 (123) 663 (907) 731

306 TESOL QUARTERLY

Two types of revised courses used new technologies which we havelabeled project-based revisions and add-on revisions (see Table 2) In theproject-based courses project-based learning became a major compo-nent of the course and students used technology to communicateconduct research and produce knowledge Among these was a newcourse established in 1998 ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo Stu-dents in this course learned how to use computers and the Internetmdashincluding writing e-mails searching the Web producing Web pages andauthoring PowerPoint presentations The course served as a technologi-cal aid to the other two revised project-based courses ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquo In addition the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse was partly revised so that in the Multimedia Group sections 30of the lesson time was devoted to project-based learning

The add-on courses maintained the fundamental teaching structurebut included technology as an instructional aid For example thelectures in ldquoGrammarrdquo were supported by PowerPoint slide showsldquoListeningrdquo incorporated news programs downloaded from the Internet

TABLE 2

Revised Courses

Project-based revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Internet for English Project-based Medium for communi- 1998ndash2003Learning ABC cation research and

knowledge productionEnglish for Tourism 1999ndash2001

Writing 2001ndash2002

Comprehensive English Project-based learning 1998ndash2003(30 of total lessontime)

Add-on revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Listening Downloading online Assistant instructional 1998ndash2003materials tool

Grammar Using PowerPoint in 2002ndash2003lectures

Extensive Reading Providing reading 2002ndash2003materials online

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 307

and other audio material and extracurricular reading materials forldquoExtensive Readingrdquo were posted on the course Web site

Both types of revised courses attempted to expand access to learningmaterials beyond those found in the textbook However because onlythe project-based revisions fundamentally changed the learning objec-tives and processes they are the main focus of our research We selectedtwo project-based courses for closer investigation a ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo section taught in 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo sectiontaught in 2000 We selected these sections because they providedvariation in both level of reform (one partially revised course and onecompletely revised course) and student tasks (long-distance collaborativewriting in one course and local student research and publication in theother) In these two sections the authors conducted more extensiveobservations and interviews and more thoroughly analyzed the studentwork and communications

Sources of Data

We examined a ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo class with 11 students fromApril to June 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class with 30 studentsfrom September 2000 to January 2001 Sources of data included partici-pant observation (in the two focus classes and in SFL staff meetingsweekly or biweekly in other revised classes once or twice per semester)informal interviews with students and student surveys (in the two focusclasses) analysis of student texts (eg student-student and student-teacher e-mail communications both in and outside class) and examina-tion of finished projects (eg final project Web page and PowerPointpresentation files student research reports and written self-evaluations)and other artifacts (eg SFL instructorsrsquo syllabi) From the ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo class we collected 474 incoming e-mails and 558 outgoinge-mails one class Web page and 11 written self-evaluations From theldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class we collected 30 student personal portfolios28 written self-evaluations and five group portfolios Each of the groupportfolios contained one group report and one group Web page andtwo portfolios contained PowerPoint slide shows Additional data camefrom extensive personal communications with SFL graduate and under-graduate student participants staff faculty members and administrators

Data Analysis

We analyzed data using ethnographic methods In particular we usedpattern matching (Miles amp Huberman 1994 Spradley 1980) to interpret

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 303

communicative purposes in ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo or any of theirother courses

These traditional teaching approaches are based on the notion thatlanguage learning involves a quantitative increase (liangbian) in knowl-edge Traditional wisdom suggests that memorizing the target languagersquosvocabulary and studying its grammar will automatically foster fluencyflexibility and appropriate use of language the final qualitative change(zhibian Dzau 1990a) This view holds that creativity will flow naturallyin time from discipline and proficiency in rote memorization so theteacher does not need to encourage it Even after learning language inthis way for a decade most English majors still experience starkpragmatic failure in authentic communication (see Yan amp He 1990)

Reforming ELT in China

Because China has recently entered the World Trade Organizationand plans to host the 2008 Summer Olympics it needs a more moderneducational system that prepares people to interact with a global societyGovernmental leaders educators and the public all believe that Englishlanguage proficiency combined with mastery of information technologycan facilitate interaction with the outside world and fortify Chinarsquos globalleadership Based on this belief the Chinese government has begun toemphasize both enhanced English language instruction and expandeduse of technology in education

As part of this effort the government recently announced that Englishinstruction in schools will now begin 3 years earlier in Grade 3 whenstudents are 9 years old As for educational technology the Chineseministry of education articulated a new education policy in the early1990s emphasizing networked education with the aim of connectingevery school to the Internet and integrating computers into the schoolcurriculum (Huang 2001) Educational units nationwide reacted to thismandate and by 2001 China had nearly 100000 elementary andsecondary schools that had integrated new technologies involving 50million students 3 million computers and 150000 computerized class-rooms (Huang 2001) A year earlier the China Education and ResearchNetwork (CERNET) reached a major milestone by linking every univer-sity in China to the Internet (Foster amp Goodman 2000) Along with thenational CERNET provincial and institutional language teaching andresearch networks have also helped to develop telecommunicationnetworks in higher education

Hence proponents of ELT curriculum reform have benefited fromsupportive governmental policies new national infrastructure and anincreasing use of computers in education Universities have the greatest

304 TESOL QUARTERLY

potential for carrying out technology-enhanced curricular and pedagogi-cal reform because they have advanced students and compared withprimary and secondary schools they have the best facilities and the best-trained instructors

Technology Benefits Reform

Using computers for communication research and project workprovides benefits such as increased interaction autonomous learningand perceived relevance (Barson Frommer amp Schwartz 1993 Kern1996 Soh amp Soon 1991 Tella 1991 for a review see Warschauer 1997)Computer-mediated communication helps learners by combining theinteractivity of speech with the permanence of writing Recording andarchiving othersrsquo words helps learners to notice internalize and adaptthem (Warschauer 1997 1999) an important aspect of second languageacquisition (Schmidt 1990 1993) In this case study we investigated theextent to which higher education in China benefited from computer-mediated project-based learning

METHODOLOGY

We conducted this study of a technology-enhanced ELT reformproject at a university in eastern China between 1998 and 2003 Thedesign incorporated an embedded case study model (Yin 2002) inwhich we selected two sections of revised courses for more focusedinvestigation within our broader study of the reform program Theguiding questions targeted aspects of teaching and learning in the classesas well as diffusion of the pedagogical innovations How did the reformprogram affect the English teaching materials and methods as well aslearning processes and outcomes What support existed for the reformeffort and what barriers or obstacles did it encounter

During the study the lead author was both an instructor and re-searcher within the reform project The second author a North Ameri-can professor and collaborator visited the school but did not work thereThis combination worked well The external researcherrsquos reflectiveoutsider perspective tempered the lead investigatorrsquos insider perspectiveand the internal researcher provided inside knowledge that helped toshape the outsiderrsquos conjectures

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 305

Site Participants and Courses

The study was carried out in the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) atJinhuang University ( JHU) a pseudonym (the name of the universityand names of participants have been changed for the sake of anonym-ity) The university is located in a wealthy area of eastern China in a cityemerging as an important technology center JHU a comprehensiveuniversity comprising six campuses with 40000 students is consideredone of Chinarsquos 100 elite universities and the government has funded itgenerously

A technology-enhanced educational reform project was launchedwithin the SFLrsquos English language program in 1997 The project aimedto prepare university English majors to use English for sophisticatedinternational communication collaboration and research in a variety ofacademic and professional settings To accomplish this task pedagogicaland curricular reforms de-emphasized rote memorization and insteadallowed students to conduct research projects communicate with otherstudents and scholars around the world and develop and publish newknowledge Reformers hoped that these changes would enable studentsnot only to develop their oral and written language skills but also tolearn to use new technologies to locate and evaluate information forinternational communication and research

