A Study Of College Second Foreign Language Teaching For Non-Foreign Language Majors Based On Needs Analysis

With the increasing development of international economy and cultural exchanges, mastering one foreign language has not been able to meet the need of social development to inter-disciplinary talents. The upsurge of the second foreign languages can greatly cater to the desire of students to learn and understand the multi-languages. The second foreign language learning refers to those who have basically grasped a foreign language, intend to learn a second foreign language. According to the current situation, the foreign language teaching for non-foreign language majors in main universities and colleges, especially the English teaching, has been paid the widespread attention. But as an inseparable part of the-foreign language teaching, the second foreign language teaching has been ignored. At present, schools at different levels in China regard English as the first foreign language. So this paper will focus on discussing the second foreign language teaching for non-foreign language majors on the background of English as the first foreign language. The second foreign languages are Japanese, German, French, Spanish, Russian and so on.The present research focusing on the second foreign language teaching of H University, involves 210 undergraduates from the 2014 session who choose the second foreign language course for non-foreign language majors, and 6 second foreign language teachers as the subjects. By employing the research instruments such as questionnaires, interviews, and classroom observation, this thesis intends to analyze and explore the existing problems of the current second foreign language teaching in accordance with students' needs. The thesis also attempts to put forward some suggestions for the improvement and provide some reference and inspiration for the future second foreign language teaching.The major research questions are:(1) What are non-foreign language majors' needs for learning a second foreign language? (2) To what extent does the current second foreign language teaching meet the learners'needs? (3) What are the existing problems in the current second foreign language teaching of H University and what are the causes for them? The major findings of the study are as follows:first of all, the learners have a relatively good mastery of English, and most of them are new beginners for the second foreign language learning. They choose to learn the second foreign languages mainly because of personal interests and the future self-development. Second, although the current second foreign language teaching has basically met students' needs, the students prefer to focus on improving the listening and speaking abilities and enhancing the comprehensive development of the second foreign languages. Third, the current second foreign language teaching has some problems to be improved, such as the improper course arrangement, the scattered teaching materials, the simple teaching modes and the insufficient school resources. These problems may mainly result from the school' omission to the students' needs, which leads to the improper management of the second foreign language teaching. Therefore, based on scientific needs analysis, the new second foreign language teaching can connect students' needs with the second foreign language teaching, so as to cultivate students' ability of applying the second foreign languages and elevate their overall development of the second foreign languages.