To Improve Students’Linguistic Performance & Independent Thinking Abilities in Business English Teaching

Abstract Business English is a required course for English majors. By learning the course， students can know the necessary business knowledge and improve their linguistic performance and independent thinking abilities under the systematic background knowledge of industry business theory and practice. It will be the strong foundations for students’ better future career.

Key words Business English； linguistic performance； independent thinking

中圖分類號：G424 文獻標識碼：AAs a student of Business English major， the work and business type he will face in his future career are both complicated and multifarious. He is no longer limited into just dealing with business letters and L/Cs， or participating some business negotiations or conferences， he may actually involve in administrating Chinese enterprises outside of China， managing joint-venture enterprises or foreign enterprises in China， as well as international trade negotiations and consultations. To be qualified for the work up mentioned， he should be familiar with the basic economic theories， the operating rules of market economy， the administration of modern enterprises， the concepts procedures of international business activities， the laws cultures related and especially the foreign language abilities and skills needed.

In a society of market economy， anyone will benefit from his understanding of business trade， whoever is an engineer， a media reporter or an interpreter of an enterprise. The business philosophy of creativity， leadership， cooperation and quality control will be closely bound up a student’s future career. That is especially important for an English major student， because most of them will find their life careers in business enterprises as business trade， operating management or professional translation. By learning business English， students can both gain the necessary basic business knowledge and improve their abilities in language using and independent thinking under the systematic background knowledge of industry business theory and practice.

1 The Characters of Business English.

Business English is a required course for English majors at their third year. The course is taught in English. It introduces how the enterprises operate under current market economy system. The course includes the following aspects： Organization of a business， Business environment， Marketing， Management， Financial management. Our country is in the period of constructing socialist market economy and accelerating its integration with world economy after its joining in WTO. Market-oriented economy and business administration are the two fields an international trade worker must know well. By learning the course of Business English， students can gain a global image of modern market economy and enterprises operating as well as the English words and phases in enterprise environment， business administration， international finance， laws and insurances. To master their major， students should not only understand what they have learned in class but also be capable of applying them into practice. They should cultivate their thinking habits in English manners， improve their language application abilities and increase their independent thinking and analyzing abilities to enhance the bases learning for further microcosmic and specific courses.

2 The analysis of linguistic performance ability and independent thinking ability of English majors.

Under the background of economic globalization， the requirement for foreign language talents is becoming bigger and bigger. But the English majors we have cultivated under current educating systems and methods can not meet the standards of market demanding. That is， the number of English learners is getting larger and larger， the masters and those who can put language into practice are getting fewer and fewer. As in the industry of translation， from the statistics of Translators Association of China， there are over 40，000 professional translators， and the people work in related industry are more than 500，000. There are only less than 5% translators can be defined as high-level and even fewer can be qualified for international conferences interpreters. The gap we need to cover is a million. Actually， a graduate of Business English major can do more than a translator. He can apply what he has learned in Business English in the fields of business operating， management， finance， laws， etc. The reason why our graduates are uncompetitive in the fields up mentioned is the insufficient practice training in their college period. They have developed the habit of passive learning and lack initiative and creativity. What they care about is their final exam papers， not the improvement of practice abilities. Without practice and further research， they can not improve the linguistic performance. To solve all these， we must use language in specific language environment， which is practice.

3 To improve English language performance on base of business knowledge.

To take full advantage of Business English to improve English language performance， we must start with the following two aspects.

（1） To arrange teaching content and class hours scientifically and reasonably.

The course book has after-class exercises of vocabulary and translation as well as business knowledge question-and-answer drills and case analysis. All these exercises are systematic and closed related to practice. So， it is necessary to arrange teaching content and class hours scientifically and reasonably to improve linguistic performance ability according to our students’ situation. There are 16 teaching weeks in a semester and 2 or 3 class hours per week. As a teacher， by thoroughly studying the course book and refining its content， he should shorten his teaching hours to 1/3 of the total class hours and left 1/3 class hours for question-and-answer drills， case analysis and class discussion， Of which， the Chinese case analysis exercises should be translated into English in advance and all the analyzing， discussion and decision-making should be performed in English to enhance the teaching content. Another 1/3 class hour is used for team demonstration. All the students are divided into several teams to imitate a company separately. Each team will analyze the company’s management， marketing， financing and other questions it may probably face and show the analyzing consequence to the class. The demonstration should be performed in English too. It can provide the students the opportunity to use English in real business situations to enhance their language ability and enlarge their business English vocabulary.

（2） To change the exam evaluating method.

To encourage students’ participation in discussion and analysis， the usual quiz results proportion should be increased to 40%-50% in final results. The usual quiz results can be divided into two parts， class participation and team demonstration. The former is used to measure if students effectively use what they have learned in class into class discussion and case analysis， while the latter is to cultivate students’ abilities of independent thinking， analyzing and problem solving. The final paper is composed of questions and answers， definitions， case analysis and bilingual translations， which takes 60%-50% of the final results. From it we can see how well the students master the basic concepts of business administration and how fluent they are in language application.

4 Result.

We should pay enough attention on the course of Business English to improve students’ abilities in linguistic performance and independent thinking to meet the requirement of market economy. We should improve our teaching methods and change our teaching content to involve students’ better participation and make strong foundations for their future work with business English language.

References

[1] Tony Dudley-Evans， Developments in English for Specific Purposes [M].Cambridge University Press， 1998.

[2] H.D. Brown， Principles of Language Learning and Teaching[M].外語教學與研究出版社，2002.

[3] 于波.在英語教學中培養學生批判性思維能力的意義和策略[J].教育探索，2009（12）.

[4] 黃遠振.文化教學的目標、內容和原則[J].高師英語教學與研究，2003（12）：39.

[5] 葉苗.全球化背景下英語專業綜合語言運用能力培養模式研究[J].中國大學教學，2009（4）：90.