Moving the Centre to the periphery: Examining the corrective feedback practices of EAP teachers in Sino-British University.

This paper focuses on the corrective practices of EAP teachers in a Sino-British University based in China. Education has been exported from the centre to periphery by outsourcing educational resources to cope with the rising demand for an international education. However as Jenkins (2014) has noted, while many of these universities claim to be international and diverse, this does not apply to language in these Universities implicit language policies, which requires adherence to a Standard English. Despite research demonstrating the considerable variation in the way English is spoken many teachers continue to correct students’ spoken language in relation to ‘native’ models of English.

We are currently conducting a long-term exploratory study of corrective feedback with four classes of Chinese students on an English for Academic Purposes (EAP) undergraduate preparatory course, which included classroom recordings, student and teacher interviews and focus groups. While the language policy of the University conforms to British English norms, the corrective feedback practices of the teachers suggest that they have tacit acceptance of spoken variation in English in determining what they chose to correct. Therefore, while macro language policies give an indication of an institutions’ belief system, it is also necessary to consider micro language policies in the classroom.



Jenkins, J. (2014). English as a Lingua Franca in the International University: The politics of academic English language policy. Oxon, UK: Routledge.