Application And Exploration Of Needs Analysis In Business English Teaching In Vocational College

Since the reform and opening up, with the development of global economicintegration, China has become the second largest economy in the world and playedincreasingly important role in the global economy after its entry into WTO. Foreignbusiness is no longer confined in simple agricultural and subsidiary products. Chineseproducts are available in every corner of the world market. Compound talents withinternational business knowledge and English language skills are in great demandunder the thriving economic situation. In order to satisfy this need, the program ofBusiness English has been set up by a great number of vocational colleges. However,when the number of business English talents is increasing, a series of social problemsappears, leading to a bottleneck in the cultivation of talents majoring in BusinessEnglish. On one hand, enterprises need a large amount of business English talents; onthe other hand, the newcomers are not suitable to their posts, lacking of practicalprofessional skills. Either enterprise can’t hire the qualified employees, or they haveto spend a lot of money, time, manpower and material resources on employee’straining. As a result the enterprises have to require the applicant with more than oneyear’s work experience. With these problems going worse, the reform of BusinessEnglish curriculum is imminent.Because the talents with the two kinds of skills are compound, according to thetwo concepts of target needs and learning needs proposed by Hutchinson and Waters,deep and comprehensive needs analysis was made. In order to obtain more clear andthorough answers, the author took questionnaires surveys and telephone interviews inJinan Vocational College. The interviewees include students, graduates majoring inBusiness English, teachers and managers. This interview focused on the needs ofemployers, employment status of graduates, work status and problems of practicalteaching, as well as demands of Business English majors. According to the data of thefirst survey, a solution with attempt to establish a new model of Business EnglishTeaching---Taking the employment as the guidance was put forward. Because of the cultivation model of vocational students is2+1, which means2years for studying inschool and1year as intern in company, an employment orientation survey was madein sophomores to fully understand their employment goals and enhance training theemployment skills according to the need of enterprises. We took task-based teachingapproach to improve students’ ability of listening, speaking, translation, managementand communication.As for curriculum, the practice teaching courses should generally account forabout50%of the total class hour teaching plan, with corresponding basic skillstraining and simulated operational courses. According to the actual needs of the futureoccupation, the curriculum content should be determined by cutting out thesuperfluous and obsolete content and increasing new technology of first-line inproduction, construction, management and service. Practical teaching methodologywas adopted into teaching which mainly include demonstration teaching, caseteaching, and unit practice training exercises, simulation practice in school,extracurricular practice and social investigation. Teachers took part in compiling newmaterials, instructing students to finish the teaching task in the training position,getting rid of the traditional classroom teaching mode, obtaining skills certificates inorder to meet the requirements of enterprises. Second classroom activities wereopened up to improve students’ comprehensive qualities. After two years of trial, theauthor did another survey among graduates and employers. It is proved that studentstrained in this mode will get a broader and favorable employment.Through the analysis of target needs and learning needs, the thesis provides thetheory basis to observe students’ subjective and objective needs, solve the problem ofsetting up courses of Business English, compiling teaching syllabus, and evaluatingteaching process as well. According to this new model, this study will shed some newlight on how to cultivate qualified compound talents of Business English, coordinateacademic learning and professional training, and achieve the tri-win goal amongschools, students and employers.