ESP Course Design For Non-English Majors-A Case Study Of Changzhi Professional College Of Technology

With the development of global economy, a large number of transnational corportions have stepped up their business activities in China. Therefore, not only their demand for the advanced intelligent elites cultivated by general universities but also their need for the blue-collared technical talents trained by higher vocational & technical colleges, who are characterized by the features of speciality, English, modern skills and creativity, is gradually increasing. The establishment of English for Specific Purposes in higher vocational & technical college is based on the market demand and the requirements stipulated in Basic Requirements on the Educational English Course Teaching in Higher Vocational & Technical College by the Higher Education Department of China's Commission of Education in 2000. Then, can these courses meet the learners' needs for English in specialized fields and can the learners benefit a lot from these courses? The current researches on above questions still can hardly provide us with satisfactory consultation.This paper focuses on the ESP courses for non-English majors opened in Changzhi Professional College of Technology (the College) where the author is teaching. Based on the primary element in ESP course design—learners' needs analysis, systematic surveys such as visiting a class randomly, making a questionaire, interviewing the students and checking the previously used examination papers are adopted as both qualitative and quantitative appoaches of the research. These surveys cover the important links constituting the chain of ESP course design—syllabus, material, teaching methodology and evaluation. The result of these surveys can tell whether the above links applied in practical pedagogy can satisfy the learners' needs.This paper summarizes the feature and task of ESP courses of the College according to the learners' needs analysis, which are helpful for the research of each link of ESP course design. Based on all the above-mentioned, some existing problems have been identified, which include skipping the process of course syllabus, using relatively irrelevant material, adopting monotonic and out of date method, making inefficient evaluations and neglecting of some language skills. After analyzing the causes of these problems, this paper provides feasible basises for the solution. Finally, the qualification the ESP teachers should obtain and the unique role they should play, which differ from those of the General English teacher are identified and specified according to the real teaching condition. Furthermore, the importance of their self-improvement is highlighted as well.The research result concluded from the case study on ESP course design of non-English majors at the College can be used to improve the inefficient teaching of these courses here and provide valuable reference for the similar colleges in China.