Abstract
Learning business related courses, especially accounting, in English is a challenge for many Chinese students. The purpose of this study is to provide some insights into the role of the language in accounting learning. We investigate this issue in the program of Teaching Business Related Courses in English for undergraduate students at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. Accounting courses in English at GDUFS are taught to two different groups: English majors with higher English proficiency who are required to receive 2 years of intensive training in listening, speaking, reading and writing before taking the accounting course in English and non-English majors who do not receive the same level of English training as English majors do. We find that there is no direct significant relationship between accounting learning and students’ English proficiency but we do find a strong correlation between students’ analytical ability and their accounting learning instructed in English. We also find that motivation, specifically students’ clear career path in the accounting field, plays an important role in determining their performance in accounting learning. The findings in this paper have meaningful implications for the feasibility of teaching non-English majors accounting in English and for designing a good learning environment in English educational settings.
Highlights
With the increasing globalization of business cooperation, higher education in China is expected to provide workforce to the more fiercely competitive international environment
We find that there is no direct significant relationship between accounting learning and students’ English proficiency but we do find a strong correlation between students’ analytical ability and their accounting learning instructed in English
The authors take as objects of study the program of the School of English for International Business, GDUFS designed to teach its students business related courses in English and the dual program that provides the same curriculum to students of non-English major from other schools campus-wide to closely examine the role language proficiency plays in understanding the content of accounting course and to investigate what may influence accounting learning
Summary
With the increasing globalization of business cooperation, higher education in China is expected to provide workforce to the more fiercely competitive international environment. There are more than 200 universities in the world that have established teaching and research units in business English and more than 800 Chinese universities that offer business English programs or courses (Zhu, 2010). These tertiary business English programs in China vie to offer business courses with English as the language of instruction (Guo, 2007). Evolving from the total immersion teaching methodology abroad, this English-only teaching in China is classified by Chinese scholars (Cai, 2005) as English immersion teaching, and this term will be adopted as such throughout this paper
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