During the 5-year study as many as three faculty members participateddirectly in the reform project teaching revised courses A larger groupcomprising between three and ten faculty members and representing asmuch as 22 of all faculty integrated new technology into instruction By2003 the studyrsquos last year more than 90 of undergraduates had takenat least one course that used technology in some way but only about 12were taking an explicitly revised course as seen in Table 1

TABLE 1

Computers and Participants

Number of Teachers Number of Students

InNumber In Using In Class(es)

Academic of Com- Reform Tech- Reform UsingYear puters Project nology Total Class(es) Technology Total

1998ndash1999 24 3 (75) 3 (75) 40 60 (102) 60 (102) 590

1999ndash2000 36 2 (47) 2 (47) 43 64 (87) 64 (87) 737

2000ndash2001 36 3 (65) 3 (65) 46 57 (74) 57 (74) 774

2001ndash2002 36 1 (21) 5 (104) 48 35 (46) 120 (157) 762

2002ndash2003 196 3 (67) 10 (222) 45 90 (123) 663 (907) 731

306 TESOL QUARTERLY

Two types of revised courses used new technologies which we havelabeled project-based revisions and add-on revisions (see Table 2) In theproject-based courses project-based learning became a major compo-nent of the course and students used technology to communicateconduct research and produce knowledge Among these was a newcourse established in 1998 ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo Stu-dents in this course learned how to use computers and the Internetmdashincluding writing e-mails searching the Web producing Web pages andauthoring PowerPoint presentations The course served as a technologi-cal aid to the other two revised project-based courses ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquo In addition the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse was partly revised so that in the Multimedia Group sections 30of the lesson time was devoted to project-based learning

The add-on courses maintained the fundamental teaching structurebut included technology as an instructional aid For example thelectures in ldquoGrammarrdquo were supported by PowerPoint slide showsldquoListeningrdquo incorporated news programs downloaded from the Internet

TABLE 2

Revised Courses

Project-based revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Internet for English Project-based Medium for communi- 1998ndash2003Learning ABC cation research and

knowledge productionEnglish for Tourism 1999ndash2001

Writing 2001ndash2002

Comprehensive English Project-based learning 1998ndash2003(30 of total lessontime)

Add-on revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Listening Downloading online Assistant instructional 1998ndash2003materials tool

Grammar Using PowerPoint in 2002ndash2003lectures

Extensive Reading Providing reading 2002ndash2003materials online

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 307

and other audio material and extracurricular reading materials forldquoExtensive Readingrdquo were posted on the course Web site

Both types of revised courses attempted to expand access to learningmaterials beyond those found in the textbook However because onlythe project-based revisions fundamentally changed the learning objec-tives and processes they are the main focus of our research We selectedtwo project-based courses for closer investigation a ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo section taught in 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo sectiontaught in 2000 We selected these sections because they providedvariation in both level of reform (one partially revised course and onecompletely revised course) and student tasks (long-distance collaborativewriting in one course and local student research and publication in theother) In these two sections the authors conducted more extensiveobservations and interviews and more thoroughly analyzed the studentwork and communications

Sources of Data

We examined a ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo class with 11 students fromApril to June 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class with 30 studentsfrom September 2000 to January 2001 Sources of data included partici-pant observation (in the two focus classes and in SFL staff meetingsweekly or biweekly in other revised classes once or twice per semester)informal interviews with students and student surveys (in the two focusclasses) analysis of student texts (eg student-student and student-teacher e-mail communications both in and outside class) and examina-tion of finished projects (eg final project Web page and PowerPointpresentation files student research reports and written self-evaluations)and other artifacts (eg SFL instructorsrsquo syllabi) From the ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo class we collected 474 incoming e-mails and 558 outgoinge-mails one class Web page and 11 written self-evaluations From theldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class we collected 30 student personal portfolios28 written self-evaluations and five group portfolios Each of the groupportfolios contained one group report and one group Web page andtwo portfolios contained PowerPoint slide shows Additional data camefrom extensive personal communications with SFL graduate and under-graduate student participants staff faculty members and administrators

Data Analysis

We analyzed data using ethnographic methods In particular we usedpattern matching (Miles amp Huberman 1994 Spradley 1980) to interpret

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

304 TESOL QUARTERLY

potential for carrying out technology-enhanced curricular and pedagogi-cal reform because they have advanced students and compared withprimary and secondary schools they have the best facilities and the best-trained instructors

Technology Benefits Reform

Using computers for communication research and project workprovides benefits such as increased interaction autonomous learningand perceived relevance (Barson Frommer amp Schwartz 1993 Kern1996 Soh amp Soon 1991 Tella 1991 for a review see Warschauer 1997)Computer-mediated communication helps learners by combining theinteractivity of speech with the permanence of writing Recording andarchiving othersrsquo words helps learners to notice internalize and adaptthem (Warschauer 1997 1999) an important aspect of second languageacquisition (Schmidt 1990 1993) In this case study we investigated theextent to which higher education in China benefited from computer-mediated project-based learning

METHODOLOGY

We conducted this study of a technology-enhanced ELT reformproject at a university in eastern China between 1998 and 2003 Thedesign incorporated an embedded case study model (Yin 2002) inwhich we selected two sections of revised courses for more focusedinvestigation within our broader study of the reform program Theguiding questions targeted aspects of teaching and learning in the classesas well as diffusion of the pedagogical innovations How did the reformprogram affect the English teaching materials and methods as well aslearning processes and outcomes What support existed for the reformeffort and what barriers or obstacles did it encounter

During the study the lead author was both an instructor and re-searcher within the reform project The second author a North Ameri-can professor and collaborator visited the school but did not work thereThis combination worked well The external researcherrsquos reflectiveoutsider perspective tempered the lead investigatorrsquos insider perspectiveand the internal researcher provided inside knowledge that helped toshape the outsiderrsquos conjectures

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 305

Site Participants and Courses

The study was carried out in the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) atJinhuang University ( JHU) a pseudonym (the name of the universityand names of participants have been changed for the sake of anonym-ity) The university is located in a wealthy area of eastern China in a cityemerging as an important technology center JHU a comprehensiveuniversity comprising six campuses with 40000 students is consideredone of Chinarsquos 100 elite universities and the government has funded itgenerously

A technology-enhanced educational reform project was launchedwithin the SFLrsquos English language program in 1997 The project aimedto prepare university English majors to use English for sophisticatedinternational communication collaboration and research in a variety ofacademic and professional settings To accomplish this task pedagogicaland curricular reforms de-emphasized rote memorization and insteadallowed students to conduct research projects communicate with otherstudents and scholars around the world and develop and publish newknowledge Reformers hoped that these changes would enable studentsnot only to develop their oral and written language skills but also tolearn to use new technologies to locate and evaluate information forinternational communication and research

During the 5-year study as many as three faculty members participateddirectly in the reform project teaching revised courses A larger groupcomprising between three and ten faculty members and representing asmuch as 22 of all faculty integrated new technology into instruction By2003 the studyrsquos last year more than 90 of undergraduates had takenat least one course that used technology in some way but only about 12were taking an explicitly revised course as seen in Table 1

TABLE 1

Computers and Participants

Number of Teachers Number of Students

InNumber In Using In Class(es)

Academic of Com- Reform Tech- Reform UsingYear puters Project nology Total Class(es) Technology Total

