A Needs Analysis Of The English Competence For Employees In Foreign Enterprises

With the quick development of business globalization,foreign enterprises have gradually expanded their business to Chinese market.The development of foreign enterprises has increased the needs for talents with English skills and other operational skills,so the English language in workplace becomes more important.The needs analysis of workplace language is to investigate tasks to be completed by employees in foreign enterprises and then analyze competence required for finishing these tasks.This study also offers some implications for English teaching.This thesis conducted an exploratory study on the workplace English needs of employees working in the foreign enterprises.The questions that the thesis aims to solve are listed as follows:(1)What kinds of tasks do the employees of foreign enterprises to be completed in daily work by using English?(2)What kinds of competence do the employees of foreign enterprises need to have?(3)What are the implications for College English teaching?Based on the analysis of the study,the results are as follows:Firstly,English is used very frequently in the foreign enterprise field;among four basic English skills,reading is used most frequently,followed by writing,listening and speaking;the employees use English to complete the following tasks frequently: reading business letters,reading fax,scanning the web page of companies,reading the introduction of products,reading work report and writing work summary.Secondly,the employees in the foreign enterprises need to have English competence as follows: basic language skills(like listening,translating,speaking,reading and writing);language competence(organizational competence and pragmatic competence);professional competence(business knowledge,customer relationship organization,etc.);intercultural communicative competence(affective and operational ability).Thirdly,for teaching method,teachers should use communicative language teaching,task-based language teaching and multimedia teaching;for textbooks,teachers can choose some subject-based and work-related textbooks so as to ensure that the students can finish the tasks in their future workplace after graduation;for training and exams,students should be encouraged to take part in some related English exams for work and training provided by workplace;for teachers themselves,they should become the guide and leader and offer more knowledge about work experience.On the other hand,the employers are basically satisfied with the English competence of employees.It is agreed that the frequency of writing is higher than speaking at the workplace,but the importance of speaking can not be ignored.