Empowering Educators: Unleashing the Potential of University Golden Curriculum Teaching Competencies of English Language Education in China

The Golden Curriculum represents a shift to quality teaching at classroom practice, emphasizing high-order, innovative and challenging courses in higher education of China. However, there is a lack of study specifically focusing on teaching competencies for implementing a Golden Curriculum in English language education. Therefore, the study addresses this gap by exploring the Golden Curriculum teaching competency elements required for university teachers of English as a foreign language in China. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with two groups of experts, resulting in 19 themes emerging from the thematic analysis of transcriptions in terms of knowledge, skills and attitude. These themes encompassed various aspects, including in-depth content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, technological pedagogical and content knowledge; professional-level English language proficiency, data-driven instructional design ability, competency-based delivery ability, adaptive assessment ability, human-AI pedagogical collaboration ability, praxis-theory integration ability, positive learner engagement ability, collaborative stakeholder engagement ability, higher-order thinking skills; dedicated and committed identity, content awareness, self-awareness, people awareness, technology awareness, and resilience and fulfilment. The findings serve as a foundation for the creation of a Golden Curriculum teaching competency framework, empowering educators to meet the challenges of today’s educational landscape and enhance student performance.


Introduction
In the rapidly evolving landscape of English language teaching, the adoption of a Golden Curriculum has gained significant recognition and importance. A Golden Curriculum, characterized by its high-order, innovative, and challenging features Wu (2018), offers a guiding direction to higher education classroom teaching, ensuring students develop essential skills and knowledge to thrive in today's dynamic world. As educators in English language teaching, it is imperative to adapt to the requirements of this new curriculum, embracing the challenges it presents. In addition, COVID-19 pandemic further heightened the need for teachers to reevaluate their teaching methods by integrating online teaching mode into classroom teaching practice. This new ecology of online and onsite integrated teaching has also put forward new requirements for university English language teachers (Xu et al., 2021).
With the transition to blended learning modes becoming the new norm, English teachers face specific challenges in planning their lessons and delivering effective instruction (Qian, 2019). They must grapple with questions regarding the integration of online and offline teaching mode Shi (2020), the development of cutting-edge materials and resources, and the cultivation of a supportive learning environment both in online learning platform as well as the physical classrooms (Yu et al., 2019). Navigating these challenges becomes even more critical when considering the implementation of Golden Curriculum.
To effectively design and implement Golden Curriculum for English teaching, teachers need to possess a comprehensive set of competencies (Wen, 2019). This encompasses not only a solid English knowledge but also the necessary skills and attitudes to create, develop, implement, and evaluate a course that aligns with the principles of the Golden Curriculum. A competent teacher can unlock the full potential of a Golden Curriculum, while a teacher lacking the necessary competencies may inadvertently lead to the failure of this educational reform.

Literature Review
According to Spencer and Spencer (1993), competency refers to the underlying characteristics that enable individuals to demonstrate superior performance in their job roles. In the context of teaching, competencies not only ensure effective instruction but also facilitate learner achievement. Therefore, it is crucial to establish a framework of teaching competencies specifically tailored to the Golden Curriculum in English language teaching.
Existing studies on teaching competencies have approached the topic from three main perspectives: general teaching competence without specifying the English language teaching field (Tigelaar et al., 2004;Serrano et al., 2020), teaching competence specifically for English language teaching (Richards, 2010;Xu et al., 2021), and technology-focused teaching competence (Ge and Han, 2017). While these perspectives have shed light on the importance of various dimensions of teaching competencies, none have specifically addressed the unique demands of a Golden Curriculum in the context of blended teaching in the post-pandemic era.
Given the changes and challenges faced by teachers today, there is a pressing need to reevaluate and develop a Golden Curriculum teaching competency framework. This framework should identify the specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes that teachers must possess to effectively implement a Golden Curriculum in the context of blended teaching. By addressing this gap in the literature, educators and policymakers can provide guidance and support for teachers, ensuring the successful integration of a Golden Curriculum and the delivery of high-quality English language education. Hence, the research questions of the study were formulated as follows: RQ1. What is the knowledge required by university language teachers in the context of Golden Curriculum according to experts? RQ2. What are the skills required by university language teachers in the context of Golden Curriculum according to experts? RQ3. What is the attitude required by university language teachers in the context of Golden Curriculum according to experts? RQ4. What is Golden Curriculum teaching competence framework for university language teachers?

