The Application Of Case Method To Business English Translation Teaching In Vocational Colleges

Business English Translation is the core course of Business English in vocational college,it plays an important role in the development of Business English talents. However, So farBusiness English Translation teaching method is relatively simple. After the teaching ofteachers, students conduct exercises repeatedly. And teachers evaluate the results of students’exercises according to the standard answers. Teachers focus on the content of textbook andthe process of teaching is boring. Students lack learning initiative, interest and involvement inclass, and the translation competence of them is in a relatively low level.Case method is a kind of approach that the case is the teaching material combing withthe teaching theme and students will understand the related concepts or theories and improvetheir competence by the teaching process of discussion and teacher-student interaction. Theauthor applied case method to the process of Business English Translation teaching. The casediscussion is the center of class teaching, and the author tried to encourage students to find,analyze and solve problems and put what they learn into practice by case method. The thesisexplores the effect of the application of case method to Business English Translation teachingin vocational college and attempts to find out whether case method can stimulate students’learning initiative and interest and enhance their translation competence.The experiment which last for16weeks was carried out in Laiwu Vocational andTechnical College and the participants are sophomore students majoring in Business English.According to the translation test before the teaching experiment the author chose two classeswith same level as research participants and randomly chose one as the experimental class andthe other as the controlled class. Class one40in total is the experimental class to which casemethod is applied. Class two35in total is the controlled class which focuses on teachers’teaching and students’ exercises. In addition, a pre-questionnaire was conducted in order toget a basic understanding of students’ initiative and interest. After the teaching experimentthe two classes were tested at the same time to investigate students’ translation competence.After the test, the questionnaire and interview were carried out so as to investigate thedifference of students’initiative and interest before and after experiment.The author had a detailed analysis of the data of tests and questionnaires and the results of interview. The results of the experiment are as follows:1) The application of casemethod changes the boring atmosphere of the class and stimulate the initiative and interest ofstudents.2) The case method can improve students’translation competence.At last the author propounds the suggestions of this study to Business EnglishTranslation teaching in vocational colleges, and describes the merits and drawbacks andadvice for further research.