Racial and gender diversity of named authors in U.S. college course descriptions, 2022–2023

This study explores the practical pathways for integrating ideological and political education into college English courses through the Reading Circle teaching model. The current status of ideological and political education practices in college English course is analyzed through empirical data, and the existing challenges in their integration are also identified. Based on students’ feedback and classroom observation, the reform of ideological and political education in college English courses has been implemented. Specifically, under the Reading Circle Model, student-centered group learning is adopted to subtly integrate ideological and political elements into college English reading courses, thereby fully leveraging the educational role of college English courses.

This study explored the impact of the Dalton Plan-based instruction on learner autonomy in reading performance among learners in College English course in China. A quasi-experimental design was employed to reach the goal. The experiment was undertaken in one university characterized by students from multi-ethnic background. One second year College English (CE) course class with 16 students makes the experimental class, the other same level CE course class with 15 students composes the control class. The experimental class received the Dalton Plan-based instruction and the control class received conventional classroom instruction. All the participants are medical majors. The data were collected by utilising Autonomous Learning Scale (ALS)，students’ self-reports and semi-structured interview. The findings of this study revealed that Dalton Plan-based instruction was more effective in building learner autonomy compared to conventional instruction. Data from the analysis of the ALS indicated that the experimental group improved in study habits and independent learning. Additionally, findings from the students’ self-reports showed that the students in the experimental group experienced an increase in reading interest, a more regular reading habit, better emotional control, improvement in reading strategies and more adaptable to reading challenges. This research bears crucial pedagogical implications in that the Dalton Plan-based instruction may be considered as a good alternative to choose in the current College English (CE) course teaching and learning reform which highlights the importance of building student’s learner autonomy in their English learning.

This study explored the impact of the Dalton Plan-based instruction on learner autonomy in reading performance among learners in College English course in China. A quasi-experimental design was employed to reach the goal. The experiment was undertaken in one university characterized by students from multi-ethnic background. One second year College English (CE) course class with 16 students makes the experimental class, the other same level CE course class with 15 students composes the control class. The experimental class received the Dalton Plan-based instruction and the control class received conventional classroom instruction. All the participants are medical majors. The data were collected by utilising Autonomous Learning Scale (ALS)，students’ self-reports and semi-structured interview. The findings of this study revealed that Dalton Plan-based instruction was more effective in building learner autonomy compared to conventional instruction. Data from the analysis of the ALS indicated that the experimental group improved in study habits and independent learning. Additionally, findings from the students’ self-reports showed that the students in the experimental group experienced an increase in reading interest, a more regular reading habit, better emotional control, improvement in reading strategies and more adaptable to reading challenges. This research bears crucial pedagogical implications in that the Dalton Plan-based instruction may be considered as a good alternative to choose in the current College English (CE) course teaching and learning reform which highlights the importance of building student’s learner autonomy in their English learning.

Background and Aims: University foreign language education is crucial in China’s higher education, holding a significant role in promoting the development of students’ knowledge, abilities, and comprehensive qualities. College English, a compulsory foundational course for the majority of non-English majors, plays an irreplaceable role in talent cultivation. The purpose of this research was: (1) to compare students’ English writing ability before and after implementing a College English Course based on a production-oriented approach combined with a critical thinking process. (2) to compare the students’ satisfaction after implementing the College English Course based on a production-oriented approach combined with a critical thinking process with the criterion set at 3.51. Materials and Methods: In this experimental study, 40 non-English major first-year students (one class) from Xi’an University were investigated. They were derived from the cluster random sampling method. The research instruments were (1) a College English Course based on a production-oriented approach combined with a critical thinking process and its six lesson plans, (2) an English writing ability test paper with a reliability of 0.931, and (3) a student’ satisfaction questionnaire with a reliability of 0.792. Data were collected and analyzed by means, standard deviation, t-test for dependent samples, and t-test for one sample. Results: After implementing College English Course based on a production-oriented approach combined with a critical thinking process in the classroom, the research results were as follows: (1), the student’s English writing ability post-test scores (M=41.08, SD=4.41) were higher than the pretest scores (M=37.08, SD=4.46) at a statistical significance level of 0.05 (t=45.61, p<.05). (2) The students’ satisfaction (M=4.44, SD=0.63) with the College English Course based on a production-oriented approach combined with a critical thinking process was high level. Conclusion: The College English Course based on a production-oriented approach combined with a critical thinking process has a significant effect on enhancing the English writing ability of non-English major students at Xi’an University. Students are satisfied with the developed College English Course based on a production-oriented approach combined with a critical thinking process.

