A Tentative Study On Defining The Objectives Of Integrated Skills Of English Course

Integrated Skills of English (ISE) is the key course in English program because it occupies the most class hours and lasts the longest teaching years among all the courses provided for English majors. The clear perception of ISE objectives is crucial for both teachers and students involving in this course. Some people think that ISE is another version of Intensive Reading of English course, which focuses on the elaboration of language knowledge; some others hold the view that this is a course that put listening, speaking, reading and writing together. Literature review shows little studies on the objectives setting of ISE course though there are some on teaching content and teaching methodology of this course.Three research hypotheses are proposed in the present study: (1) One of the important objectives of Integrated Skills of English is to develop students'skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing in an integrated way as the name of the course suggests. (2) Besides developing students'language skills, ISE course also aims to improve students'ability beyond English language. (3) The expected objectives for ISE course are consistent with the goals proposed in the National Syllabus for English Majors at Tertiary Level.The research instruments employed in the present study are open-ended questionnaire and close-ended questionnaire. The questionnaire investigations are made on 300 English majors in Grade Three and 12 English teachers teaching ISE course in Guangxi Normal University, who provide as many as over 3000 objectives statements in their response to the questionnaires. Statistical results report the following major findings:1) All the objectives statements provided by both the teacher subjects and the students subjects are within the objectives dimensions specified in the National Syllabus for English Majors at Tertiary Level. That is, solid language foundation, wide range of knowledge, related subject matter, stronger abilities and better qualities.2) According to the students, the primary objective in learning ISE course concerns language foundation including language knowledge and language skills, among which the latter outweighs the former. While the teachers regard the development of students'abilities is of the most significance and the language foundation is in the secondary position among all the objectives dimensions.3)"Better qualities"is ranked the last by the students while"related subject matter"is ranked the last by the teachers.4) Concerning the specific objectives statements, both the teachers and the students share the same views on the following ISE objectives: in language foundation dimension, learning discourse, vocabulary and grammar is the most important; in language skills dimension, reading and writing are more important than listening and speaking; in stronger ability dimension, critical thinking ranks the first; and in knowledge range dimension, cross-cultural knowledge is the most prominent.5) After the data analysis of the questionnaires completed by the students in English education program, in business English program, and in English translation and interpreting program, it is found that the objectives established by these three groups of students have different features. Interesting results are identified that all the students hope to achieve pedagogy-related knowledge in ISE course no matter what programs they are in. Besides, business English students think that"learning literature"is significant in ISE course, which is a new contribution to objectives setting.All the above statistical results are coincident with the research hypotheses.The limitations of the present study and the suggestions for further studies are provided at the end of this thesis.