Method
To address the first three research questions, expert interviews were conducted to explore the knowledge, skills, and attitude required for language teachers to be competent in teaching English for university students with high-ordered, innovative, and challenging courses. The target population of the experts was the expert university language teachers and curriculum developers in Hebei province. The selection of experts in Hebei province is based on the understanding that they share similar demographic characteristics, qualifications, and experiences with other university language teachers across the country. By including experts from various universities of Hebei province, the study captures the diversity and range of teaching competencies present within the English teaching community nationwide. This sample selection ensures the research finding are applicable and relevant to the broader context of university English education in China.

Participants
A purposive sampling technique (Creswell and Creswell, 2018) was employed to select ten participants for this study. The participants consisted of two distinct groups: (1) excellent lecturers with awards and published papers in education reform and (2) experienced curriculum developers who are experienced in developing curriculum and providing training for English language teachers in universities. The selection criteria ensured that the participants had substantial expertise and experience in the field of English language teaching and curriculum development.
The sample size is typically based on the "saturation" of the information, or the point at which no new themes or information are presented during the interview (Guest et al., 2006). As a deliberate choice of the participant, purposive sampling reaches to participants who are richer in information and more effective in gathering information from experts within the same field, which guarantees the data quality (Etikan et al., 2016).

Interview Protocol
The interview protocol was carefully developed to capture the relevant information related to the teaching competencies required for a Golden Curriculum in the context of blended teaching. To ensure the validity and effectiveness of the interview questions, the protocol was validated by three experts in the field. Additionally, a pilot study was conducted to test the interview protocol's clarity and to ensure the smooth execution of the actual interviews.

Data Collection
Semi-structured interviews were conducted individually with each participant. The purpose of interview was to allow the researcher to enter into the experts' perspectives, which was the preferred data collection tacit to get better data with less cost (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016). The interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed verbatim for subsequent analysis. The participants were encouraged to share their insights, experiences, and perspectives on teaching competencies for the development of a Golden Curriculum in English language teaching.

Qualitative Analysis
A hybrid approach combining deductive and inductive methods was utilized during the qualitative analysis. According to (Saldaña, 2013), a balance between inductive and deductive approaches allows the qualitative data to speak for itself and structure the concepts derived from the theoretical framework. The deductive phase involved coding the interview data based on established frameworks, including Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishara and Koehler, 2006), Excellence Teaching Competence (CIEIBNU, 2021), and English teachers' teaching competence for blended teaching (Xu et al., 2021). The inductive phase involved identifying emerging themes and subthemes within the data.
A thematic analysis on the interview transcription was conducted to explore the elements of Golden Curriculum teaching competencies. It is a widely used method to organize, describe and interprets data to identify, analyse and report patterns and themes within data (Braun and Clarke, 2008).
Using the NVivo 12 software, the transcriptions were analyzed, and 19 subthemes were generated under the three overarching themes of knowledge, skill, and attitude. The coding process was validated by three experts in the field, ensuring the reliability and accuracy of the analysis. The transcription data also underwent member checking, where participants were given the opportunity to review and provide feedback on the accuracy of their transcriptions.

Demographic Information
Research participants involved experts in the field of English as a Foreign Language teaching and curriculum development which consist of two groups of experts: five ULEFL expert lecturers (EL) and five curriculum developers (CD). Table 1 below presents the demographic information of the interview experts

Results
A thematic analysis was conducted using NVivo software, resulting in the identification of three overarching themes: knowledge, skill, and attitude. These themes encompassed a total of 19 subthemes, which provided a comprehensive understanding of the teaching competencies required for the development of a Golden Curriculum in English language teaching. Table 2 below presents the themes, subthemes, and corresponding codes  (6 codes) language proficiency, cultural context, and disciplinary knowledge. CDF0408 directly pointed out, "One's professional knowledge must be solid…it is important to deepen one's understanding of the subject matter." ELF0204 further added that "I believe the first key skill is the ability to design and organize lessons, as well as understanding the content being taught." Pedagogical knowledge refers to the understanding of effective teaching methods, approaches, and strategies. As CDF0202 mentioned, "I can sense that older lecturers have little understanding of what a "Golden Curriculum" is... As for the younger lecturers, they may have some conceptual understanding of it." Pedagogical content knowledge is concerned with understanding learners and policy, as CDM0101 stressed the importance of understanding learning theories: "And we should teach students about cognitive rules, such as how they should progress from the basics to the more difficult topics." Technological pedagogical and content knowledge emphasizes the integration of technology tools and resources into instructional practices, as CDM0101 stressed the importance of appropriate use of data "Teachers should also examine whether the data reflects the truth. The data provided by Xuexitong is useless… as students can cheat and get perfect scores. As a result, it is important for lecturers to have the ability to correctly interpret data, judge technology, and provide feedback."