English is one of the most common languages in the world, and it has become one of the most important subjects in various countries. The native languages of China and Thailand are not English, and both countries are located in Asia and have many similarities in geographical location and cultural background. The Ministries of Education of the two countries have successively put forward relevant policies to promote the development of English education in the country. The implementation of these policies has promoted the development of college English course teaching in the country. These factors determine that the two countries have similarities in college English course teaching for Non-English majors. However, there are differences in teaching mode and teaching staff in the two countries because of their different national conditions, which make many differences, exist in college English course teaching for non-English majors in the two countries.During the author’s career as an exchange student in Chiang Mai University, she experienced the difference of college English course teaching for non-English majors in Thai universities, so the author did some researches on the basis of the understanding of English course teaching in Thai universities. Therefore, this thesis takes Sino-Thai college English course teaching for non-English majors as the research object—takes Jiujiang University and Chiang Mai University as example, and analyses their present situation from the aspects of the development and evolution, the teaching mode, and teaching staff of college English course teaching for non-English majors. On this basis, the author make a comparative analysis of the English course teaching for non-English majors in two selected universities, then find their respective advantages and disadvantages, and put forward some suggestions on the development of Sino-Thai college English course teaching.

This study adopted quantitative method to investigate the predictive role of teacher support in student engagement in College English courses at selected universities in China. The study population consisted a sample size of 379 students and 124 teachers, and assessed the level of teacher support in terms of emotional, academic, and instrumental support, as well as behavioral, emotional, and cognitive aspects of student engagement. Through Mann-Whitney U test and multiple linear regression analysis, the study revealed the teacher-student differences in perceptions of teacher support and student engagement and also the predictive role of teacher support on student engagement, with implications for enhancing educational practices. The study revealed that both teachers and students rated teacher support positively in terms of emotional, academic, and instrumental support, with slight differences. There was no significant difference between teacher and student assessments of overall teacher support, though students rated emotional support higher. However, a significant difference was found in the assessment of student engagement, where students rated their engagement—especially emotional engagement—higher than teachers. Also, it was found that academic and instrumental support were significant predictors of student engagement, with academic support having the strongest impact. Based on these findings, a teacher support program is proposed to enhance student engagement in College English classes. The findings of this study have implications for teacher professional development in higher education. It highlights the importance of teacher support, especially academic and instrumental support, teachers towards boosting student engagement in College English class. Schools should prioritize ongoing training that helps teachers better understand and meet students’ academic and emotional needs, while also improving their ability to provide practical instrumental support. Professional development programs that strengthen and improve these areas can enhance teaching effectiveness, reduce discrepancies in student engagement perceptions, and ultimately improve student academic performance in College English classes in China.

College English course, as one of the important compulsory courses in colleges and universities, shoulders the important responsibility of cultivating talents with Chinese soul and international vision. This paper first analyzes the problems and challenges that college English courses face, then analyzes the problems that college English courses have in cultivating college students’ international communication ability, and finally discusses the ways of cultivate college students’ international communication ability. From the macro perspective, universities need to take the integration of students’ language ability, communication ability and international communication ability into account, and design comprehensive practical courses related to Chinese culture; From the micro level, teachers need to update their teaching concepts, pursue real “active” classrooms, and take advantage of digital media to cultivate students’ international communication ability.

In today's globalized and rapidly changing social background, higher vocational education plays an increasingly important role. As an important part of cultivating students' comprehensive quality and international competitiveness, college English course in higher vocational colleges can help students better understand and cope with social challenges, enhance their critical thinking ability, critical thinking and moral awareness, and cultivate talents with global vision and social responsibility. This paper discusses the strategies and effects of integrating ideological and political education into college English courses in higher vocational colleges. In view of the college English course in higher vocational colleges, this paper puts forward the strategies of integrating teaching material selection and design, theme discussion and debate, projects and research tasks, audio-visual materials and multimedia resources into ideological and political education. The implementation of these strategies will effectively cultivate students' ideological and political awareness and accomplishment, enhance their critical thinking and analytical ability, and promote the shaping of values and moral development.

