Mutual adaptation: Enhancing longer-term sustainability of cross-cultural in-service teacher training initiatives in China

This paper reports on a study that examines decisive factors for longer-term sustainability of cross-cultural teacher training initiatives in China. It focuses on teacher trainees’ perspectives of a Sino-British adult education English language teaching project based in Central China. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were employed to gather information from the teachers who participated in the programme between 1997 and 2002. Documentation was used as a supplementary method of data collection. The findings indicate that the project has contributed to teachers’ professional development in a number of ways. Meanwhile, cross-cultural communication emerged as a salient issue for longer-term sustainability of the programme. The study indicates that cultural communication is of vital importance in implementing cross-cultural programmes, and that mutual understanding and adaptation might help to enhance the viability of such initiatives in China.