A Brief Analysis of Business English Students’ “Knowledge Deficit”: Taking the Business English Reading Course as an Example

Abstract

In addition to the English language knowledge and skills, students majoring in Business English should also master knowledge and skills in the various fields of business, intercultural communication, humanities, and social sciences. However, in the teaching practice of Business English students, the author finds that many of them face a “Knowledge Deficit” in learning, which refers to that students have very limited business knowledge, or their business knowledge cannot be interacted with their English Language knowledge when dealing with business texts, resulting in their obstacles when dealing with business texts and difficulty in forming a business thinking-pattern. Therefore, efforts should be made in many aspects so as to address this problem. In this paper, the author aims to analyze the “Knowledge Deficit” in teaching and learning of Business English by reviewing the role of knowledge in reading comprehension theoretically, exemplifying with some cases from his classroom teaching, analyzing the causes, and providing some tentative solutions.