Exploration of Teacher Agency in the Implementation of the ESP Language Education Policy in a Chinese University

This case study investigates language teacher agency in the context of ESP curriculum reform a Chinese university. Data collected from classroom observations and semi-structured interviews with both teachers students five classes are analyzed by conducting thorough thematic analysis. It is revealed that instead following national institutional requirements, as policy arbiters make their own implicit policies which creating spaces for discourses, this sense, they “adjusting” rather than “implementing” it. Teachers’ academic background, views on nature learning, profound distrust efficacy courses, students’ explicit performance main causes teachers’ actual resistance to policy. Unlike previous studies agency, an analysis needs discourses indicates excised through hidden agenda may turn out be defense unwillingness change, detriment performance. then suggests policymakers should notice negative side stresses necessity bottom-up survey ideologies implementation education policy, argues negotiating adjusting at instructional level, offering effective programs key enactment curriculum.