商务英语在校学习者的需求分析.pdf

华中科技大学 硕士学位论文 商务英语在校学习者的需求分析 姓名：帅梦真 申请学位级别：硕士 专业：英语语言文学 指导教师：都建颖 2011-05-23 iii 摘摘 要要 本文旨在对英语专业及国际商务专业商务英语学习者的需求进行分析。随着商 务英语在上世纪九十年代的兴起及对商务英语人才需求的与日俱增，多角度的需求 分析成为必要。需求分析是一个延续且动态的过程，它是课程设计的第一站并且体 现专门用途英语的特征。本文作者借鉴hutchinson 和 waters 所提出的“目标需 求” ，“学习需求”概念和需求分析的模板进行研究。 来自经济学院和外国语学 院共110名本科生参与了调研。 本次研究采用定性及定量分析， 涵盖访谈， 调查问卷， 课堂观察等方式。作者试图采用自下而上的方式，了解经济学院和外国语学院商务 英语学习者的“目标需求”与“学习需求”。本研究旨在为商务英语教学提出建议。 本论文中需求分析主要经历从调查目的分析至结果讨论7个步骤。 本次调查，主要结果如下： （1）在四项内容（英语语言知识，英语技能，商务知识，商务英语交际技能） 中，商务英语交际技能倍受经济学院和外国语学院学生青睐。 （2）商务英语学习者每周课外学习本科目时间不如预计且课外学习商务英语时 间主要用于准备考试。 （3）商务交际技能中，交互技能及口语表达技能更受学习者欢迎，而对诸如写 作，听力方面的技能关注度不够。 （4）目标场景要求商务英语学习者： 熟悉国际商务法律及准则 具有跨文化交际的敏感度 擅长于商务交际技能，如演讲，商务谈判，会谈等。 能适应于高压工作，及出差。 熟知并掌握商务写作方面技能。 （5）通过两学院的对比发现，交互技能在“所想”及“所缺”方面居首。在需 求细节方面两学院学生存在差异。外国语学院学生商务写作方面信心更足，而经济 iv 学院学生在此项技能运用上常遇困难；经济学院学生偏向于诸如听力方面的输入技 能。 关键词：关键词：需求分析 目标需求 学习需求 商务英语 i abstract the aim of conducting this study was to investigate the needs of pre-experience business english learners, majoring in either english or international business. these students participated in this study as business english learners. business english has been booming since 1990s and the needs for business personnel are ever-growing. there is, therefore, the necessity to analyze the needs perceived by different stakeholders. need analysis, as an ongoing and dynamic process, constructs the first step of course design and characterizes esp (english for specific purpose). the author adopts the concepts of “target need” and “learning need”, and the analyzing model proposed by hutchinson and waters during the study. a total of 110 undergraduate students of economy and foreign languages are involved in the study. methodologies applied in the study are both qualitative and quantitative, including interviews, questionnaires and classroom observation. the author attempts to analyze the target needs and learning needs of the business english learners from the school of economics and the school of foreign languages in a bottom-up manner. it is hoped that this study will shed some light on the teaching practice of business english. the process of need analysis follows seven steps from objective analysis to discussion. the major findings are listed as follows: (1) out of the four items (linguistic knowledge, english skills, business communicative skills, business knowledge), business communicative skills are acknowledged as the most important skills by learners from both schools of economics and foreign languages. (2) business english learners extra learning time per week on the subject is not as much as expected; learners who spend relatively more time are mainly on test preparation. (3) interacting skills and speaking skills are preferred more than other skills, such as writing and listening. ii (4) the target situation mainly requires students to : be familiar with the international business rules and laws. be sensitive to cross-cultural communication. be competent in business communicative skills, such as presentation, negotiation, meeting etc. be flexible in high pressure work situation and business trip. be familiar with the genre of business writing. (5) according to the comparison, the common ground has been reached that either in the “wants” or the “lacks”, the interacting skills are ranked first. there are, however, still differences in that students from school of foreign languages are more confident in business writing while those from school of economics encounter more difficulties. students from school of economics feel more comfortable with the receptive skills such as listening. key word: need analysis target need learning need business english 独创性声明独创性声明 本人声明所呈交的学位论文是我个人在导师指导下进行的研究工作及取得的研 究成果。尽我所知，除文中已经标明引用的内容外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或 集体已经发表或撰写过的研究成果。对本文的研究做出贡献的个人和集体，均已在 文中以明确方式标明。本人完全意识到，本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 学位论文作者签名： 日期： 年 月 日 学位论文版权使用授权书学位论文版权使用授权书 本学位论文作者完全了解学校有关保留、使用学位论文的规定，即：学校有权 保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交论文的复印件和电子版，允许论文被查阅和借阅。 本人授权华中科技大学可以将本学位论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检 索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存和汇编本学位论文。 保密 ，在_年解密后适用本授权书。 不保密。 （请在以上方框内打“” ） 学位论文作者签名： 指导教师签名： 日期： 年 月 日 日期： 年 月 本论文属于 1 introduction research background the first college that provided business english (henceforth be) courses can be traced back to half century ago. the college for senior cadres of commerce was the first college offering be training for foreign trade talents cultivation. since 1990s, business english has become the most important genre of esp (st john, 1996). in maggie jos (1996: 3) words, “demands for business english has burgeoned in recent years and there has been a mushroom of course for learners, courses for teachers, materials for learners, and reference material.” chinas wto entry in 2001 drives the country open up to an unprecedented extent. the global economic crises around 2008 have brought huge recessions in certain countries. though the crises exert negative impacts on the business professionals in the job markets, it did inspire peoples insights on the importance of the business talents to the world. the renaissance of the global economy recently has speeded up the needs for international business talents. naturally the mission is mostly undertaken by the colleges and universities, which are guided by the requirements issued by the ministry of education for the