基于需求分析之商务英语课程创设研究

发布时间：2016-05-13 10:27

Chapter One Introduction

With the gradual perfection of China’s socialist market system and the successfulaccess to WTO, China has fully participated in the international competition, whichhad been presenting China with a new challenge in talent cultivation of vocationaleducation, especially in the cultivation of Business English talents. And in turn withthe development of vocational education and increasing social demands for BusinessEnglish talents in China, Business English curriculums are offered in nearly most ofthe vocational colleges as the focused disciplined under English program and a greatdeal of efforts have been made to cultivate Business English talents. Although in thepast several decades the development of college English education has achieved greatsuccess, a lot of problems still impose some threats on the business English educationand accordingly business English curriculums under English program should bechanged and improved according to the new situation to fit the needs of society forbusiness English personnel. English teaching in vocational colleges had alsoaccordingly undergone somewhat improvements in order to meet the requirements ofthe nation’s great strength and emphasize on vocational college in recent years.However, business English majors still find it difficult to find a good job and feel thatthey have learnt in the colleges is not enough for their jobs. On the other hand,employers find the quality of the business English graduates is far from theirexpectations and can not meet the demands of the markets nowadays. Thisphenomenon reflects that the effect of the vocational education keeps out of the touchwith the needs of the markets. Therefore, it is an important and urgent task forvocational colleges to set up appropriate systematic new curriculums for businessEnglish majors.The author investigates the present business English curriculums for Englishmajors from two vocational colleges in China and the common features are describedas follows:1) The curriculum programs usually include 4 blocks: goals and objectives,requirements for the students’ skills, abilities and qualities, curriculumarrangements and teaching plan, and syllabus.2) The curriculum systems mostly abide by the credit-administration modeand the model of English major and business-oriented curriculumsdivided into compulsory curriculums+ optional curriculums+ training forthree years schooling in general accordance with the package pattern oftheoretical teaching system and practical teaching system.3) The curriculum design focuses on the cultivation of students’ practicaland operational oriented English skills.According to the survey of the curriculum design in vocational colleges, theauthor finds that there are some problems existing in the present BE curriculumdesign in the aspects of the teaching materials, curriculum arrangement, teachingmethods, etc.In order to solve these problems, students needs for curriculums and theemployers’ requirements on BE graduates should be analyzed completely as thereference to the business English curriculum design.
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Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Definitions of Some Important Terms
ESP is the abbreviation of English for Specific Purposes. The definition of ESPwas proposed in the book The Linguistic Sciences and Language Teaching in 1964. Inthis book, the ESP was defined as “English for civil servants; for policeman; forofficials of the law; for dispenses and nurses; for specific in agriculture; for engineersand fitters.” (Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens, 1964:190). From the definition of thisbook, it is easy to conclude that ESP is a variety of English which is used in a certainspecialized occupations. Hutchinson and Waters (1987) deem that ESP is an approachto language teaching in which all decisions as to content and method are based on thelearners’ reason for learning. Meanwhile, the two scholars summarized three mainreasons for the emergence of ESP. Firstly, the expansion of demands for English to fitparticular needs (science, technology and economy). Secondly, the view gainedground that the English needed by a special group of learners could be identified byanalyzing the linguistic of their specialist area of work or study. The last one is thedevelopment in educational psychology which focuses on the critical importance oflearners and their attitudes toward learning.To find out where business English fits in ESP, it is important to know theclassification of ESP. In fact, there are two main methods to divide ESP .One popularmethod was done by Hutchinson and Waters in 1987. They divide ESP into EST(English for science and technology), EBE (English for business and economy) andESS (English for the social science) according to the general nature of the learners’specialism, and then each variety can be further divided into EAP (English foracademic purpose) and EOP (English for occupational purpose).Jordon (1997) divides ESP into EAP and EOP within EAP which can be furtherdivided into ESAP (English for specific academic purpose) and EGAP (English forgeneral academic purpose). Business English is one of the important branches of ESP. But it is different fromother varieties of ESP in that general content and specific content are concerned in it.The general content concerns with the general ability to communicate in the businesscontext, while the specific content is related with a particular job area or industry.Pricket (1989:5) proposes the view that Business English is “a mediatinglanguage between particular business context and daily life and the language ofgeneral public”. Ellis and Johnson (1994:3) perceive that “as with other varieties ofESP, Business English implies the definition of a specific language corpus andemphasizes on particular kinds of communication in a specific context”. Wang(1997:1) defines BE as the English used in business situation which is a variety ofESP. According to Zhang & Li (2004:11), as a branch of ESP, Business English is akind of standardized English including a broad range of content in business activities.Zhang (2007:406) makes a definition of Business English, which involves “theteaching of system of strategic communication in social and economic domain ofinternational business in which participants, adopting/adapting business conventionsand procedures, make selective use of lexicon and grammatical resources of Englishas well as visual and audio semiotic resources to achieve their communicative goals”.Through various definitions of Business English mentioned above, we canconclude that those definitions speak volumes for the interrelations between businessand English. In a narrow sense, business English is a kind of language variety in thebusiness context. And in a broad sense, business English is conceived as a crossed andmarginal subject of English and business disciplines. In this study, we adopt thedefinition of business English in a narrow sense.

