Abstract: It is the essential foundation of research engagement for teachers to focus on discipline development and engage with academic literature. Based on a large-scale survey and a cross-case analysis, the mixed methods study explores university EFL teacher engagement with discipline and literature from an activity theory perspective. 1043 EFL teachers responded to the questionnaire and six volunteered for the in-depth interviews. The quantitative analysis of the questionnaires indicates that university EFL teachers largely follow discipline development by means of reading published articles, and online resources including database have become the main access to literature. Nevertheless, they heavily depend on the Chinese database instead of the foreign, and the use of international journals published in English is restricted. The qualitative analysis of the interview data suggests that teachers’ limited conception of the elements of the literature reading activity system has been a hindrance to engagement with discipline and extensive reading. The article proceeds to the discussion of how the use of literature resources mediates the improvement of classroom teaching and research practices.