School-based Curriculum Development And Implementation

The last two decades has witnessed a rapid development in Chinese tourism industry, which results in an ever-increasing demand for advanced tourism talents who are skilled in English language and tourism business as well. To meet these needs, tourism English programs have been established in many higher vocational colleges (HVCs). With so many tourism English programs around, a higher vocational college has to design its own characteristic curriculum. The design of the curriculum, first of all, has to stick to the vocational college-running policy of service-orientation and employment-orientation. Second, it has to meet the demands of the local economy. Third, students of this program will be more competitive in the job market.School-based curriculum development (SBCD), as a strategy of curriculum development based on individual schools is the design of a quality curriculum conductive to effective student learning. Initiated in western countries, SBCD has been applied mostly in Chinese elementary schools and limited research is found in the higher vocational context.This study intended to explore the SBCD of tourism English program in a HVC. It was designed according to an action research with hypotheses as follows:1. SBCD of tourism English is feasible;2. SBCD of tourism English helps improve students’ language skills, practical ability and vocational quality.The subjects of this study were83sophomores from two classes of tourism management majoring in Anhui Media Vocational College (AMVC). Questionnaires and interviews were adopted to analyze the needs of students, the teachers and the enterprises. Based on the needs analysis and the general curriculum requirements, the intended curriculum was designed and developed. School-based teaching material (SBTM) Practical Course of Tourism English for Anhui Province with features of localization and professionalization were compiled and revised by the teachers of this school. The school-based tourism English curriculum was implemented from Feb,2012to Jun.2012, and project-based approach (PBA) was conducted in the process. By the end of the research, an evaluation of the program was made based on students’ questionnaires and teachers’ interview. Two instruments have been used in this research:questionnaires and interviews.Major findings of this study are presented as follows:1. SBCD of tourism English is feasible, and it can highlight the school-based features;2. SBCD of tourism English helps improve students’ language skills, practical ability and vocational quality.Furthermore, some implications were proposed based on the above findings:1. The key to the SBCD of tourism English in HVCs is the comprehensive quality improvement and tourism professional development of teachers.2. SBCD of tourism English in HVCs is a long-term process which needs continuous improvement.