multi-disciplinary talents cultivation. need analysis constructs the prerequisite for any course design, however, the teaching reform is still widely considered in a top-down manner, namely, the consideration of teaching goal and teaching team-building are mostly affricated to authority and researchers. the bottom-up (learner-centered) manner is in demand. research goal and significance at present, be has become the popular item that is both widely applied and vaguely defined. as statistics show that till 2004, the number of colleges and universities offering business english in china, has increased to more than 400 (lin，2004) . there is also 2 research suggesting that the number of universities or colleges that established business english major and subjects has increased to more than 700 till 2008. besides, more than 50,000 be-related articles are published on the mostly visited chinese academic website cnki in less than ten years. though broadly applied, business english is still not clearly defined. as a result, there is urgent need for curriculum design, material selection, students need analysis and teacher development. the paper attempts to clarify the pre-experience be learners needs through the survey of two student groups from the school of economics and the school of foreign languages. the study may provide suggestions for the current business english teaching practice in higher education in china. research questions and methods the study addresses the following three research questions: 1) what are the target needs of the pre-experience business english learners? 2) what are the learning needs of the pre-experience business english learners? 3) are there any differences between needs of business english learners from the school of economics and the school of foreign languages? if so, what are they mainly? the procedure of need analysis in this paper follows seven steps as shown in table 1. 3 table 1 steps for need analysis 1 analyzing the objective clearly 2 limit the number of students 3 choosing the research method 4 choosing the way of data collection 5 data-collection 6 analyzing and displaying the results 7 discussion and suggestion the procedure of data-collection follows the method as shown in table 2. table 2 methods of data-collection research type research method quantitative research questionnaires qualitative research classroom observation semi-structured interview the questionnaire is designed concerning be learners needs, respectively, target needs and learning needs. most answers to each question are scaled into 5 ratios, which will be marked with score according to respondents choices. the questionnaires are distributed to 120 be learners from school of economics and school of foreign languages. 110 questionnaires are regarded as valid while the rest of 10 are invalid for incomplete answer. the interview is designed to clarify learners needs in details. these interview questions could be seen as the compensation for questionnaire. 50 students are picked up for the interview at random. as for other stakeholders of the analysis, the classroom observation, and information from teachers and websites would serve as the indispensable information providers. 4 thesis outline the paper constitutes three major parts: introduction, main body and conclusion. the introduction part covers the brief information of the papers research background, the goal and the significance of the study, research questions and methodology as well as the overview of the thesis. the main body of the paper consists of three parts: literature review starts with a general introduction of the current situation of esp. as a branch of esp, the current situation of be in china is also introduced. the review indicates an urgent need for the concepts of need analysis, research model, its relationship with be course design. research methods involved in this study are both quantitative and qualitative. these methods include questionnaire, semi-structured interview, and classroom observation. research findings and discussion indicate the significance of integrating need analysis with business english course design. the conclusion of the paper concerns about the results of research and the shortcomings of the current research. 5 1. literature review there seems to be a consensus among researchers and practitioners in china and beyond that business english is a branch or variety of esp (robinson, 1991; john and dudley-evans, 1991; st. john and johnson, 1996; dudley-evans and st. john, 1998; ellis and johnson, 2002.). it is necessary to draw a clear picture of esp in the beginning. it is the aim of this chapter to clarify the definition of need analysis as well as the models of conducting need analysis. 