2.2 Curriculum Design
Curriculum design is the fundamental approach to carry out teaching. Meanwhile,curriculum design influences the level of teaching and learning effects deeply. It isdifficult to reach the anticipated teaching goals without appropriate curriculums forstudents. Therefore, it is vital to pay more attention to the curriculum design.Curriculum involves the planning and structuring of a course in order to achieve therequired instructional goals. In practical terms, this process includes indentifyingappropriate goals, and establishing evaluation procedures subject to the specifiedgoals. It is necessary to distinguish curriculum, syllabus and course because these threeterms are often confused. The word curriculum derives from the Latin word “currere”,which means “racecourse”.Brown believe that “curriculum should be defined in a broad sense, which takeseducational programs’ planning, implementation and evaluation systematically in toconsideration” (Brown, 1995:19). Candlin proposed that curriculum concerns itselfwith making the general decisions about the language learning and teaching, learningaims, and the roles of teachers and students in the process of teaching and learning.The syllabus concerns with a plan that states exactly what students at a school orcolleges should learn in a particular subject. Nunan (1988:6) believes that curriculumis concerned with systematic procedures which include planning, evaluation,management, evaluation, management, and administration of an educational program.He thinks the syllabus focuses more narrowly on the selection and ordering ofinstructional content. In the perspectives of Nunan, syllabus design is one of theimportant subsidiary components of curriculum design. Dubin and Olshtain (2006)hold the idea that curriculum is often a reflective of national and political trends aswell, and they think syllabus is a more detailed and operational statement of teachingand learning elements which translates the philosophy of the curriculum into a seriesof steps leading toward more narrowly defined objectives at each level. In China, ShuDingfang believes that curriculum is a general description of the nature of languageand teaching as well as teaching requirement, and syllabus is a description of specificteaching objectives (Shu, 2004:22). From the scholars’ definition at home and abroad,we can conclude that curriculum is macro-concept while syllabus is micro-concept.Course and curriculum are two confusing concepts. There are few definitionsabout the course. Mc Neil (1985) thinks course is a set of learning opportunitieswithin a field for a year, semester or quarter. This thesis studies the curriculum designwhich includes planning, evaluation, management, and administration of aneducational program.

Chapter Three Research Methodology .........................................23

3.1 Research Questions............23

3.2 Participants..........................................23

3.3 Research Instruments ............................................24

Chapter Four Results and Discussion .......................27

4.1 Students’ Needs Analysis ..................................................27

Chapter Five Conclusion......................................49

5.1 Major Findings.........................................49

5.2 Implications of the Study .......................................51

Chapter Four Results and Discussion

4.1 Students’ Needs Analysis
Regarding to the students’ attitudes toward the Business English learning, 4% ofthe students hold the view that learning BE is unnecessary and 3.2% of them takeneutral attitudes towards the learning. 72.8 % of the students deem the BE learning isvey necessary. The rest 28% of the students think the learning is very necessary.This result indicates that most of the students hold positive attitudes toward theBE learning and think it is very necessary to learn. The reason is that most of thestudents want to acquire the advanced language skills and business skills by thebusiness English learning.Question 2 is designed to investigate the students’ perception on the learning ofBE curriculums. The result of this question is presented in Table 4.2. As many as 88% of the students think the current Business English curriculumsare very helpful for their future work, while 12% of students claim that thesecurriculums are helpful to some extent. There are no students choose “not helpful atall”.This result indicates that most of the students have positive idea about thelearning of BE curriculums and they think these curriculums are very helpful in theirfuture job. But we should notice that some students perceive that the effects ofcurriculums are limited. Therefore, it is necessary to develop the present curriculumsto make them play a larger role in the future job.Question 3 inquires into the reasons for taking BE curriculums. The result of thisquestion is displayed in the Table 4.3. From Table 4-3, we know that most of the students think it is the future job thatmotivates them to taking business English curriculums. Results show that as many as54% of the students choose “working requirements”, and 38% of the students indicatethat they take the BE curriculums for the purpose of getting credits. 3.2% of thestudents choose “communicate in daily life”, and 1.8% of the students choose“interest”. 3% of the students want to take part in the postgraduate exams by learningthese curriculums.The results show that most students are motivated by the desire for finding a jobrelated to foreign business, which is instrumentally or extrinsically motivated. So it isnecessary for the BE teachers to develop some job-oriented teaching materials for thestudents to meet the requirements of the work. Meanwhile, the students’ learninginterest is considered as an important factor in the learning of BE curriculums. Butthere are few students learn BE curriculums because of their interests. In Question 3“interest” belongs to intrinsic motivation whereas “ work”, “ pass the exam”,“communication in daily life” and “ get the BE credits” can be categorized asextrinsic motivation. Many scholars think that intrinsic motivation tends to lead tomore successful learning outcomes by comparison with extrinsic motivations.Therefore, it is advisable for the BE teachers to use the appropriate teaching methodsto arouse the students’ learning interest.Question 4 is designed to research the students’ interests on English languageskills. The result of this question is presented in the Table 4-4.