1998ndash1999 24 3 (75) 3 (75) 40 60 (102) 60 (102) 590

1999ndash2000 36 2 (47) 2 (47) 43 64 (87) 64 (87) 737

2000ndash2001 36 3 (65) 3 (65) 46 57 (74) 57 (74) 774

2001ndash2002 36 1 (21) 5 (104) 48 35 (46) 120 (157) 762

2002ndash2003 196 3 (67) 10 (222) 45 90 (123) 663 (907) 731

306 TESOL QUARTERLY

Two types of revised courses used new technologies which we havelabeled project-based revisions and add-on revisions (see Table 2) In theproject-based courses project-based learning became a major compo-nent of the course and students used technology to communicateconduct research and produce knowledge Among these was a newcourse established in 1998 ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo Stu-dents in this course learned how to use computers and the Internetmdashincluding writing e-mails searching the Web producing Web pages andauthoring PowerPoint presentations The course served as a technologi-cal aid to the other two revised project-based courses ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquo In addition the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse was partly revised so that in the Multimedia Group sections 30of the lesson time was devoted to project-based learning

The add-on courses maintained the fundamental teaching structurebut included technology as an instructional aid For example thelectures in ldquoGrammarrdquo were supported by PowerPoint slide showsldquoListeningrdquo incorporated news programs downloaded from the Internet

TABLE 2

Revised Courses

Project-based revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Internet for English Project-based Medium for communi- 1998ndash2003Learning ABC cation research and

knowledge productionEnglish for Tourism 1999ndash2001

Writing 2001ndash2002

Comprehensive English Project-based learning 1998ndash2003(30 of total lessontime)

Add-on revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Listening Downloading online Assistant instructional 1998ndash2003materials tool

Grammar Using PowerPoint in 2002ndash2003lectures

Extensive Reading Providing reading 2002ndash2003materials online

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 307

and other audio material and extracurricular reading materials forldquoExtensive Readingrdquo were posted on the course Web site

Both types of revised courses attempted to expand access to learningmaterials beyond those found in the textbook However because onlythe project-based revisions fundamentally changed the learning objec-tives and processes they are the main focus of our research We selectedtwo project-based courses for closer investigation a ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo section taught in 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo sectiontaught in 2000 We selected these sections because they providedvariation in both level of reform (one partially revised course and onecompletely revised course) and student tasks (long-distance collaborativewriting in one course and local student research and publication in theother) In these two sections the authors conducted more extensiveobservations and interviews and more thoroughly analyzed the studentwork and communications

Sources of Data

We examined a ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo class with 11 students fromApril to June 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class with 30 studentsfrom September 2000 to January 2001 Sources of data included partici-pant observation (in the two focus classes and in SFL staff meetingsweekly or biweekly in other revised classes once or twice per semester)informal interviews with students and student surveys (in the two focusclasses) analysis of student texts (eg student-student and student-teacher e-mail communications both in and outside class) and examina-tion of finished projects (eg final project Web page and PowerPointpresentation files student research reports and written self-evaluations)and other artifacts (eg SFL instructorsrsquo syllabi) From the ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo class we collected 474 incoming e-mails and 558 outgoinge-mails one class Web page and 11 written self-evaluations From theldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class we collected 30 student personal portfolios28 written self-evaluations and five group portfolios Each of the groupportfolios contained one group report and one group Web page andtwo portfolios contained PowerPoint slide shows Additional data camefrom extensive personal communications with SFL graduate and under-graduate student participants staff faculty members and administrators

Data Analysis

We analyzed data using ethnographic methods In particular we usedpattern matching (Miles amp Huberman 1994 Spradley 1980) to interpret

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 305

Site Participants and Courses

The study was carried out in the School of Foreign Languages (SFL) atJinhuang University ( JHU) a pseudonym (the name of the universityand names of participants have been changed for the sake of anonym-ity) The university is located in a wealthy area of eastern China in a cityemerging as an important technology center JHU a comprehensiveuniversity comprising six campuses with 40000 students is consideredone of Chinarsquos 100 elite universities and the government has funded itgenerously

A technology-enhanced educational reform project was launchedwithin the SFLrsquos English language program in 1997 The project aimedto prepare university English majors to use English for sophisticatedinternational communication collaboration and research in a variety ofacademic and professional settings To accomplish this task pedagogicaland curricular reforms de-emphasized rote memorization and insteadallowed students to conduct research projects communicate with otherstudents and scholars around the world and develop and publish newknowledge Reformers hoped that these changes would enable studentsnot only to develop their oral and written language skills but also tolearn to use new technologies to locate and evaluate information forinternational communication and research

During the 5-year study as many as three faculty members participateddirectly in the reform project teaching revised courses A larger groupcomprising between three and ten faculty members and representing asmuch as 22 of all faculty integrated new technology into instruction By2003 the studyrsquos last year more than 90 of undergraduates had takenat least one course that used technology in some way but only about 12were taking an explicitly revised course as seen in Table 1

TABLE 1

Computers and Participants

Number of Teachers Number of Students

InNumber In Using In Class(es)

Academic of Com- Reform Tech- Reform UsingYear puters Project nology Total Class(es) Technology Total

1998ndash1999 24 3 (75) 3 (75) 40 60 (102) 60 (102) 590

1999ndash2000 36 2 (47) 2 (47) 43 64 (87) 64 (87) 737

2000ndash2001 36 3 (65) 3 (65) 46 57 (74) 57 (74) 774

2001ndash2002 36 1 (21) 5 (104) 48 35 (46) 120 (157) 762

2002ndash2003 196 3 (67) 10 (222) 45 90 (123) 663 (907) 731

306 TESOL QUARTERLY

Two types of revised courses used new technologies which we havelabeled project-based revisions and add-on revisions (see Table 2) In theproject-based courses project-based learning became a major compo-nent of the course and students used technology to communicateconduct research and produce knowledge Among these was a newcourse established in 1998 ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo Stu-dents in this course learned how to use computers and the Internetmdashincluding writing e-mails searching the Web producing Web pages andauthoring PowerPoint presentations The course served as a technologi-cal aid to the other two revised project-based courses ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquo In addition the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse was partly revised so that in the Multimedia Group sections 30of the lesson time was devoted to project-based learning

The add-on courses maintained the fundamental teaching structurebut included technology as an instructional aid For example thelectures in ldquoGrammarrdquo were supported by PowerPoint slide showsldquoListeningrdquo incorporated news programs downloaded from the Internet

TABLE 2

Revised Courses

Project-based revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Internet for English Project-based Medium for communi- 1998ndash2003Learning ABC cation research and

knowledge productionEnglish for Tourism 1999ndash2001

Writing 2001ndash2002

Comprehensive English Project-based learning 1998ndash2003(30 of total lessontime)

Add-on revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Listening Downloading online Assistant instructional 1998ndash2003materials tool

Grammar Using PowerPoint in 2002ndash2003lectures

Extensive Reading Providing reading 2002ndash2003materials online

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 307

and other audio material and extracurricular reading materials forldquoExtensive Readingrdquo were posted on the course Web site

Both types of revised courses attempted to expand access to learningmaterials beyond those found in the textbook However because onlythe project-based revisions fundamentally changed the learning objec-tives and processes they are the main focus of our research We selectedtwo project-based courses for closer investigation a ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo section taught in 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo sectiontaught in 2000 We selected these sections because they providedvariation in both level of reform (one partially revised course and onecompletely revised course) and student tasks (long-distance collaborativewriting in one course and local student research and publication in theother) In these two sections the authors conducted more extensiveobservations and interviews and more thoroughly analyzed the studentwork and communications

Sources of Data

We examined a ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo class with 11 students fromApril to June 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class with 30 studentsfrom September 2000 to January 2001 Sources of data included partici-pant observation (in the two focus classes and in SFL staff meetingsweekly or biweekly in other revised classes once or twice per semester)informal interviews with students and student surveys (in the two focusclasses) analysis of student texts (eg student-student and student-teacher e-mail communications both in and outside class) and examina-tion of finished projects (eg final project Web page and PowerPointpresentation files student research reports and written self-evaluations)and other artifacts (eg SFL instructorsrsquo syllabi) From the ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo class we collected 474 incoming e-mails and 558 outgoinge-mails one class Web page and 11 written self-evaluations From theldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class we collected 30 student personal portfolios28 written self-evaluations and five group portfolios Each of the groupportfolios contained one group report and one group Web page andtwo portfolios contained PowerPoint slide shows Additional data camefrom extensive personal communications with SFL graduate and under-graduate student participants staff faculty members and administrators