RQ2: Golden Curriculum Teaching Skills
The skill perspective yielded nine subthemes highlighting the teaching and learning process including instruction design, teaching and learning, assessment. The language ability is the most important element in teaching skills. In addition, the integration and collaboration ability are also important for language teachers to be competent when communicating with people and employing suitable technology while teaching. As for the cognitive skills in terms of higher-order thinking skills, systematic thinking, critical thinking, and interdisciplinary thinking are stressed by the experts to ensure a high-ordered, innovative, and challenging course delivery. Finally, affective skills such as positive learning engagement ability are also valued by experts to create a supportive learning environment to facilitate learning. Here are some of the experts stressing the importance of skills required for Golden Curriculum in English language teaching.
Professional-level English LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY "First, a lecturer's professional ability must be strong. Taking structural writing as an example…the lecturer's language proficiency is very important" (CDF0202) "How to incorporate these teaching methods into instructional design as a medium… and present them in a rich manner, and make students enjoy learning and achieve positive outcomes?" (ELF0204) Data-driven Instructional Design Ability "Although there is content in the coursebook, you can still supplement it with many new and cutting-edge ideas, as well as incorporating ideological and political content. You cannot rely solely on the coursebook, you must supplement it with new content" (CDF0408) "If the goal is 'creation' in terms of Bloom's taxonomy, …most students will not be able to keep up. Therefore, you must think about where to set the final goal…What is the next thing after "creation"? It's "evaluation" …but I don't think they can even do that... The next level down is application, and then analysis… Therefore, my final goal is designed around here (CDM0510)

Delivery Ability
"Another thing is the ability to maintain control in the classroom, which I feel is quite important, especially when it comes to interaction with students…You have to respond to them by giving comments." (ELM0406) "The outcome should reflect that students have engaged in their own research, participated actively, and achieved personalized results, rather than just focusing on activities like cloze exercises, translations, or multiple-choice questions". (CDF0408) Adaptive Assessment Ability "When it comes to assessment, the first point is to evaluate whether the set teaching objectives have been achieved, regardless of whether it is through tests or questionnaires".
Praxis-Theory Integration Ability "I believe it is important to apply the theoretical knowledge of language teaching to practical classroom situations. It involves taking the understanding of various teaching methods and techniques and effectively implementing them during lessons". (ELF0509) "In recent years, I have gained some insights specifically in the field of ideological and political education… and this year I have worked on a research project related to ideological and political education, focusing on how to incorporate it into university English teaching and achieve ideological and political education in the classroom". (CDM0307)

Human-AI Pedagogical Collaboration Ability
"Our ability to evaluate information extends beyond evaluating online information. It also includes evaluating learning data presented on our teaching platforms and student learning activities". (ELF0204) "I analyze video data automatically. Previously, classroom observation required physically being present in the classroom, but now it can be facilitated through information technology. I can continuously view your video, allowing me to determine whether you are interacting with me or not". (CDF 0408) Positive Learner Engagement Ability "Encourage them when they have innovative and critical thinking… it is important not to discourage students even if they make with some relatively basic mistakes". (ELF0204) "And constantly involve and engage students, making the classroom lively and dynamic".
Collaborative Stakeholder Engagement Ability Students can also perceive your attitude…if you are communicating with them with your heart, so they develop a closeness to their lecturers and trust their teachings. They think, "If I trust this teacher, I will definitely be able to learn well." (ELF0103) Sometimes, at the end of a semester, I feel sad and frustrated due to student performance, but in the next semester, I still step into the classroom and give it my all. I feel that I am here to serve the students, so I can restrain my mood and behaviour. (ELF0204) Higher-order Thinking Skills A lecturer who can identify issues specifically in their teaching activities and effectively solve them is considered capable of delivering Golden Curriculum…What I want to emphasize is the identification of problems and finding solutions. (CDM0510) I believe critical thinking plays a significant role. It stems from the lecturer's sensitivity towards language…If a teacher lacks critical thinking skills, they tend to accept everything they hear without questioning or examining it further. (CDM0101, 2022) To summarize, holistic skills encompassing the ability to collaborate with colleagues, stakeholders, learners, and technology to foster a supportive and inclusive learning environment are required for language teachers to be competent in Golden Curriculum teaching.

