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Materials Use: A Socio-Cultural Perspective

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Language Teachers at Work

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Abstract

In this chapter, four key terms and concepts in materials use and curriculum studies are first defined. I then introduce the unique context of Chinese ELT by tracing the evolving process of the College English (CE) course and mandatory textbooks in the past five decades. An extensive review of the literature on materials use in both ELT and mainstream education is provided to position the current study in terms of the research settings and theoretical perspectives. At the end of the chapter, I draw on Rabardel and Bourmaud’s (2003) instrument-mediated activity model as the overarching theoretical lens to unpack the complex relations among teachers, students, curriculum materials and the context in materials use.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Foreign Languages, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan, China

    Zhan Li

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Li, Z. (2020). Materials Use: A Socio-Cultural Perspective. In: Language Teachers at Work. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5515-2_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-5515-2_2

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