Data Analysis

We analyzed data using ethnographic methods In particular we usedpattern matching (Miles amp Huberman 1994 Spradley 1980) to interpret

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

306 TESOL QUARTERLY

Two types of revised courses used new technologies which we havelabeled project-based revisions and add-on revisions (see Table 2) In theproject-based courses project-based learning became a major compo-nent of the course and students used technology to communicateconduct research and produce knowledge Among these was a newcourse established in 1998 ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo Stu-dents in this course learned how to use computers and the Internetmdashincluding writing e-mails searching the Web producing Web pages andauthoring PowerPoint presentations The course served as a technologi-cal aid to the other two revised project-based courses ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquo In addition the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse was partly revised so that in the Multimedia Group sections 30of the lesson time was devoted to project-based learning

The add-on courses maintained the fundamental teaching structurebut included technology as an instructional aid For example thelectures in ldquoGrammarrdquo were supported by PowerPoint slide showsldquoListeningrdquo incorporated news programs downloaded from the Internet

TABLE 2

Revised Courses

Project-based revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Internet for English Project-based Medium for communi- 1998ndash2003Learning ABC cation research and

knowledge productionEnglish for Tourism 1999ndash2001

Writing 2001ndash2002

Comprehensive English Project-based learning 1998ndash2003(30 of total lessontime)

Add-on revisions

WhenCourse Teaching innovation Role of technology implemented

Listening Downloading online Assistant instructional 1998ndash2003materials tool

Grammar Using PowerPoint in 2002ndash2003lectures

Extensive Reading Providing reading 2002ndash2003materials online

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 307

and other audio material and extracurricular reading materials forldquoExtensive Readingrdquo were posted on the course Web site

Both types of revised courses attempted to expand access to learningmaterials beyond those found in the textbook However because onlythe project-based revisions fundamentally changed the learning objec-tives and processes they are the main focus of our research We selectedtwo project-based courses for closer investigation a ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo section taught in 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo sectiontaught in 2000 We selected these sections because they providedvariation in both level of reform (one partially revised course and onecompletely revised course) and student tasks (long-distance collaborativewriting in one course and local student research and publication in theother) In these two sections the authors conducted more extensiveobservations and interviews and more thoroughly analyzed the studentwork and communications

Sources of Data

We examined a ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo class with 11 students fromApril to June 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class with 30 studentsfrom September 2000 to January 2001 Sources of data included partici-pant observation (in the two focus classes and in SFL staff meetingsweekly or biweekly in other revised classes once or twice per semester)informal interviews with students and student surveys (in the two focusclasses) analysis of student texts (eg student-student and student-teacher e-mail communications both in and outside class) and examina-tion of finished projects (eg final project Web page and PowerPointpresentation files student research reports and written self-evaluations)and other artifacts (eg SFL instructorsrsquo syllabi) From the ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo class we collected 474 incoming e-mails and 558 outgoinge-mails one class Web page and 11 written self-evaluations From theldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class we collected 30 student personal portfolios28 written self-evaluations and five group portfolios Each of the groupportfolios contained one group report and one group Web page andtwo portfolios contained PowerPoint slide shows Additional data camefrom extensive personal communications with SFL graduate and under-graduate student participants staff faculty members and administrators

Data Analysis

We analyzed data using ethnographic methods In particular we usedpattern matching (Miles amp Huberman 1994 Spradley 1980) to interpret

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 307

and other audio material and extracurricular reading materials forldquoExtensive Readingrdquo were posted on the course Web site

Both types of revised courses attempted to expand access to learningmaterials beyond those found in the textbook However because onlythe project-based revisions fundamentally changed the learning objec-tives and processes they are the main focus of our research We selectedtwo project-based courses for closer investigation a ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo section taught in 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo sectiontaught in 2000 We selected these sections because they providedvariation in both level of reform (one partially revised course and onecompletely revised course) and student tasks (long-distance collaborativewriting in one course and local student research and publication in theother) In these two sections the authors conducted more extensiveobservations and interviews and more thoroughly analyzed the studentwork and communications

Sources of Data

We examined a ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo class with 11 students fromApril to June 1998 and an ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class with 30 studentsfrom September 2000 to January 2001 Sources of data included partici-pant observation (in the two focus classes and in SFL staff meetingsweekly or biweekly in other revised classes once or twice per semester)informal interviews with students and student surveys (in the two focusclasses) analysis of student texts (eg student-student and student-teacher e-mail communications both in and outside class) and examina-tion of finished projects (eg final project Web page and PowerPointpresentation files student research reports and written self-evaluations)and other artifacts (eg SFL instructorsrsquo syllabi) From the ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo class we collected 474 incoming e-mails and 558 outgoinge-mails one class Web page and 11 written self-evaluations From theldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class we collected 30 student personal portfolios28 written self-evaluations and five group portfolios Each of the groupportfolios contained one group report and one group Web page andtwo portfolios contained PowerPoint slide shows Additional data camefrom extensive personal communications with SFL graduate and under-graduate student participants staff faculty members and administrators

Data Analysis

We analyzed data using ethnographic methods In particular we usedpattern matching (Miles amp Huberman 1994 Spradley 1980) to interpret

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

308 TESOL QUARTERLY

the general patterns in student learning processes and outcomes anddirect interpretation (Lincoln amp Guba 1985 Stake 1995) and I-statementanalysis (Gee 1999 2000) to analyze interview data and student texts (I-statement analysis examines how people speak in the first personreferring for example to their actions successes abilities or con-straints and thus use language to fashion themselves as a person of aparticular type)

FINDINGS

We found that the project-based instruction affected instructionalmethods and materials as well as learning processes and outcomes Inparticular evidence suggested that this kind of instruction increasedauthentic interaction learner autonomy and relevance of the coursersquoscontent to studentsrsquo lives and careers Despite these positive findingswithin the classroom faculty tended to avoid teaching project-basedcourses because they require more time and effort and because project-based courses do not accord with norms of Chinese higher education

Instructional Materials and Methods

We examined the extent of changes in instructional materials andmethods by observing classrooms analyzing course syllabi and studentwork and by interviewing instructors and students During the study weanalyzed multiple sections of two courses ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo andldquoWritingrdquo and estimated the differences in average content betweentraditional and project-based sections (see Table 3)

As Table 3 indicates the educational reform generated a substantialshift in approach The project-based courses allowed students tocollaboratively construct and produce knowledge through social interac-tion and communication rather than learning from teachersrsquo lecturesMoreover the specific assessment procedures (see Appendixes A and BGu 2001) emphasized collaborative project-based learning equallystressing both learning process and product (For a diachronic overviewof studentsrsquo projects in the project-based courses see Appendix C)

Collaborative student projects took two main forms In ldquoComprehen-sive Englishrdquo ldquoInternet for English Learning ABCrdquo and ldquoWritingrdquocourses projects involved collaborative writing with overseas partnersconducted over the Internet For example in a reformed section ofldquoComprehensive Englishrdquo taught in 1998 students engaged in two maincollaborations (a) an international exchange with ESOL students in theUnited States France and Ukraine called the Cities Project in which

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 309

students exchanged writing about their city with a long-distance partnerand then developed a group presentation based on what they hadlearned and (b) a second writing exchange with a university in theUnited States discussing local culture At the end of the class studentsmade a group presentation discussing an aspect of international culturethey had investigated through the exchange

