An Empirical Study Of College Students' English Competence And The Social Needs

In the past decades, the focus of FLT have shifted from the students' linguistic competence to the students' communicative competence, and then further to the students' intercultural communicative competence (ICC). This shift is not a haphazard, since education is often developed with the development of social economy and college education is frequently adapted to the needs of social development. The society has new requirements for college students' English competence with the development of social economy. However, what English competence does the society require of college students? Can college students' English competence satisfy the social needs? And what problems exist in college English education? These questions have aroused great concern on the relationship between college students' English competence and the social needs, and studies concerning how to develop and improve college students' English competence according to the requirements of the socialdevelopment have become one of the major themes in FLT research.This thesis aims to explore the current situation of college students' English competence in the light of social needs, identify whether college English teaching can meet the needs of the development of social economy and what problems exist, and finally recommend solutions to the existing problems of college English teaching. The instruments of the study are questionnaire and interview, and the subjects of this study include 500 senior students of the non- English major from Guangxi University, Guangxi Teachers Education University, Guangxi University for Nationalities, Guangxi University of Finance and Economics and Guangxi University of technology, and 37 employers who represent different companies and enterprises. Some employers and senior students of the non-English major are invited to take part in the interviews.The results of the data show that: college students' English competence is still low, especially their ICC competence, while the society requires high level of English competence for college students. Meanwhile the results also show that college English teaching fails to meet the needs of social development for many problems exist in college English education. It is very urgent to solve the existing problems in order to improve college English teaching and students' English competence. More effective teaching approaches should be explored, and more attention should be paid to training students' ICC competence. New policies with regard to college English education should be made according to the requirements of society, and appropriate and effective means should be introduced to evaluate students' English competence. To sum up, the data of the study provide some insights and implications for the development and reform of the college English teaching. However, since this study is a preliminary and exploratory study and the subjects are all chosen from Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, further studies are needed to verify the results of this study.