A Theme Study Of The Integrated English Textbooks For Business English Major In China

Business English,combining English and business,first became a major in China in the 1950 s and finally became widely acknowledged in 2007.Since the time it became an independent major,with heated discussion about how to develop this major,it has been set up in more and more colleges and universities around China.The Integrated English(also called Senior English Course in their higher grades)is compulsory for all English majors with the longest duration and the biggest proportion of the courses and it absolutely deserves much more attention.It is noting that nowaways,both Business English majors and majors of Common English in most universities are studying the same integrated English textbooks.Therefore,the author aims to examine whether these textbooks are suitbale for Business English majors to use.Using 5 sets of integrated English textbooks which have been used by Business English majors in recent 5 years,the author manages to analyze these texts containing major business knowledge and tries to find whether the existing books are adequate for Business English majors and,throughout the course of the analysis,quantitative analytical method is adopted.At the same time,the author also gives out questionnaires to and conduct interviews with senior students majoring in business English,front-line workers in companies and teachers who teach integrated English course in colleges and universities to collect evaluation and ideas on textbook compilation for Business English majors.According to the analysis of the evaluation and result,this research draws a conclusion with three findings: 1)the selected five sets of integrated English textbooks in this thesis contain rich encyclopedic knowledge which basically meets students' needs for common knowledge for being English business workers.2)For all the selected textbooks,the core knowledge of business English is insufficient,such as knowledge of international business law and regulations,international business etiquette,politics,economies and cultures in China and English speaking countries.Meanwhile,these course books lack some specialized knowledge such as business terms and abbreviations.3)Although the selected five sets of textbooks are relatively new among all the published integrated English text books,they are out of date in terms of information and knowledge in these texts,for Business English is a major highly related to current events.So these texts cannot reflect up to date achievements and perspectives to some degree.Based on these findings,the author puts forward the following suggestions on the future integrated English textbook compilation for business English majors: 1)Analyze possible needs of Business English major before textbook compilation to know their real needs.2)Add more core knowledge of business English.3)Transform from language-based books to content-leaded ones.4)Establish proper course book evaluation system to provide standards for selecting course books and also offer some help to latter compilation.Focusing on the four suggestions,the author establishes a framework for compiling texts of the integrated English textbooks.This framework contains the arrangemnts of theme and content of every text,distribution of key knowledge,and the learning of new vocabularies should not be ignored.The ultimate purpose is to let students learn what they will use in the future.