4.2 Needs Analysis of Employers
In order to investigate the employers’ requirements on BE graduates, theinterview with the employers from foreign trade companies are also adopted in thisstudy. 10 employers were invited to the interview to express their viewpoints on therequirements to the BE graduates as well as their suggestions to the BE teaching.The interview includes the following specific and open-ended questions:Q1: Are you satisfied with the BE graduates from vocational colleges?Q2: Which kind of business knowledge and skills that the BE graduates have tomasters?Q3: What is your requirement on the BE graduates?Q4: What the students have learned from the BE curriculums can meet the needsof work?Q5: What are your suggestions on the BE teaching and curriculum design?The viewpoints and suggestions from the employers on the BE graduates aresummarized as follows:Firstly, as for Q1, the majority of the interviewed employers indicate that theyare not quite satisfied with the BE graduates from vocational colleges. Some ofemployers’ viewpoints are presented as follows:Employer 1: “I am not quite satisfied with the BE graduates. In sum, they canuse English to send e-mails and read some documentsor contracts about business.However, when they communicate with our foreigner customers face to face, they cannot use English fluently. Meanwhile, their business negotiation skills andcommunication skills in the business context should be enhanced.”Employer 2: “I am dissatisfied with the BE graduates. The knowledge and skillsabout business are theoretical and out-dated. For example, some BE employees usesome expressions they have learned from school which are abandoned by us for manyyears. Moreover, they lack the operational skills and can not deal with the problemsappropriately.”In sum, the employers are not quite dissatisfied with the BE graduates. They cannot deal with the business issues appropriately because they lack the businessoperational skills. And some employers are dissatisfied with the graduates’ spokenEnglish. It is necessary to offer more opportunities for students to practice theirEnglish speaking and writing skills.Q2 is designed to investigate the employers’ demands on business knowledgeand skills. Some of the employers’ viewpoints are presented as follows:Employer 2: “I hope the graduates have excellent English proficiencies tonegotiate with the customers. Furthermore, it is important for the BE graduates toknow the foreign trade consultation process and business correspondence writing.And the relevant business trade laws are also important in the work.”Employer 4: “I think listening and speaking are as important as reading andwriting. There are many workers from other countries in our companies and English isan important communication instrument in our daily life. It is necessary to use Englishto communicate with the colleagues from other countries. Besides, I hope thegraduates have good language ability and operational business skills. Referring to thebusiness knowledge, it is necessary to know the relevant business trade laws andregulations.”Employer 5: “Firstly, it is necessary to master the business knowledge and theprofessional terms. Secondly, it is necessary for the BE graduates to know somebusiness etiquette. ”In sum, the employers have high expectations on BE graduates. They hope thegraduates not only know the business knowledge and professional terms, but alsoexpect the graduates are familiar with foreign trade consultation process and businesscorrespondence writing.Regarding to the employers’ requirements on BE graduates, Employer 6 andEmployer 7 expressed their perception as follows:Employer 6: “The top two overall abilities that we emphasize are teamwork spirit,excellent interpersonal skills as the employees in the foreign trade companies oftencommunicate with their customers and colleagues. Therefore, it is necessary to havethe teamwork spirit and excellent interpersonal skills for the employees. ”Employer 7: “We often communicate with our customers by e-mail andtelephone. Therefore, we hope the BE graduates not only have excellent writing skillsbut also have good communication skill. Besides, the employees in the foreign tradecompanies often work under pressure. Therefore, the BE graduates should have goodpsychological quality and physical quality to work under pressure.”Referring to the employers’ attitudes toward the business English curriculums,some of the employers expressed their perceptions as follows:Employer 8: “I do not think the present BE curriculum design can fully meet theneeds of work. And there is a large gap between the BE graduates’ learning and thesociety. The knowledge that the students have learned from school is theoretical andout-dated to some extent. Besides, the school offers fewer opportunities for studentsto practice their spoken English. Some BE graduates feel nervous and can not useEnglish fluently when they communicate with our foreigner customers.”Employer 9: “I think the gap is a bit large. The BE employees lack the workingexperiences in trade fields. Our companies have to spend three months or more timeto train the students. Therefore, it is urgent for the colleges and companies to strengththe cooperation to train the students. ”
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Chapter Five Conclusion