In contrast for projects in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classes studentsresearched local or national issues and then published their findings onan intranet These projects did not include long-distance collaborationbut placed greater emphasis on original research For example in areformed section of the course taught in 2000 students first searcheddomestic Web sites to find and evaluate relevant information about thetourism industry and then they developed a group research topicAfterward the groups designed and distributed questionnaires andinterviews and collected field data To construct their theoreticalframework they also needed to consult outside reference books recom-mended by the teacher They then analyzed the data and composed agroup research report written in a formal academic style At the end ofthe course the groups made PowerPoint presentations for the class anddeveloped Web sites to make their findings available to others They alsocollected both personal and group assessments and assembled all theirdata and writing from their project into personal and group portfolios

In summary the activities in the revised courses departed radically

TABLE 3

Comparison of Pedagogy in Traditional and Project-Based Courses

Aspect of Pedagogy in Pedagogy afterpedagogy traditional courses project-based revisions

Readingmaterials

bull Course textbook (97)bull Occasional extra reading

materials (3)

bull Course textbook (20)bull Reference books Websites

community data (80)

Time spent onspecific tasks(lesson plan)

bull Lecture (75)bull Grammar exercises (15)bull Class discussion (10)

bull Lecture (10)bull Project work (85)

mdash Extensive reading (10)mdash Social investigation (30)mdash Academic writing (40)mdash Electronic presentation (5)

bull Evaluation (5)

Assessmentprocedure

bull Written test (90) (Midterm30 + Final 60)

bull Class performance ampAttendance (10)

bull Student portfolios (80)bull Evaluation sheets (20)

mdash Personal evaluation (10)mdash Group evaluation (10)

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

310 TESOL QUARTERLY

from the schoolrsquos traditional methods of teaching and learning whichpreviously had been based almost entirely on studentsrsquo listening toinstructorsrsquo lectures

Learning Processes and Outcomes

We noted three significant characteristics of the revised curriculumthat changed the learning processes and outcomes (a) The studentsinteracted far more often than they would have in other EFL courses inChina (b) learners in the project-based courses had more autonomy intheir learning and (c) the learning process appeared to be morerelevant to the learnersrsquo lives

Interaction

In contrast to conventional university language courses in China therevised courses gave students ample opportunity to participate and touse English in authentic communicative contexts In fact the revisedcourse structure enabled students to use a far more authentic languagethan traditionally structured Chinese ELT courses In the ldquoEnglish forTourismrdquo course for example the average student research reportcontained 7230 words nearly 30 double-spaced pages Students intraditional undergraduate English courses in China would not beexpected to produce anywhere near this much material even in a groupproject Similarly in the Cities Project part of the 1998 ldquoComprehensiveEnglishrdquo course students composed on average 507 e-mail messages fortheir teachers and peersmdashcertainly a small number for a typical USstudent but a very large number for a Chinese undergraduate who inmost cases had never written any e-mail messages in English (For furtherdetails on studentsrsquo language output see Gu amp Xu 1999)

The interaction-rich project structure also exposed students to En-glish native speakersrsquo natural use of vocabulary grammar and syntaxwhich enabled students to improve their language skills by assimilatingand internalizing othersrsquo words We witnessed many examples of thisprocess Kevin a US student wrote to Xinglei his Chinese key pal atJHU ldquoIf you have the communication skills I feel that it will be easier foryou to land a job here in the USArdquo (October 15 1999 emphasis added)Five days later another Chinese student Yahong wrote in his e-mailldquoSecondly by getting involved in business activities we land jobs that cangive full play to our professional knowledge and skillsrdquo (October 201999 emphasis added) Yahong explained in an interview (October 271999) that he had learned the phrase from Xingleirsquos group all of whomknew the term from Kevinrsquos e-mail message This observation accords

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 311

with Bakhtinrsquos (1986) view that language development occurs through aldquoprocess of assimilationmdashmore or less creativemdashof othersrsquo words (andnot the words of a language)rdquo (p 89)

Interaction within the project structure forced students to engage notonly with the forms of language but also with its content a rareoccurrence in traditional Chinese ELT courses For example in theCities Project studentsrsquo messages indicated their active involvement indiscussing and debating what their exchange partners said about life intheir countries as compared to China As they got further involved inthese debates they began to engage in language behaviors that are oftentaught but seldom practiced such as skimming or scanning priormessages for information relying on context to determine the meaningof a particular word or reading between the lines to evaluate the beliefsystem behind a supposedly factual statement These positive phenom-ena were difficult to measure or quantify but our observations of thesecourses compared to our observations of and personal experiences intraditional courses suggest to us that they occurred much more regularlyin the reform courses than in traditional ones

Autonomy

Interviews and observations suggested that learners in the revisedproject-based classes engaged with far greater autonomy in the languagelearning process than they typically would have in other more traditionalcourses In the two revised courses students selected their own grouptask decided how to accomplish the task and negotiated decisionsamong their group members without having to rely on the instructorsStudents frequently indicated that the courses promoted their autonomywith statements such as this one from the ldquoComprehensive Englishrdquocourse ldquoMost of time we depend on ourselves We become the master ofourselves in this processrdquo (Xia Feng quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)Another student explained

To be frank the project is the best teaching pattern that Irsquove ever experi-enced It broke the traditional monotonous teaching method and establisheda brand-new uninhibited setting for us In these activities we play a moreactive role which made us feel happy and had a desire to learn more (LingYong quoted in Gu amp Xu 1999 p 180)

To quantify learner autonomy in the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo classtaught in 2000 we conducted an I-statement analysis on student self-evaluations written at the end of the semester We analyzed 28 self-evaluations from 30 students which averaged 21 analyzable terms eachWe coded as active an average of 141 terms or 671 percent which

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

312 TESOL QUARTERLY

suggests that in the technology-enhanced classroom students conceivedthemselves as taking initiative in learning the subject matter (seeTable 4)

Other students however responded negatively to the new learningenvironment A number of students indicated discomfort with theemphasis on learner control and responsibility For example a studentin the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo class named Huang Lei1 whose group hadconducted research on food service in Jinhuangrsquos four-star hotels wrotethe following self-evaluation

We managed to interview some hotels as well as tourism bureau We learnedfrom them something new but by and large the result was not satisfactoryBecause in communicating with them we realized that we knew very littleabout this specific field and reading books by ourselves could complementlittle about that Anyway if all the students were asked to teach themselveswhat do we need teachers for ( January 4 2001)

While some students shared Huang Leirsquos perspective an equal orgreater number saw things differently They tended to value the chanceto take initiative and frequently commented on the value of the grouprsquosinput in the process As a student named Yu Fen explained

Irsquom satisfied with my work Comparing with the work of last semester I thinkI am more active this semester I participated in all aspects of the groupproject I tried my best from browsing the Web sites on embroidery to writingour research reports from doing interviews to setting up our own Web pageAnd my confidence comes from the cooperative spirit of our group and theteacherrsquos encouragement I think even the conflict of our minds in the groupdiscussion becomes part of our success ( January 8 2001)

TABLE 4

I-Statement Analysis of Student Self-Evaluations in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo Class

I-statement category Example Frequency

Action ldquoI put forward my ideas rdquo 671

State ldquoI was responsible for rdquo 109

Ability ldquoI acquired new skills rdquo 80

Constraint ldquoI could not express it rdquo 76

Cognition ldquoI strongly believe rdquo 43

Success ldquoI am proud of our work rdquo 29

1 Names are pseudonyms Students are quoted with permission

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 313

Huang Lei and Yu Fen represented the studentsrsquo two most commonreactions those who rejected the new teaching format and those whoembraced it Those who rejected the format were more concerned abouthow the teachersrsquo direct instruction affected their learning while thosewho embraced it tended to value what they had gained from interactingwith their respective groups Hence the different outcomes Huanglooked for direction from the teacher and without that he felt unable toaccomplish the group project In contrast Yu derived confidence andsatisfaction from working with a group which enabled her to exerciseher autonomy and thus successfully complete the project

