Business English Majors Research Articles

Cohesive Devices in Business English Speaking and Listening Discourse

Business speaking and listening is an important course for cultivating business English majors’ interactive skills, playing a key role in future successful business contacts. The author in this paper attempts to explore explicit and implicit cohesive devices in business speaking and listening discourses. It is found that explicit cohesive devices are mainly used when expressing willingness to establish further business relationships while implicit ones in unwillingness to do business. It is hoped that this paper may shed some lights on business English study.

A Study on the Mode of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training for College Business English Majors

<p>With the deepening of reform and opening up, China's economy has stepped into the fast track of high-speed development. In order to meet the needs of this situation, it is an inevitable trend for business English majors in colleges and universities to strengthen innovation and entrepreneurship learning. Training innovative and entrepreneurial talents for the society is also the need of higher education reform. Based on the social needs and the advantages of business English majors in colleges and universities, this paper explores the training mode of innovation and entrepreneurship talents suitable for economic development, and integrates business English education in colleges and universities into innovation and entrepreneurship education, so as to improve students' understanding of innovation and entrepreneurship education and further enhance their ability of innovation and development.</p>

On Construction of Chengdu Economic Zone Oriented Practical Teaching System in Business English Major---Taking Leshan Normal University as an Example

With the development of Chengdu Economic Zone, practical business English talents are badly needed. Thus, the training objective for business English majors in Leshan Normal University should be Chengdu Economic Zone oriented to cultivate professionals with both business skills and English competence who can fluently use English to cope with business affairs. However, through the surveys of companies and enterprises in the Zone as well as the graduates in the university, it is found that the business English professional graduates still fail to fully meet the demand of the companies. There are still some problems in the practical training system in the university, such as sufficient practical training bases, lack of teaching staff with bi-expertise, and imperfect management and evaluation system for the practical teaching. The paper aims to study the construction of practical teaching system in business English major which can not only ensure the cultivation of satisfactory practical business English talents but also improve the graduates’ competitiveness.

A Sage on a Stage, to Express and Impress: TED Talks for Improving Oral Presentation Skills, Vocabulary Retention and Its Impact on Reducing Speaking Anxiety in ESP Settings

This study explores the impact of using TED Talks on improving oral presentation skills of Business English students and vocabulary uptake/retention. It also assesses the impact of improving such hard cognitive skills on increasing Business majors’ speaking anxiety level. Sequential explanatory mixed method was used, which includes both quantitative and qualitative data collection and analyses. Business students’ oral presentation skills were assessed through Oral Presentation Skills Sheet (OPSS), vocabulary retention was assessed through Vocabulary Uptake/Retention Test (VURT), and speaking anxiety level was assessed through Personal Report of Public Speaking Anxiety (PRPSA) (Mörtberg, Jansson-Fröjmark, Pettersson, & Hennlid-Oredsson, 2018). Participants in the study consist 49 students, who were divided into two groups; experimental group consisting of 24 students, and control group that includes 25 Business English majors. Findings of the study revealed that oral presentation skills and vocabulary uptake/retention levels were improved due to the use of TED talks as an ICT tool. Also, it was revealed that Business majors in the experimental group are more enthusiastic, energetic and motivated to give killer presentations as they became more confident and free of anxiety and tension.

The Development of Intercultural Sensitivity of Business English Majors by the Multimodal Teaching Program

This study is to empirically investigate the effect of the multimodal teaching program in developing Chinese learners’ intercultural sensitivity. This experiment was carried out among 31 business English majors from a local university in Southwest China within one semester. The findings indicated that the participants showed a great improvement in their general level of intercultural sensitivity, and it is worth mentioning that among the factors of intercultural sensitivity, interaction confidence and attentiveness have witnessed a greater progress than the other factors.

On Building a Specialized Chinese-English /English-Chinese Electronic Dictionary for Chinese Business English Learners

Based on needs analysis, this paper studies the needs of Business English (BE) learners on acquiring business terms. An online questionnaire was conducted on full-time undergraduate business English majors and international business majors in the School of International Business English at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and 254 valid questionnaires were collected. The finding shows that a customized specialized C-E/E-C electronic dictionary is in great need during the 4-year-learning process of BE learners, while disadvantages of existing C-E/E-C electronic dictionaries are spotted. According to the data collected from the survey, author discuss the disadvantages of existing Chinese-English/English-Chinese (C-E/E-C) electronic dictionaries and tries to put forward improvement suggestions on building a specialized C-E/E-C electronic dictionary from the perspective of BE learners. This research will help business-English- term teaching and specialized C-E/E-C electronic dictionary compiling.

