Action Research On Content-based Instruction In Business English Teaching At Higher Vocational Colleges

With the rapid development of China's economy,the demand for skilled talents who can use English in business communication has increased greatly.During the past 20 years Business English(BE)teaching at higher vocational college has got great development,but the employment rate of BE major graduates from vocational school is very low,because many graduates have not realized the importance of BE for their job needs and have not strong interest and motivation for learning BE.Therefore BE teaching in higher vocational college is faced with severe challenges,and how to improve BE teaching presents a realistic problem for BE teachers in higher vocational college.Content-based Instruction(CBI)is an approach to integrate language teaching and content instruction,which emphasizes on learning about content rather than language itself only.The focus of learning by CBI approach is to obtain information through the second language learning in the process of language skills development.CBI is regarded as an effective approach to improve the learning of both language and content knowledge.The author of this paper tried to apply CBI to BE teaching through two round actions so as to explore the feasibility and effectiveness of the application of CBI in BE teaching.The research questions are put forward:(1)what is the current situation of BE classroom teaching in higher vocational colleges?(2)In what way can CBI approach improve BE teaching in higher vocational colleges?Based on the theory and models of CBI approach,the author of this paper conducted a half-year CBI teaching of two classes majoring in BE at Liaoning Mechatronics College.After the CBI teaching action was planned based on current situation of BE classroom teaching in higher vocational colleges,two rounds of teaching actions were conducted to research on how CBI could motivate students' learning interest and improve BE student's comprehensive ability.The questionnaires,interviews and tests were employed to analyze and discuss the effectiveness of the application of CBI in BE teaching.The research results showed that CBI was effective in enhancing students' interest,improving comprehensive ability,and increasing their knowledge of BE content.The major findings give some implications for BE teaching in higher vocational college.Firstly,CBI teaching is student-oriented which especially suits BE course in higher vocational colleges.Secondly,CBI teaching reorganizes the content of teaching material,which combines the latest business information with BE classroom teaching.Besides this action research also shows that it is necessary for the BE teachers to have the specialized knowledge and skills so as to successfully carry out teaching activities in BE class when using CBI teaching models.It is hoped that this paper can bring some helpful ideas for BE teaching in vocational colleges.