| "CBE is an approach to vocational education and training, in which skills, knowledge and attitudes are specified so as to define, steer and help to achieve competence standards, mostly within a kind of national qualifications framework" (Billett,2006:6-8). Competence in CBE focuses on what people can do in the specific occupation. It involves both the ability to perform in a given context and the capacity to transfer knowledge and skills to new tasks and situations. The fundamental task of CBE design is to specify the skills the related students are supposed to master.Apart from the purpose of language and communication, business English (BE for short) possesses the purpose and function of business. As "Teaching Requirements for Undergraduate Education of Business English" points out, BE teaching is to train application-oriented BE talents, who can apply English skillfully to the implementation of international business activities. Besides, the foreign trade market calls for BE talents with various skills. To cultivate BE talents that meet the requirements of BE teaching and the market, the first task of BE teaching is to investigate the competences that BE students should master when they engage in foreign trade.Grounded on Employability framework in Australia, transferable framework in Czech Republic in CBE and "BE Teaching Requirements", this paper supposes BE majors who are engaged in international trade need to master two categories of BE skills:BE hard skills and BE soft skills. BE hard kills are quite specifically required in carrying out international trade activities, which can be gained through education and previous work experiences, including 6 language skills and 7 business skills. BE soft skills, which are personal attributes indispensable for implementing international business and connected with individual ability to operate effectively in the workplace, including 13 sub-skills. This paper adopts the methods of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis. The data is from questionnaires and interviews. Then, from the perspective of employing units and the students respectively, this paper will explore the importance and BE students’mastery of BE hard skills and soft skills, namely, what skills are more important? What skills are less important? What required skills BE students lack.100 subjects from 50 small and medium-sized foreign trade corporations and industry and trade integration corporations are chosen to participate in the research. One hundred Required Skills Survey Questionnaires and one hundred Skills Mastery Questionnaires are handed out through network to 50 students and 50 managers separately.63 sets of valid questionnaires are found, including 32 sets of valid questionnaires from BE students and 31 from managers. Firstly, from the perspective of managers and BE students respectively, this paper summarizes relatively more important and less important BE skills. Secondly, this paper summarizes the required BE skills that students lack. To get more convincing results, this paper takes two managers and three students from state-owned enterprises and two Sino-foreign joint ventures as interview subjects, whose purpose is to figure out what skills are ignored by school education, what other skills students should possess and suggestions for BE teaching.The results of questionnaires and interviews demonstrate that BE students and managers believe that multi-BE skills play significant roles in business activities, indicating the above mentioned assumption is right, namely, BE students need multi-BE skills if they engage in foreign trade. The managers emphasize international business awareness, writing ability and leadership. BE students attach greater importance to speaking, self-management and interpersonal understanding and customer orientation. Both parties believe that English listening, market research and product analysis, lifelong learning, teamwork and other 3 skills are more important. Contrary to the results from questionnaires, interviewees think highly of legislative and regulatory awareness and pay less attention to international logistics and the Customs Declaration. In addition, BE students need to master ICT skills.In terms of BE skills mastery, both BE students and managers agree that BE students are poor at the following skills:English listening, speaking, writing abilities, declarations related to the Customs, international logistics and shipment, legislative and regulatory consciousness, execution, flexibility and creativity. Furthermore, the managers believe that BE students lack market research and product analysis, self-control and stress resistance and other 5 skills. Nevertheless, BE students are unaware that they lack the above mentioned skills.Taking the findings into consideration and grounded on CBE, this paper summarizes the implications on BE curriculum design:BE skills practical teaching system should be incorporated in traditional BE curriculum system. BE skills practical teaching system includes in-class and out-class practical teaching system, the former stipulates the training of BE hard skills and soft skills considered to be important by BE students and managers; the latter includes a series of practical activities, which are supposed to cultivate BE hard skills and soft skills. |
