An Empirical Study Of Business English Teachers' Business Knowledge Based On Classroom Performance

Language knowledge,pedagogical knowledge and business knowledge are essential for qualified business English teachers.Among them,business knowledge plays a key role.However,till now,few research projects focused on this issue.Therefore,the current study adopts ELAN as a research tool for qualitative analysis ofbusiness teachers' business knowledge presented in class teaching from ten video clips in the 6th SFLEP National Foreign Language Teaching Contest in2015.The study presented the findings of both single case analysis and cross-case analysis as follows:1.The ten teachers have all realized the importance of business knowledge in class teaching.Thus,they allocated periods of for the presentation business knowledge at different levels in the twenty-minute session.Seven teachersused 5minutes or more than 5 minutes to illustrate business knowledge and teacher No.2 used 10 minutes to explain business knowledge.It is clear that 90%of the teachers referred to not only concepts but also definitions of business terms.Additionally,they provided examples for in-depth understanding.2.Though teachers attempted,their explanation of business knowledge did not reach expected level,which indicates that their explanation is inadequate,superficial,scripted.Deep analysis is rare in the teaching process.This may partly due to the lack of systematic learning and understanding of business knowledge.In addition,mismatched explanations are identified in their teaching,which includes concept mismatch,expression mismatch,theme mismatch and footing mismatch.Therefore,based on the findings of this study,several recommendations are provided from both individual and national level.Most importantly,new policies should be put forward to encourage the transformation of business English teachers.