ESP Related Theories And The Applications To The College Business English Teaching In China

Business English (BE) is one of the most important branches of ESP (English for Specific Purposes), which is getting more and more emphasis from the people. Business English was born in response to the need of Business activities and communications, as well as other members in ESP's big family.Business English teaching belongs to ESP teaching. It must be seen in the overall context of ESP, as it shares the important elements of the needs analysis, syllabus design, course design and materials selection which are common to all fields of work in ESP. There have been many developments in BE teaching, but BE course, as the compulsory subject of the juniors of business and economics majors in colleges, is not of success in China. Through the survey on the modes of the Business English teaching of three major colleges in Jinan, the author analyzes the present conditions of the college Business English teaching, and then points out its shortcomings.The emergence of ESP (English for Specific Purposes) shows that the needs and perceptions of the English learning change with the upgrade of the international communication in vast and various fields. The ESP related theories overseas advanced greatly since World War II, which is very useful and helpful to BE teaching. To improve the teaching quality of the Business English teaching, the author analyzes the implications obtained from the ESP related theories, and men displays the applications of them in college Business English teaching.Chapter one is the overview of Business English and Business English teaching. Chapter two gives an explanation of ESP and the necessity of the ESP study. Chapter three introduces something about ESP related theories such as Needs Analysis, Language Description, Situational Learning Theory and the Communicative Approach; all the theories are beneficial to the course design of the Business English in the colleges. In Chapter four, in order to demonstrate the present condition of the college Business English teaching, the author employs a questionnaire with a range of 300 students from three different universities in Jinan. Chapter five is the application of the ESP related theories in the Business English teaching. Finally, the Conclusion emphasizes the benefit of the ESP related theories to Business English teaching, and also it displays the limitations of this research and shows the way to the future study in this field. More efforts are required and deserved in this field.