Autonomy in language learning is sometimes presented as a Westernconcept unsuited to East Asian educational traditions and contexts Yetas Littlewood (1999) argues it is not autonomy per se that is foreign butrather Western notions of autonomy which tend to emphasize theindividual rather than the collective In contrast some of the Chinesestudents in this study developed their autonomy best through a programthat emphasized collectivity and peer leadership which dovetailed nicelywith the revised course structure However Huang Lei and some othersrsquocomplaints indicate the challenges involved in transitioning from ateacher-centered structure to one that encourages student initiativethrough teamwork They foreground the question how to provideproper teacher scaffolding to support group-based learner autonomy

Relevance

Classroom observations and interviews with learners revealed that thecourse content was relevant to studentsrsquo current and future concernsFor example the courses incorporating long-distance interaction usuallyinvolved the students in discussing and often rethinking issues relatedto their own society culture and way of life In other words as Bakhtin(1986) argues the learners appeared to be gaining a better understand-ing of their own culture through revealing it to outsiders

Students also saw how the course content related to their future careerpractices From 1994 to 1997 the ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo instructor (thelead author) had students passively listen to her lectures and diligentstudents who took detailed notes of the lectures most often got a highgrade on the final written test The test demanded that information fromthe textbook be memorized and used to solve case problems that actuallyrequired rote learning more than interpretation or analysis Not surpris-ingly the skills required to achieve high test scores were not necessarilythose required to succeed in the tourism industry which calls forcreativity interpretation and thinking ability In fact one local travelagency manager indicated that he purposely tried to hire students withlow grades (between a level of pass and 80) because ldquothese students

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

314 TESOL QUARTERLY

may not be diligent [at memorization] but they often have a wideinterest in some other disciplines and have a potential to be creative andpragmaticrdquo (personal communication April 1994)

After curricular reform the course changed dramatically Studentscould now combine learning English and using information technologyto complete projects closely related to the actual challenges faced bytourism industry professionals From 1998 to 2001 students researchedtopics such as road construction and city planning operating strategiesof travel agencies during the annual Golden Week opportunities fortourists to shop overseas management in the state-owned gardens andhotel food service During these projects students contacted leaders andstaff from the city tourism bureau the city planning bureau hotelstravel agencies gardens amusement parks and museums In additionthey interviewed international and domestic tourists shop ownersbusiness professors and local consumers These changes though mostdramatic in ldquoEnglish for Tourismrdquo occurred in other courses as wellStudents working on international writing projects for example hadopportunities to discuss issues related to their future careers in tourismforeign trade social science research and other areas

The city where JHU is located is becoming one of Chinarsquos mostimportant information technology manufacturing bases The new jobmarket demands employees with new information literacies Theseinclude not onlymdashor even principallymdashthe ability to operate a computerbut also the ability to find analyze critique and interpret informationand to forge that information into presentable knowledge These skillsare mediated by language of course and given the role of English inglobal commerce they are frequently carried out in English Students inthe revised courses had opportunities to combine English and technol-ogy in ways that corresponded to these needs

A university is however not a vocational school The programrsquosrelevance went beyond preparing marketable skills By practicing realsocial discourse in English students also had opportunities to critique thestatus quo For example one group of students researched the operatingstrategies of travel agencies near JHU during the annual national holidays(ie the first week of October referred to as the Golden Week) Aftersystematically observing travel agency operations and analyzing surveydata and interviews the group produced a detailed report that critiquedanticonsumer travel practices during the Golden Week holiday and therole of travel agencies in enabling these practices Chinese educationoften lacks this kind of critical approachmdashbadly needed in a countrygoing through such rapid social developmentmdashbut it emerged naturallyin a context where studentsrsquo learning activities arose from their ownresearch into real-life socioeconomic issues

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 315

Diffusion

In the early years of the program the Multimedia Group workedextensively to spread their educational vision They offered lecturesabout their pedagogy and about resources available for technology-enhanced language learning they gave workshops on integrating tech-nology into the classroom and they launched an English learningteaching and research Web site for students and teachers on campusThe Web site showcased studentsrsquo educational technology projectsprovided a forum for students and teachers to communicate online andaccommodated online English teaching resources Much of the studentwork posted on the site was quite impressive including for examplestudentsrsquo original research projects in English on the state of localbusinesses In spite of these efforts the Multimedia Group failed toexpand with no more than three faculty members teaching project-based courses in any academic year

During the same period conditions for using technology in theclassroom began to improve dramatically The department got morecomputers (see Table 1) dropping the student-per-computer ratio from246 in 1998ndash1999 to only 37 in 2002ndash2003 In addition many morefaculty were becoming familiar with technology The percentage offaculty with home access to computers and the Internet grew from lessthan 25 in 1998 to more than 90 in 2003 As result of these improvedconditions the number of faculty using technology in their classesincreased sharply (see Table 1) but the number of faculty teachingrevised courses incorporating project-based learning did not increaseRather teachers made minor revisions to their regular course structureusing audio material downloaded from the Internet using presentationsoftware during their lectures or offering supplementary reading mate-rial online

Unfortunately although more and more teachers were interested inusing technology for instruction the technology-based reform projectfailed to expand Why We believe that Cubanrsquos (1993) model ofsituationally constrained choice helps to explain this apparent contradic-tion Cubanrsquos model based on a century of US educational reformefforts suggests that deeply held cultural beliefs about the nature ofknowledge and about how teaching should occur and students shouldlearnmdashall reinforced by educational systems that reward traditionalforms of instructionmdashmilitate against radical reform in teaching andlearning As a result when teachers do implement innovations they tendto do so at the margins of instruction leaving core relationships andprocesses in place

This tendency although derived from the context of the UnitedStates seems to explain what we observed at JHU In China deep-rooted

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

316 TESOL QUARTERLY

cultural norms and beliefs mandate that teachers control the classroomand deserve utmost student respect The methods suggested by theMultimedia Groupmdashwhich focused teachersrsquo efforts on providing guid-ance scaffolding and feedback rather than lecturingmdashran contrary tothese cultural norms and beliefs Teachers who engaged in student-centered learning risked disapproval from their students who were usedto other forms of learning and from their peers who view linguisticknowledge and lecturing ability as the cornerstones of good teaching (cfHolliday 1994) Scholarship also privileged linguistic knowledge overpedagogical knowledge Faculty members were respected more forpublications on linguistics and literature than on learning processes andoutcomes which are areas of TESOL and applied linguistics

Whatrsquos more the learner-centered approach was extraordinarily chal-lenging involving extraordinary demands on teachersrsquo time energy andintellectual attention Teachers had to deal with large numbers ofteacher-student e-mail messages student assessment involving electronicportfolios (see Table 3) and heavy teaching loads These factorstogether with a lack of professional approbation for reform-orientedinstruction or scholarship discouraged teachers from devoting the extratime and energy necessary for the project-based approach

This did not mean that instructors resisted using technology After ahuge increase in the number of computers at the SFL technology usejumped in the 2002ndash2003 academic year Consistent with Cubanrsquos modelhowever they tended to use computers in ways that reinforced theirpreexisting beliefs about teaching and learning (cf Warschauer 1999)with little or no change at the core of teacher-student relations Thusthey used technology to amplify their previous methods of instructionmdashby providing more reading or listening materials or by enhancingteacher lecturesmdashrather than to transform them

In spite of these results we do not believe that the reform failedcompletely It achieved three particular gains First the project contrib-uted to a culture at the SFL that supports technology access and useThough we cannot claim direct cause and effect the technology-basedreform project together with some honors its leading members hadreceived appeared to encourage the university to increase its commit-ment to computer technology in the SFL and some faculty to integratetechnology into their courses