A Study on Personnel Training of Competitive Intelligence Under the Background of “One Belt and One Road”: Taking Business English Majors in Xi’an as an Example

Under the background of “One Belt and One Road” and according to the theories of competitive intelligence, based on the geographical location and historical factors of Xi’an City, guided by some favorable experience of personnel training of competitive intelligence at home and abroad, and also in reference to the development status and prospective opportunities of Business English major in the university where the author has been working, this essay probes into the significance of training local talents of competitive intelligence under new circumstances, and so as to give some enlightenment to local talent cultivation and economic development.

Study on the Employment-oriented Professional Training System in Business English Majors

Business English is one of most important majors in many colleges and universities of Foreign Languages department. With the rapid development of foreign exchange and activities, the demanding in quantity and quality of business English majors has been changed a lot. The thesis analyzes the current training system in Business English majors from the disciplines orientation, professional training objects and the direction of business English future development; the connotation of business English disciplinary orientation; the problem of employment-oriented professional training system. Looking forward to the future development direction of the business English training system, it is a feasible and efficient way to combine the theory and practice.

Modeling on the Criteria of Chinese Business English Majors’ Business Communication Competence

With increasing globalization in the business arena, the phenomenal growth of international business has created a heavy demand for intellectuals with international business communication competence. Business communication competence, as one of the paramount competences business English majors should acquire and the particular embodiment of competitiveness, is of vital significance not only in personal development, but also in enterprises management, just as Liu (2012) claims “[e]ffective business communication is the lifeblood of every organization, and a key to success in one’s career”. There is, nevertheless, no universally accepted model for what excellent business communication competence should consist of up to now. Hence, the overriding aim of the present study is to identify Chinese business English majors’ communication competence relevant to the contemporary communication environment. Identification of these skills should aid business communication educators and students in addressing practical concerns in their teaching and learning. The unified model to be put forward covers four kinds of core competence, i.e. English competence, fundamental business knowledge and skills, excellent intercultural communication competence, and luxuriant humanistic quality, together with three other skills, which are also indispensable, including scenario analysis competence, outstanding technology-mediated communication competence, and non-verbal communication competence.

Reading Strategies Employed by Business English Majors with Different Levels of Exposure to Specialized Courses

This study investigated the use of reading strategies by the university Business English majors in relation to their levels of exposure to specialized courses. The participants were 926 university Business English majors from 6 universities in Southwest China. A Strategy Questionnaire for Business English Reading was used to collect the data. The results revealed that the overall use of reading strategies between the students with less and more exposure to specialized courses had no significant variations At the category level, the students with less exposure to specialized courses reported significantly more use of the strategies in the POS category than the students with more exposure to specialized courses, while the students with more exposure to specialized courses reported using the strategies in the SCT sub-category of WHS category significantly more frequently than the students with less exposure to specialized courses. In terms of the individual strategy use, 18 out the 45 strategies across the questionnaire showed significant variations. Overall, the students with less exposure to specialized courses reported employing the individual strategies significantly more frequently than the students with more exposure to specialized courses.

Reading Strategies Employed by University Business English Majors with Different Levels of Reading Proficiency

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of reading strategies by the university Business English majors in relation to their levels of reading proficiency. The participants were 926 university Business English majors from 6 universities in southwest China. The Strategy Questionnaire for Business English Reading (SQBER) and the Business English Reading Comprehension Test (BERCT) were used to collect the data. The results showed that the students with good reading proficiency reported significantly greater use of reading strategies than the students with either fair or poor reading proficiency at the overall and category levels. At the individual strategy level, 25 out of the 45 reading strategies across the inventory varied significantly in terms of the students’ levels of reading proficiency. Most of these strategies with significant differences showed positive correlation, with the higher reading proficiency students reporting employing reading strategies significantly more frequently than the lower reading proficiency students. In addition, the students with different proficiency levels had different tendencies in the use of individual reading strategies.