English Major Construction From The Perspective Of Educational Ecology

With the deepening of reform and opening up and the rapid development of China’ssocialist market economy, the requirements of the society for foreign language talents havechanged fundamentally. And it is these changes that push forward the reform of Englishmajor education continually. At the beginning of the new century, The NationalEnglish-teaching Curriculum for English Majors in Colleges and Universities was issuedby the Ministry of Education of China. As the state-authorized creed to guide the Englishmajor education all over the country, it has redefined the educational goal of English majoreducation. Closely around the concept of “training English major students intointerdisciplinary talents”, a lot of practice and exploration have taken place at manycolleges and universities, and the cultivation of interdisciplinary talents has remained atrend of English major education in the recent ten years. Although certain achievement hasbeen made, there are still problems:“Plenty of graduates of English major could not findjobs, meanwhile lots of employers could not find qualified talents for a translation post”(Zhao,2006, p.5). Thus, there has been an imbalanced state between the output of thestudents of English major education and the social needs for English major talents.It is often within a university that the reform of English major education has takenplace, which can hardly adapt to the big changes of social needs. Therefore, the reform isneeded to be macroscopic from the view of the whole system of English major educationso as to find out an effective solution to the problem. The rise of educational ecology inrecent years provides a new train of thought to cope with this problem. From theperspective of educational ecology the thesis regards the English major educationthroughout the country as an ecosystem. It examines the current problems existing in theEnglish major education and analyzes the shortcomings by using the ecological concepts ofholism, system, connection and balance. Based on this, the thesis puts forward a series ofoperational reform suggestions for the curriculum development of English major education in hopes that it could offer a train of thought to construct a balanced and sustainableecosystem of English major education.The thesis firstly discusses the imbalance of the current ecosystem of English majoreducation, that is, the paradoxical reality that the English major graduates are experiencingthe employment difficulty while the social needs for qualified English major talents canhardly be satisfied. Then the thesis probes into the root causes of the imbalance.15colleges and universities are selected representatively in this thesis. They cover theregions of North China, Central China, East China, South China, the Northeast, theSouthwest, and the Northwest，and range into five categories of colleges and universities,namely, comprehensive universities, foreign studies universities, normal universities,colleges of science and engineering, and professional institutions. And a comparative studyof the current situation of the curriculum design is conducted. Through this study we findout that the curriculum design of English major education throughout the country shows ina trend of homogeneity, which presents in the following aspects: the curriculum designmodel, and the curriculum structure and contents under the model. And this homogeneityresults in the similar framework of academic knowledge and skills of English majorstudents, which can hardly satisfy the diversified needs of the society.Finally, in allusion to the current situation of the imbalance of English majorecosystem, the thesis advocates that The National English-teaching Curriculum for EnglishMajors in Colleges and Universities should be redesigned under the guidance ofeducational ecology. The ecosystem of English major education should be shaped at threelevels throughout the nation: a regional level, a collegiate level and an individual level.Systematicness, hierarchy, and diversity of the English major construction are highlightedin order to meet the social needs for diversified English talents. It contributes to therebalance, the optimization and the sustainable development of the ecosystem of Englishmajor education.