Student Expectations of the Freshman English Course at Chinese Culture University

Abstract

This paper uses a five-question questionnaire survey to investigate four freshman classes' expectations of the Freshman English course at the Chinese Culture University. Several significant findings have been made in this survey. First, most students surveyed (63.41%) expect to improve English language skills and only a few students (6.09%) expect to learn to appreciate Western literature as the primary goal of Freshman English (FE) course. Second, as for the primary goal of FEC, 47.73% of the students selected improving all four English language skills, 31.09% improving listening and speaking, and 10.97% reading and writing. Third, as regards considering taking Chinese culture into account as part of the FE curriculum, 54.26% of the students disagree but 45.73% agree. Fourth, 68.92% of the students agree but 20.73% disagree that FE is a course of general education in nature. Fifth, the top five expectations these four classes held towards FE are, in order of priority: 1. learning real-life or practical English; 2. improving listening and speaking skills; 3. being bold and courageous enough to converse in English; 4. expecting a light, lively and interesting class; and 5. increasing reading and writing abilities.