To cultivate college non-English majors’ abilities of expressing Chinese culture in English, our program is to compare and contrast western and Chinese culture based on topics in the existing college English textbooks which are target culture materials. To probe students’ attitudes to the way of teaching Chinese culture in college English course and the amount of Chinese culture input and output in college English course, problems or difficulties students met in learning Chinese culture in college English course, and students’ suggestions on learning Chinese culture in college English course, a questionnaire was implemented after the three-month experiment. Results of the questionnaire were discussed. And suggestions on Chinese culture teaching of college English course were offered according to the results of the questionnaire. Keywords—Cultivating students’ ability of expressing Chinese culture in English; way of comparing and contrasting western and Chinese culture; Students’ opinion on the way of Chinese culture teaching

Intelligent recommendation system for College English courses based on graph convolutional networks

The current College English Course has to face many difficulties, such as the low efficiency and the student’s reluctance to learn, many universities have attempted to reform it, and some effects begin to show. The author is trying to analyze the feasibility to recommend the interpretive training methods into College English Class from the following three aspects: the need of college English reform, the learning desire of non-English major undergraduates and the demand of CET 4 and CET 6.

To achieve the goal of fostering virtue through education, the universities are actively exploring how to carry out the ideological and political education. With covering Chinese and Western cultures, the college English course has the abundant resources in ideological and political education. And the mixed teaching provides a practical and innovative teaching mode for the ideological and political education in college English course, which helps to improve the effectiveness of ideological and political education. Starting with the current situation of ideological and political education in college English course, this paper analyzes its significance of the mixed teaching mode, further discusses the problems of the ideological and political education in college English course, and puts forward the new practical approaches to the current problems, which aims to offer reference for the college English teaching.

Based on the “Production-oriented Approach”, this paper takes the textbook “New Horizon College English (Third Edition) Viewing, Listening & Speaking” as the carrier of ideological and political teaching of the course, aiming to investigate how to explore the ideological and political elements of the college English course, and how to combine the college English course with the ideological and political elements to realize the integration of the knowledge system and the value system. Methodologically, this paper conducted questionnaire surveys with 55 non-English majors in an international studies university and carried out a semester-long teaching experiment. The findings reveal that the students have a high degree of acceptance of ideological and political teaching based on the theory of “Production-oriented Approach” (POA) in college English courses. The implementation approach explored in this study is to integrate the “ideological and political education through courses” into college English teaching from the aspects of motivating, enabling, assessing, and ultimately integrating the value shaping, knowledge transfer, and ability cultivation, which not only provides more possible implementation approaches to improve college English teaching quality, but also offers more possibilities for the improvement of college English teaching. This study is expected to provide more useful inspirations and references for ideological and political education in college English courses.

Blended learning is a connecting point of traditional teaching and e-learning, and it has attracted the attention of college english teachers in China. The purpose of this paper is to study the feasibility of blended learning in the college english course and to establish a blended learning environment for college english teaching. Based on different views of blended learning, the definition of blended learning is summarized. Then the theoretical foundations of the application of blended learning in the college english course are analyzed, and the situation of students using computers and the current situation of college English teaching in China are surveyed. Finally, a network platform based on the browser/server architecture to support blended learning is established and the functions of the network system are introduced. Key steps to implement blended learning are presented. This paper shows blended learning can be realized in the college english course.

With the development of The Times, the new curriculum reform is gradually promoted. Ideological and political course has become the key teaching goal in the current university curriculum, and also the teaching focus of the reform and innovation of the university curriculum system. As a public compulsory course for college students, college English course involves a large number of students and a long class hours. It is one of the main courses of development courses and ideological and political education. Ecological linguistics emphasizes the connection and connection between language and ecological environment, which has attracted the attention of the education industry in recent decades. As a language course, college English can be organically combined with ecological linguistics. Because language and its environment will interact, and language is the basis of social and cultural inheritance. Therefore, in order to improve the teaching level of college English, it is necessary to perfectly integrate ecological linguistics with ideological and politics of the course. However, in the current ideological and political teaching objectives of university courses, the integration of ecological linguistics has not been valued. According to the current background and the current classroom teaching mode of college English, this paper discusses the strategy of improving the ideological and political education level of college English courses under the guidance of ecological linguistics, in order to improve the current college English education system in China.