Study On The Historical Development And Current Situation Of Curriculum Structure Of College English

"Time-wasting and low-efficiency"has been a problem in college English teaching for a long time, which is caused by comprehensive reasons. In recently years some scholars have began to resolve the problem by studying the curriculum structure of college English. However, all the study focused only on today's curriculum structure, ignoring the history of its development. Therefore, the thesis tries to retrospect the developing history of the curriculum structure and make a picture of it. By this we can find its developing trend and the factors which influenced and are influencing it. All the study is helpful to analyze the present curriculum structure's problems and find out the right way to resolve the problems.According to the thesis, the curriculum structure of college English is composed by two parts: the basic phase and the advanced phase. In the former phase, there are some obligatory curriculums commonly called"college English". These curriculums aim at improving the student's basic language knowledge and skills. The latter one includes different types of curriculums. At first, there are only two or three types. Nowadays, there are almost five types of curriculums such as type of language skill, language knowledge, comprehensive language, language application and ESP. These curriculums are optional for students who are interested in them. That is to say, the advanced phase has changed to be more diversified. Another prominent change is that the class hour has reduced greatly in basic phase. At first students must study all the curriculums at basic phase for 4 semesters, but now they can just spend 2 or 3 or less on it. So that they can save more time to study the optional curriculums at advanced phase. We can see that the advanced phase has been the more important part in curriculum structure of college English. Because of this, the curriculum structure of college English has changed to be more and more individual, that is to say, the structure in different universities and colleges has its own characters.All these changes are not accidental. There are deep factors behind it. Two kinds of factors influenced the curriculum structure of college English mainly. One is called"factor outside the education system"—the economical factor which results in the change of social requirements for students'English level. This factor is the ultimate factor influencing the change of curriculum structure of college English, but it has to effect through the second factors which are called"factors inside the education system". These factors include the education institution, the development of English subject, curriculum goal and the universities and colleges'own characters.At present the curriculum structure of college English is becoming more and more individual. At the same time, there are two common problems. One problem is to add more types ESP curriculums to help student master practice English for job. The other is to add curriculum of Chinese culture to improve students'quality, which is very helpful for them in international communication.