The impact of EAP skills on students' further academic study
Bin Zou, Jiang Guhai Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
EAP aims to enhance communicative skills in English in bridging a gap and enabling students to achieve future academic success (Jordan 1997). The goal of EAP is not only about the improvement of English-language proficiency, but also students ’ recognition and ability to
participate in different academic activities, such as being able to make notes in lectures, deliver presentations, and engage actively in group discussions (Hyland and Hamp-Lyons, 2002). However, few studies have explored various subject teachers ’ perceptions of students ’ academic performances after the completion of EAP courses. Thus, it should be interesting to investigate how EAP lessons can help students reinforce their further academic study from both students’ and academic teachers’ perspectives. This study investigated how the EAP skills students learnt in the Language Centre at an English medium university in China enhance their further academic study at this EMI university in China and a university in the UK. Participants included students and teachers from a variety of academic departments at the two universities. Research methods consisted of questionnaires and interviews. The results revealed respondents’ perceptions of students’ strengths and weaknesses in EAP skills as utilized in note taking, understanding lectures, reading, writing, group discussions, team work, critical thinking and delivering presentations in their academic study. The findings suggested that the majority of students perceived that EAP skills are transferrable to other modules and helpful to their academic study.
A Study on the Connotative Development of Business English Major--A Preliminary Analysis Based on Linguistic Economics
Deng Jingzi 国防科技大学文理学院
Business English’s connotative development is the embodiment of “Innovative development”, “coordinated development”, “open development”, “green development” and “shared development in the Business English education. Connotative development is an essential requirement for Business English academia. It is the directional problem of subject design and also the fundamental issue of it. Also, connotative development provides an objective basis for educational practices and establishes theoretical support for Business English development. The connotative development puts focus on the constant optimization and reorganization of inherent endowment, internal power, and internal creativity. Besides, connotative development lays emphasis on the integration of educational resources, which promotes the subject’s sustainable development. Nowadays, China is entering an open economic period and the Business English subject is standing at the turning point of transformation and upgrade. How can we consolidate and promote this subject’s comparative advantage in order to increase the subject’ core competitiveness? Theories of the economics of language can provide theoretical support for this field of study’s sustainable development.
Keywords: Linguistic Economics; connotative development; the value of language theory; human
Instruction Design of Business Integrity Culture
Shen Hong, Ma Yanhua Chongqing University
The research of CSP (Chinese for Special Purpose) started in the 1980s, Due to the late start, many theories of CSP have referred to the relatively mature ESP theory. Business Chinese is one of the most widely needed and studied Chinese courses in the Chinese for Special Purpose field. In business Chinese teaching, besides professional business vocabulary and business common sense, business culture is also an important part that cannot be ignored. Therefore, we choose the important culture of integrity in business culture as the research topic. Taking International students studying in China whose Chinese level are at Intermediate Level as the teaching object .the Instruction design of the business culture course is carried out by drawing lessons from the relevant theories of business English and combining the characteristics of business Chinese itself. The Instruction design is mainly based on case teaching method, supplemented by task teaching method and experiential teaching method. then through the form of questionnaire and interview to evaluate the quality and satisfaction of the Instruction design, and get suggestions for improvement. Then we will summarize the corresponding teaching reflection and Suggestions, in order to gain more business culture teaching experience and inspiration through this Instruction design.
Evaluating EAP Provision – A Holistic Perspective
Gareth Morris, Xinyu Wan Xi'an Jiao Tong - Liverpool University
In recent years’ research on EAP has increased significantly as a wider base of practitioners gain experiences within this field, and increasing numbers of organizations and business enterprises consider its uptake or evolution. Forming a bridge between general English courses and academic programmes EAP modules are acknowledged as providing a useful learning base within universities as Zareva (2019) alludes to. In China the benefits of EAP provision is arguably even more apparent, especially in EMI institutions, or for student cohorts with overseas aspirations. In some cases, early successes with such provision has also promoted uptake elsewhere as the examples of Nottingham Ningbo and Xi’an Jiao Tong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) suggest. However, how effective or worthwhile such programmes can be or actually are is often debatable. On that note, this presentation will consider the case of XJTLU and its associated EAP provision. Thus drawing on literature, and the experiences of practitioners and students alike this talk will begin by looking at the EAP evolutionary journey that the XJTLU Language Centre has undertaken before considering the perspectives of staff and students, through their responses to semi-structured interviews alongside questionnaires, regarding how effective and useful such courses actually are and have been.
Pragmatic Identity Construction of English Abstracts Writing of Science and Engineering Postgraduates
Liu Si-tong
Beijing International Studies University
As a consequence of intensified internationalization, science and engineering postgraduates are required to publish English articles in foreign high-level journals, which has become one of the important standards to measure international academic ability of science and engineering subjects in domestic universities. As one of the ultimate purposes of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses for science and engineering graduates, English essay writing is increasingly important. Besides, abstract is the main platform for the author to express his purpose, methodology and value of the research. Therefore, for science and engineering graduates, how to communicate with the international academic circle in a limited words, what kind of pragmatic identity to construct and which discourse type to adopt, these aspects to be discussed will play a constructive role in the academic paper writing and the cultivation of pragmatic ability.
Keywords: Science and engineering postgraduates; English abstracts writing; English for specific
purposes (ESP); Pragmatic identity.
On the Interpersonal Meaning Construction of Chinese and American Business English Speeches---A Corpus-based Study
Li Hui 重庆第二师范学院
It studies the construction of interpersonal meaning in Chinese learners’ business English speeches and American business people’ business English speeches, based on Halliday’s functional grammar theory. Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted in the study. Through comparative analysis, the similarities and differences of mood system, person system and modality system between American business English speeches and Chinese learners' business English speeches in the construction of interpersonal meaning are obtained. It is hoped that the study will give some inspiration to learners in making business English speeches, so that they can better express their views and attitudes and influence others' thoughts, feelings and behaviors in business speeches.
Keywords: interpersonal meaning; Business English speeches; corpus