An Approach To The Web-based Course Design For Business English

With the development of world economy and multinational trade, the need for Business English is growing. Traditional classroom-based Business English course can hardly satisfy the need because of the shortage of qualified teaching force, the lack of authentic materials, and most importantly, the inconvenience for the learners to attend the course in term of time and location of classes. Therefore, there arises a bloom of online language learning as a possible solution. Websites offering online Business English courses are thriving. However, the lack of elaborate design and careful theoretical analysis for the Business English course in the Internet environment has brought new problems with the course.The design for the Web-based Business English course consists of both environment design under the guidance of some principles and the course design, which covers needs analysis, syllabus design, material selection, methodologies to be adopted, and evaluation of both learners and the course itself.This thesis, based on learning theories and current design principles, tries to build up a tentative, theory-based design framework for the Business English online course, and aims to put the entire course design process into a theory-and-pedagogy-driven environment.