Second several of the undergraduate and masterrsquos students whoparticipated in the project are now seeking more advanced degrees inEnglish or applied linguistics and a few are conducting further researchon project-based learning They will thus be well-situated to supportcontinued reform efforts when the time is ripe

Third the project provided valuable lessons about how studentsrespond to this kind of project-based reform These lessons include

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 317

studentsrsquo demonstrated preference for collective rather than individualautonomy and their strong interest in engaging in authentic onlineinteraction

To diffuse these types of reforms more broadly education reformerswill likely need to introduce greater incentives Singapore an Asianneighbor that often serves as a model for Chinarsquos leadership illustratesone path a reform effort might take Singaporersquos leaders have tried toreform their countryrsquos instruction through technology only to find theirefforts stymied by traditional top-down approaches to teaching andlearning (Warschauer 2001) Eventually the ministry of educationdecided to reform the college entrance exam system by rewardingstudents for developing learning portfolios in the hope that this wouldencourage more project-based and learner-centered instruction InChina traditional reward systems may have to be similarly restructuredto encourage more students and teachers to accept project-based learning

CONCLUSION

Though further research on learning outcomes would help includingcontrolled comparisons between results achieved with students in therevised and in the traditional classrooms the initial findings of this studysuggest several positive outcomes Students in the revised courses en-gaged in learning that was more interactive and more closely alignedwith real-world challenges and social needs This authentic interactionprovided an enhanced opportunity for students to develop broadlanguage skills and to apply these skills using new technologies incommunication research analysis and new knowledge production

However these gains required instructors to commit to the classes inways that ran counter to professional cultural and institutional valuesand reward systems in the university and in China The reform did notexpand as the initiators had intended even though the universityinvolved is in a relatively wealthy and technologically advanced areaUniversities in other areas where technology infusion has been slowerand faculty are under greater economic pressure may well experienceeven more difficulty in carrying out these types of reforms

This study thus suggests that this Chinese university and perhapsothers are not yet ready for the kind of wholesale curricular reform thatthis project entailed It is also worth noting however that China is goingthrough very rapid social and economic change almost unparalleled inChinese or indeed in world history The landscape around Chinarsquosmajor eastern cities has changed dramatically in the last decade Theeducational landscape may also change in the coming decades just as itis changing in other Asian countries such as Singapore

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

318 TESOL QUARTERLY

Thus while educational transformation may not be on the agendatoday well-defined pilot programs and research studies on new ap-proaches are nevertheless needed Programs like the one described inthis article may well contribute to a long-term process of educationalreform if they have aim not to change the institutions rapidly but moremodestly to accumulate lessons and knowledge for the future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We acknowledge the support of Peiya Gu whose assistance and collaboration hashelped make this research possible We also thank the members of the MultimediaGroup for their efforts and cooperation

THE AUTHORS

Xu Fang is a lecturer in the School of Foreign Languages at Soochow UniversitySuzhou China Her research focuses on the diffusion of information technology inhigher education in China As a visiting scholar at the University of California Irvineshe has also conducted research on technology access and use in California highschools

Mark Warschauer is associate professor and vice chair of the Department ofEducation at the University of California Irvine in the United States and associatedirector of the Ada Byron Research Center for Diversity in Computing andInformation Technology His most recent book is Technology and Social InclusionRethinking the Digital Divide (MIT Press 2003)

REFERENCES

Bakhtin M M (1986) Speech genres and other late essays Austin University of TexasPress

Barson J Frommer J amp Schwartz M (1993) Foreign language learning usinge-mail in a task-oriented perspective Interuniversity experiments in communica-tion and collaboration Journal of Science Education and Technology 4(2) 565ndash584

Castells M (19962000) The rise of the network society (2nd ed) Malden MABlackwell

Cuban L (1993) How teachers taught Constancy and change in American classrooms1890ndash1980 (2nd ed) New York Longman

Dzau Y F (1990a) How English is taught in tertiary educational institutions In Y FDzau (Ed) English in China Hong Kong AIP Press

Dzau Y F (1990b) Teachers students and administrators In Y F Dzau (Ed)English in China Hong Kong API Press

Foster W amp Goodman S (2000) The diffusion of the Internet in China Retrieved May5 2001 from httpcisacstanfordedudocschinainternetpdf

Gee J P (1999) An introduction to discourse analysis Theory and method New YorkRoutledge

Gee J P (2000) Teenagers in new times A new literacy studies perspective Journalof Adolescent and Adult Literacy 43(5) 412ndash420

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 319

Gu P Y (2001) On tertiary multimedia English teaching Theory and practice BeijingTertiary Education Project Ministry of Education

Gu P Y amp Xu Z (1999) Improving the EFL learning environment throughnetworking In R Debski amp M Levy (Eds) WorldCALL Global perspectives oncomputer-assisted language learning (pp 169ndash184) The Netherlands Swets ampZeitlinger

Holliday A (1994) Appropriate methodology in social context Cambridge CambridgeUniversity Press

Huang R (2001) Tomorrowrsquos hope The status quo and development of Chineseeducational informatization Computer Journal 62 16ndash17

Kern R (1996) Computer-mediated communication Using e-mail exchanges toexplore personal histories in two cultures In M Warschauer (Ed) Telecollaborationin foreign language learning (pp 105ndash119) Honolulu University of HawaiirsquosSecond Language Teaching and Curriculum Center

Li X (1984) In defense of the communicative approach In Y F Dzau (Ed) Englishin China Hong Kong API Press

Lincoln Y S amp Guba E G (1985) Naturalistic inquiry Newbury Park CA SageLittlewood W (1999) Defining and developing autonomy in East Asian contexts

Applied Linguistics 20(1) 71ndash94Miles M B amp Huberman A M (1994) Qualitative data analysis Thousand Oaks

CA SagePennington M C amp Cheung M (1993) Managing contextual factors in educa-

tional innovation Process writing in Hong Kong Journal of English and ForeignLanguages 2 20ndash33

Pennington M C amp Cheung M (1995) Factors shaping the introduction ofprocess writing in Hong Kong Secondary Schools Language Culture and Curricu-lum 8 15ndash34

Schmidt R W (1990) The role of consciousness in second language learningApplied Linguistics 11(2) 129ndash158

Schmidt R W (1993) Awareness and second language acquisition Annual Review ofApplied Linguistics 13 206ndash226

Shetzer H amp Warschauer M (2000) An electronic literacy approach to network-based language teaching In M Warschauer amp R Kern (Eds) Network-basedlanguage teaching Concepts and practice (pp 171ndash185) New York CambridgeUniversity Press

Soh B-L amp Soon Y P (1991) English by e-mail Creating a global classroom via themedium of computer technology ELT Journal 45(4) 287ndash292

Spradley J P (1980) Participant observation New York Holt Rinehart amp WinstonStake R E (1995) The art of case study research Thousand Oaks CA SageTella S (1991) Introducing international communications networks and electronic mail into

foreign language classrooms (Research Report No 95) Helsinki Department ofTeacher Education University of Helsinki

Warschauer M (1997) Computer-mediated collaborative learning Theory andpractice Modern Language Journal 81(4) 470ndash481

Warschauer M (1998) Online learning in sociocultural context Anthropology ampEducation Quarterly 29(1) 68ndash88

Warschauer M (1999) Electronic literacies Language culture and power in onlineeducation Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum

Warschauer M (2000) The changing global economy and the future of Englishteaching TESOL Quarterly 34 511ndash535

Warschauer M (2001) Singaporersquos dilemma Control vs autonomy in IT-leddevelopment The Information Society 17(4) 305ndash311

320 TESOL QUARTERLY

Warschauer M (2003) Technology and social inclusion Rethinking the digital divideCambridge MA MIT Press

Yan Z amp He Z R (1990) Pragmatic failure of the Chinese learners in communica-tion with English native speakers In China English Language Education Associa-tion (Ed) ELT in China Papers Presented at the International Symposium on TeachingEnglish in the Chinese Context (ISTEC) Guangzhou China 1985 (pp 185ndash198)Beijing Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press