RQ3: Golden Curriculum Teaching Attitude
The attitude perspective revealed six subthemes related to the language teacher awareness, identity, and resilience. There are four subthemes related to awareness, namely, self-awareness, content awareness, people awareness and integration awareness. They are forming the language teacher awareness highlighting the importance of understanding own limitations and strengths, sensitivity to teaching content with cultural implications and emotions, sensitivity of collaboration with colleagues as well as subordinates and upper managers, and sense of integrating technology into teaching and learning process. These subthemes were supported by the following experts The lecturer is a comprehensive entity, encompassing their thoughts, experiences, and temperament. It is essential for the teacher to have a deep understanding of themselves. (ELF0509) We refer "alien" to foreigners only in legal documents. It may not be appropriate to use this term when referring to foreigners. It's important to be aware of cultural sensitivity and use appropriate languages. (CDM0307) You need to pay attention to every student. Teaching design must consider each individual student…We need to focus on the development of all students. The true meaning of education lies in how you can uplift the least ideal student and help them progress. (CDF0408) It is highly necessary to be aware of integration of technology for English courses. A blended teaching approach, combining both online and offline components to achieve objectives will be the case for a certain time. (ELF0103) As for language teacher identity, willingness to embrace challenge and make effort to achieve excellence is emphasized. Here are what experts stressed: There are numerous points worth investing time and effort. So, are you willing to devote time to this matter? First, one must acknowledge and accept that teaching requires dedication and a wholehearted commitment from oneself. (CDF0408) He (an excellent old lecturer) said that for teaching, if you want to do it well and sustain it for many years, the first thing is to have reverence, to reverence your profession. It is a form of honor (ELF0204) In addition, sense of vocation and passion, respect emotionally by learners and the university are also mentioned by experts. The GOOD person I mentioned is someone who can earn the respect of students. I believe that your class will have a positive impact and yield great results (CDM0510) For teacher resilience, adaptability means being flexible and creative to explore innovative approaches and adjust teaching strategies based on students' needs, the following experts highlighted the importance of resilience There are still many things that I haven't fully grasped and understood in depth. Can I explain them in a more in-depth manner? Can I continuously seek knowledge and understanding? This way, the course can be adjusted, changed, and improved. (ELM0406 Because technological advancements require teachers to adapt to them. For Golden Curriculum, ULEFL face a significant challenge if they aspire to become proficient in this teaching method (CDF0202, 2022) By examining teaching competencies through the lenses of knowledge, skill, and attitude, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of the elements necessary for the successful implementation of a Golden Curriculum in English language teaching. The identified subthemes provide valuable insights and guidance for educators and policymakers aiming to develop training programs and support systems to enhance teaching competencies in the context of a Golden Curriculum.

Discussion
Based on the findings of this study, a comprehensive framework of teaching competencies for the development of a Golden Curriculum in English language teaching are proposed. This framework encompasses three main themes: knowledge, skill, and attitude, each with its respective subthemes. The integration of these competencies ensures that teachers are equipped to effectively design, develop, implement, and evaluate a Golden Curriculum that incorporates innovative, challenging, and higher-order features. The knowledge perspective of the framework emphasizes the importance of in-depth content knowledge related to the coursebook as well as the supplementary learning materials and resources employed to include more recent and relevant information to teaching practice. These elements are crucial for teachers to set higher-order goals based on a deep understanding of students' needs and to supplement cutting-edge materials that provide new teaching content aligned with the learning objectives. What's more, technological knowledge has been placed a very important position. By incorporating AIpowered technology to further facilitate learning and teaching, the nature of the Golden Curriculum can be enhanced for teachers to deliver a high-ordered, innovative, and challenging course. For instance, the use of online corpus for vocabulary building and ChatGPT for refining and revising English writing are providing language teachers handy tools to enhance their students' learning outcomes. In addition, the use of online evaluation and technology enables teachers to be more innovative in their approach to curriculum design, development, implementation, and evaluation. Therefore, Golden Curriculum teaching knowledge is featured by three components: in-depth coursebook knowledge, extensive supplementary learning resources, and AI-powered language learning tool as a teacher assistant.
The skill perspective of the framework focuses on instructional design skills, competence-based delivery skills, adaptive assessment skills, collaborative skills, humanmachine interaction skills and positive emotion skills. By possessing these skills, language teachers can create challenging tasks that require both teachers and students to make efforts to improve. Through instructional design skills, teachers can design engaging and learnercentered activities, while competence-based delivery skills and adaptive assessment skills ensure the effective language teaching and learning activities and appropriate measurement of student learning outcomes. Collaborative skills enable teachers to benefit from team teaching and communicate needs and feelings to maximize the power of team teaching and improve personal teaching competence by absorbing good experience and method from other teachers and sharing own teaching approach for effective and efficient team teaching. What is worth mentioning is the positive emotion skills required to creative and build supportive learning environment for teaching and learning. Capable of building trust and empathy with learners are crucial for effective teaching and learning. In addition, humanmachine interaction skills featured by AI-powered pedagogical collaboration have raised serious concern of how AI-powered language model for dialogue can collaborate efficiently as teaching assistant for language teachers in terms of locating relevant information, offer constructive instructional design suggestions, refine and revise learner's language projects, and gatekeep for ethical use of technology.
The attitude perspective of the framework highlights the significance of language teacher awareness, identity, and resilience. These attitudes are fundamental for teachers to embrace the challenges of the Golden Curriculum and the evolving educational landscape. Sense of own limitations and strengths helps language learners to evaluate themselves realizing not all factors are under their full control but still making efforts to implement quality teaching with sensitivity to content cultural implication and emotion, learners' potential, as well as integration awareness to incorporate not only language learning objectives, but moral education and technology-based pedagogy into teaching and learning to ensure Golden Curriculum happen in daily teaching practice. As for teacher identity, a strong sense of identity is defining the portrait of language teachers. Willingness to invest time and energy, passionate, sense of vocation, accountable, having pride and honor, respected are what picture the language teacher and influence them to be a competent language teacher. Finally, flexibility and adaptability as the key feature of language teacher resilience, enable language teachers to adapt their teaching strategies to changing circumstances. By embracing challenges and adapting to new technology with a lifelong learning attitude, teachers are possessing sense of happiness and satisfaction which will improve learner performance eventually. Figure 1 presents the Golden Curriculum Teaching Competence framework for university English language teachers in China. As knowledge, skills, and attitude are interrelated and integrated in a holistic manner; therefore, it is necessary to present the framework in correlated way.

