The Future of Education

This presentation intends to present a study about EFL teaching and learning at non-English major undergraduate level in China. Metaphor has been frequently used as a research tool for better understanding of beliefs about school, teaching and curriculum. Educational concepts and process have long been described in metaphorical terms either as single ‘X is Y’ metaphors or as clusters of metaphors. This study elicited an exploratory angle, describing both student participants’ and teacher participants’ conceptualizations of English language teacher through an analysis of metaphors they created in the ‘X is Y’ format (e.g., “language learning is … because…”). Two groups of student participants were non-English Major Students who registered in level 1 and level 4 courses at a key university in China. They were required to complete two prompts, “EFL teaching is… because…” and “EFL learning is… because…”, and student participants to complete “EFL teaching is… because…” and “EFL learning is… because…” in English. The elicited metaphors were collected, categorized, analyzed and compared. Post-task interviews were conducted. Through the understanding of students’ and teachers beliefs of EFL teaching and learning, it provided insightful suggestion for EFL teaching.