5.1 Major Findings
Based on the needs analysis of students and the employers from the foreign tradecompanies, the major findings of this study are summarized as follows:(1) In sum, most of the students hold positive attitudes towards the BE learning,and they want to equip themselves with excellent English language skills as well asthe professional business knowledge and skills by learning a series of BusinessEnglish curriculums. Regarding to the present BE teaching, most of the students hopethe teachers add more supplementary materials and introduce more newly businessknowledge for them. Furthermore, the students indicate that they do not have enoughopportunities to practice the business skills they have learned in the BE class. Besides,the students prefer the interactive teaching organization forms such as role play andgames, simulation, group discussion. Meanwhile, the students put forward higherrequirements for the teachers. And the students think the qualified business Englishteacher should have English language teaching background and working experiencesin business filed.Concerning to the teaching materials, most of the students prefer the originalEnglish version of textbooks as they want to learn the business operation skills andknowledge in the real working situation. But some students prefer theEnglish-Chinese textbooks because they want to comprehend the business terms andknowledge more easily. They expect the teacher is an organizer of learning activitiesand guider of their learning in the process of teaching materials. In the aspect of BEcurriculum arrangement, most of the students are satisfied with the variety of thepresent curriculum. But most of them are dissatisfied with the curriculum intensityand curriculum difficulty. The students hope the schools offer some introductorybusiness curriculums in advance. Referring to the current BE test, the studentsindicate that the contents of present BE test are identical with the test of GeneralEnglish. Therefore, it is advisable to adopt all kinds of text forms such as open-bookexaminations, written test, and oral test into the BE tests. Furthermore, the contents ofthe Business English tests should attach importance to the business operational skillsof the students.

5.2 Implications of the Study
This study conducts needs analysis of the BE curriculum design in vocationalcolleges and has some theoretical and practical significance. The theoreticalsignificance indicates that this study make people know more about the needs analysistheories to some extent and initiate them to do more empirical research on needsanalysis. The practical significance mainly refers to the implications to the BEteaching. This thesis tries to investigate the students’ practical learning needs on the BEcurriculums as well as the employers’ requirements on the BE graduates. The socialneeds reflect the employers’ expectations and requirements for the BE graduates fromthe objective perspectives, while the students’ needs embody their personal subjective“necessity”, “lacks” and “wants”.Needs analysis is the starting point of implementing curriculum design whichplays an important role in the curriculum design. It is also a foundation for setting upthe teaching program, deciding teaching methods, and conducting teaching activities.The curriculums can easily solve the teaching problems and design the curriculumsmore scientific and beneficial for both the students and society on the basis of needsanalysis. This thesis provides some reliable information and valuable suggestions forcurriculum designers in vocational colleges. Results of this survey indicate that thestudents’ needs are not fully considered by the curriculum designers. The learningneeds and social needs are not always identical with each other. Because the needsanalysis is an on-going process and the conclusions should be checked andre-assessed frequently. It is important to make adjustment according to theinvestigation of the learners’ needs and social needs. It is necessary for the BE teachers to choose the appropriate teaching methods toincorporate the business knowledge and skills into the class. However, there isnothing specific methods about the ESP methods. Some teaching methods liketask-based methods and communicative methods are proved efficient in the GeneralEnglish teaching which can also be used in the BE teaching. Therefore, BE teacherscan adopt various teaching methods with the assistance of multimedia equipment toimprove the BE teaching and enrich the curriculum content. Varied combination ofcurriculum contents should be contained in the class teaching to attract the students’learning interest on BE. These teaching contents can be choose from the businessnewspapers or the other forms of authentic business materials. Meanwhile, all kindsof class activities can be conducted to improve the students’ BE skills. Role play andgames, simulation, group discussion can be adopted in the BE class and these classactivities are proved to attract the students’ learning interest easily.The students should be encouraged to take part in various English professionaltrainings or examinations concerning with the business to make the students morecompetitive in the job markets. Besides, the establishment of practice training basesby schools and different trade companies is expected to offer job-oriented training tostudents, which provide the opportunity for the students to practice what they havelearned from the BE class and get familiar with the business operational skills inadvance.
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