As a newly developed principle of language teaching, critical language awareness (CLA) has great potential to promote social justice through language learning. However, the implementation of CLA pedagogy in Chinese educational settings has not been fully explored yet. Informed by the theory of planned behavior (TPB), this case study investigated the implementation of CLA pedagogy in a Chinese EFL writing class by exploring the teacher’s attitudes and perceived barriers, and how these factors influenced her intention to adopt the pedagogy. The analyses of multiple qualitative data sources (semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, teaching lesson plans, and course curriculum) revealed that the teacher’s intention of adopting CLA pedagogy was positively affected by her high appraisal of CLA. Several challenges were also found to limit the teacher’s choice of pedagogy, including the pressure from standardization examinations, the mismatch between the aims of CLA pedagogy and students’ actual needs and expectations, as well as insufficient teaching materials and resources. Based on these findings, several implications were suggested for the research of CLA pedagogy in Chinese EFL contexts.