Figure 1 The Golden Curriculum Teaching Competence Framework for University Language Teachers
Among the three dimensions, attitude stands out as the most significant factor in embracing the challenges and changes associated with the Golden Curriculum. Teachers need to have a willingness to accept change, demonstrate flexibility, and exhibit adaptability in their teaching practices. This positive attitude fosters a dynamic learning environment that encourages students to actively engage and achieve their full potential.
However, it is important to note that while not all subthemes from the conceptual framework were directly reflected in the interview findings, and there are new elements emerging from the interview, such as the language teachers' strong sense of identity and resilience, human-machine interaction skills, and knowledge of AI-powered language learning tool as a teacher assistant. These identified themes and subthemes encompassed the essential elements for teaching competencies in the context of a Golden Curriculum. The current framework highlights the most salient and important competencies necessary for teachers in the development of a Golden Curriculum.
The proposed framework underscores the interrelatedness and interdependence of knowledge, skill, and attitude within teaching competencies. These elements cannot be viewed in isolation but rather as a holistic model that ensures the effective implementation of a Golden Curriculum. The integration of knowledge, skill, and attitude enables teachers to deliver quality education that aligns with the innovative, challenging, and high-order features of the Golden Curriculum.

GCTC
The depth of this discussion showcases the significance of teaching competencies and their role in implementing a Golden Curriculum. The integration of innovative approaches, such as AI-powered technology and online evaluation, along with the emphasis on higherorder goals and challenging tasks, highlights the forward-thinking nature of the proposed framework.

Conclusion
The development of teaching competencies for Golden Curriculum in English language teaching is crucial for the holistic growth and success of language teachers. This study has highlighted the importance of integrating knowledge, skill, and attitude within the framework of teaching competencies. The combination of these elements is essential for teachers to effectively design, develop, implement, and evaluate a Golden Curriculum that incorporates innovative, challenging, and higher-order features. The contribution of this study lies in its support of Xu's theory for blended teaching in English language teaching. By identifying the teaching competencies required for a Golden Curriculum, this research facilitates further exploration and development of teaching competency research in the field. Moreover, the framework proposed in this study provides a valuable tool for teachers to self-assess their competencies and guide their professional development, ultimately benefiting learners in general. However, the small sample size of the present study may limit the generalizability of the findings. Therefore, it is recommended that future research include a larger sample size to enhance the validity and reliability of the results. Additionally, conducting classroom observations to examine the feasibility of the proposed framework in actual teaching practice would further contribute to its practical application.
In conclusion, this research holds implications for the professional development of the College English teachers in terms of their teaching competencies, particularly in the context of implementing the Golden Curriculum. The theoretical contribution of this research lies in its advance on the framework of teaching competencies in terms of updated knowledge, skills, and attitude within this competency framework for Golden Curriculum English language teaching. This research also provides a valuable self-assessment tool for teachers to evaluate their competencies and guide their professional growth in the context of quality teaching for English in China after the pandemic.