Yin R K (2002) Case study research Design and methods Thousand Oaks CA Sage

APPENDIX A

Personal Evaluation SheetName __________________________________ Group ____________ Class ______________

Project Topic _____________________________________________________________________

1 Please name tasks yoursquove completed for the project and specify both the quantity (egpieces of in-coming amp out-going email messages word count of all your writings etc) andquality based on your own record and judgment

(Quality evaluation scores 5=Excellent 4=Very Good 3=Good 2=Not Bad 1=Poor)

Tasks Completed Quantity Fileeg Word Count Quality Names

Incoming messages

Outgoing messages

Research outline

Survey questions

Web Page making

Peer-editing

etc etc

Individual Report

Self-Assessment Total no of words Average Score Your IWEF name= = =

Notes1) Please add lines as you need Remember to total the quantity and calculate the qualityrsquos

average score2) Please submit your ldquoIndividual Writingsrsquo Electronic Folderrdquo (IWEF) with all the project

writingse-exchanges yoursquove accumulated this semester Remember to name your filesclearly and list them under ldquoFile Namesrdquo in the above table Your folder name (IWEFname) = your last name + initial(s) of your first name(s) + your group For example ifyour name is Li Xiaodong and you belong to Group 5 then your folder IWEF nameshould be lixd_G5

Reprinted with permission from Gu 2001

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 321

Reprinted with permission from Gu 2001

2 Please evaluate your overall performance using the same criteria

(Evaluation Scores 5=Excellent 4=Very Good 3=Good 2=Not Bad 1=Poor)

Participation Cooperation Contribution Total Score

3 Please write an Individual Report on your project experience (500800 words) Some of thequestions that you might want to address include

bull What are your specific contributions to the project

bull How successful was the project in helping you learn about society majorsubject interested

bull How successful was your project in helping you improve your language learning

bull What are the gains of collaboration between classmates and partners outside

bull What are the challenges you have encountered in the project How did you overcome them

bull What new skills and lessons have you learnt in the process

bull What would you have done differently if you had a chance to do it again

bull What suggestions would you make to improve the project or the course teaching next term

APPENDIX B

Group Evaluation GuideGroup No _______________

Topic__________________________________________________________________________

1 Please evaluate each otherrsquos overall performance

(Evaluation Scores 5=Excellent 4=Very Good 3=Good 2=Not Bad 1=Poor)

Evaluation TotalName Participation Cooperation Contribution (selfothers) Score

322 TESOL QUARTERLY

2 Please comment briefly on each memberrsquos most outstanding performances

Name Most Outstanding Performances amp Contributions

APPENDIX C

Accomplished Student Projects in Revised Courses (1998ndash2003)

Term Course Name Experimental Class Project Name Project Outcome

Spring1998

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for ForeignTrade Juniors

Cities Project Themed WebPages

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for TourismFreshmen

English Learningon CD-Rom

Themed WebPages

Fall1998

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Fall1999

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Spring2000

ComprehensiveEnglish

Teacher EducationJuniors

InternationalWriting Exchange

Themed WebPages

Writing Teacher educationJuniors

JHU-HKCUOnline WritingCollaboration

Themed WebPages

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 323

Fall2000

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Spring2001

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for ForeignTrade Juniors

Business Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Term Course Name Experimental Class Project Name Project Outcome

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Writing Russian-English Bilingualclass Juniors

JHU-HKCUOnline WritingCollaboration

Themed WebPages

Fall2001

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Fall2002

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Spring2003

ComprehensiveEnglish

English Majors Class 2Freshmen

Reflective JournalWriting

Personal amp GroupPortfolios

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 321

Reprinted with permission from Gu 2001

2 Please evaluate your overall performance using the same criteria

(Evaluation Scores 5=Excellent 4=Very Good 3=Good 2=Not Bad 1=Poor)

Participation Cooperation Contribution Total Score

3 Please write an Individual Report on your project experience (500800 words) Some of thequestions that you might want to address include

bull What are your specific contributions to the project

bull How successful was the project in helping you learn about society majorsubject interested

bull How successful was your project in helping you improve your language learning

bull What are the gains of collaboration between classmates and partners outside

bull What are the challenges you have encountered in the project How did you overcome them

bull What new skills and lessons have you learnt in the process

bull What would you have done differently if you had a chance to do it again

bull What suggestions would you make to improve the project or the course teaching next term

APPENDIX B

Group Evaluation GuideGroup No _______________

Topic__________________________________________________________________________

1 Please evaluate each otherrsquos overall performance

(Evaluation Scores 5=Excellent 4=Very Good 3=Good 2=Not Bad 1=Poor)

Evaluation TotalName Participation Cooperation Contribution (selfothers) Score

322 TESOL QUARTERLY

2 Please comment briefly on each memberrsquos most outstanding performances

Name Most Outstanding Performances amp Contributions

APPENDIX C

Accomplished Student Projects in Revised Courses (1998ndash2003)

Term Course Name Experimental Class Project Name Project Outcome

Spring1998

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for ForeignTrade Juniors

Cities Project Themed WebPages

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for TourismFreshmen

English Learningon CD-Rom

Themed WebPages

Fall1998

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Fall1999

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Spring2000

ComprehensiveEnglish

Teacher EducationJuniors

InternationalWriting Exchange

Themed WebPages

Writing Teacher educationJuniors

JHU-HKCUOnline WritingCollaboration

Themed WebPages

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 323

Fall2000

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Spring2001

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for ForeignTrade Juniors

Business Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Term Course Name Experimental Class Project Name Project Outcome

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Writing Russian-English Bilingualclass Juniors

JHU-HKCUOnline WritingCollaboration

Themed WebPages

Fall2001

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Fall2002

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Spring2003

ComprehensiveEnglish

English Majors Class 2Freshmen

Reflective JournalWriting

Personal amp GroupPortfolios

322 TESOL QUARTERLY

2 Please comment briefly on each memberrsquos most outstanding performances

Name Most Outstanding Performances amp Contributions

APPENDIX C

Accomplished Student Projects in Revised Courses (1998ndash2003)

Term Course Name Experimental Class Project Name Project Outcome

Spring1998

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for ForeignTrade Juniors

Cities Project Themed WebPages

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for TourismFreshmen

English Learningon CD-Rom

Themed WebPages

Fall1998

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Fall1999

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Spring2000

ComprehensiveEnglish

Teacher EducationJuniors

InternationalWriting Exchange

Themed WebPages

Writing Teacher educationJuniors

JHU-HKCUOnline WritingCollaboration

Themed WebPages

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 323

Fall2000

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Spring2001

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for ForeignTrade Juniors

Business Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Term Course Name Experimental Class Project Name Project Outcome

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Writing Russian-English Bilingualclass Juniors

JHU-HKCUOnline WritingCollaboration

Themed WebPages

Fall2001

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Fall2002

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Spring2003

ComprehensiveEnglish

English Majors Class 2Freshmen

Reflective JournalWriting

Personal amp GroupPortfolios

TECHNOLOGY AND CURRICULAR REFORM 323

Fall2000

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Spring2001

ComprehensiveEnglish

English for ForeignTrade Juniors

Business Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Term Course Name Experimental Class Project Name Project Outcome

English forTourism

English for TourismJuniors

Student Research Research ReportsThemed WebPages

Writing Russian-English Bilingualclass Juniors

JHU-HKCUOnline WritingCollaboration

Themed WebPages

Fall2001

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Fall2002

Internet forEnglishLearning ABC

Optional for Juniors Student Research Themed WebPages

Spring2003

ComprehensiveEnglish

English Majors Class 2Freshmen

Reflective JournalWriting

Personal amp GroupPortfolios