Foreign language teacher education is an extensively researched subject. Nevertheless, the research focus is on classroom teachers, despite the fact that distance language learning is burgeoning today. In the light of this, a survey was carried out among distance English language teaching (ELT) tutors at the Chinese radio and television universities (RTVU) with the aim of exploring their professional development needs, as well as identifying possible ways of catering for such needs. Survey findings indicate that the overall scenario for Chinese tutors' professional development was not promising. Accordingly, recommendations are made to improve the quality and availability of professional development for ELT tutors at RTVUs. It is hoped that this study, which deals with a very different distance language teaching context, may form a useful addition to the findings from other researchers. (Contains 5 tables and 2 figures.)