1.1 current situation of esp: a home-abroad comparison esp (english for special purpose) has experienced different developments in different countries. according to hutchinson e.g. problem-based leaning; content-based instruction (fortanet-gmez team-teaching is not a new born in theory and practice; meanwhile in china, large number of classrooms still remain the traditional “ppp” (presentation; practice; production) model or teacher-centered style. the academic research and articles on esp are relatively few, leading to the backward situation at home (yan, 2009: 88). in higher education, learners are usually pre-experienced, for which business english course is categorized into eap (english for academic purpose), or egap (english for general academic purpose) if further categorized (dudley-evans low-experience learners: these are usually the junior company members and learners who are moving jobs; job-experience learners: these learners have gained already some 10 practical experience of having to communicate on the job. in higher education, learners are usually pre-experienced, for which business english course is categorized into eap (english for academic purpose), or egap (english for general academic purpose) if further categorized. over the decades, there has been a fair amount of debate about the differences between esp and general english on the one hand, and what should or should not be counted as esp, on the other (fortanet-gmez, 2008). what is the most distinctive characteristic of esp from general english? hutchinson and waters (1987, 2002: 53) provided with the answer “in theory nothing, in practice a great deal”. they (2002: 53) further emphasized that it is not the existence of a need as such but rather an awareness of the need that distinguishes esp from general english. thus, it is the “awareness of target situation-a definable need to communicate in english-that distinguishes the esp learner from the learner of general english (hutchinson waters, 2002: 52). dudley-evans had divided the features of esp into absolute characteristics and variable characteristics. the absolute characteristics are broad and distinctive : the english taught caters for the need of learners in specific disciplines other than art and languages; esp teaching uses the methodologies and activities of the various disciplines it is designed to serve, and it focuses on the language, lexis, grammar, discourses and genres, of those disciplines rather than using the general grammar, general public genres and discourses (fortanet-gmez, 2008). after knowing the distinction of both kind of course and learners, it is the turn of the test or course evaluation. douglas (2000: 19-20) have made the distinction between the general test and the lsp (language for specific purpose) tests: in specific purpose language test development, what we must do is first to describe a target situation in terms of characteristics of context and task, then specify how these characteristics will be realized in the test so as to engage the test taker in test task, performance on which can be interpreted as evidence of language ability with reference to the target situation. esp has experienced five stages of development(robinson, 1980; hutchinson waters, 2002): register analysis; rhetorical 11 analysis; target situation analysis; skills and strategies and a learning-centered approach, among which “target situation analysis” is known as the need analysis which reinvigorate esp or signaled “coming of age” for esp. jordan (1997: 23) listed 10 steps for conducting need analysis which can be employed to analysis the business english learners needs: table 1.1 steps for need analysis 1 analyzing the objective clearly 2 limit the number of students 3 choosing the research method 4 making clear the limits 5 choosing the way of data collection 6 data-collection 7 analyzing and displaying the results 8 deciding the aim of analysis 9 modify the decision 10 evaluations adapted from yan (2009: 99) ellis (2000) has suggested four main steps for analyzing the business english learners needs in the book teaching business english which describes levels of performance; job analysis; information gathering and determining the content of the course. in the pre-course preparation, ellis (2000: 10) suggested to assess the needs of the company, the job, and the individuals, and to define the language level required by the job. in-company training departments must make decisions about the type of training required: group v. individual, on-site language school, person-to-person tuition v. distance learning, 12 etc. the chinese scholar zhang observes that ellis and johnson (2002: 79) is a good case in question. following the principles of esp, they provide valuable information on designing programs for both learners without work experience and job-experienced learners (zhang, 2006: 404). analyzing the learners needs is only the preliminary work in course design. here comes the challenging question “what should we do with these information and data?” acquiring learners needs would definitely not turn out a finished course design directly as magician does everyday. the information and data must be interpreted (hutchinson and waters, 2002: 65), before selecting and applying the approaches to course design. there has already been research concerning in aligning need analysis with task-based courses: yalden (2000) emphasized that “tasks” seemed to be the best focus to use in identifying learners needs. long (2003) argued that a target task established based on need analysis is the starting point of a task-based syllabus. nunan (2001) and douglas (2000) suggested the principles of sequencing tasks according to the learners needs. ellis (2003) presents a framework for designing a task-based course based on focused task and unfocused task. perren wisely pointed out that “identifying the learners needs is a tricky business and we must beware of foisting on his needs which we think he should have but of which he is unaware” (robinson, 1980: 27). all wright and all wright (cited in robinson, 1980: 29) did not assume that it was easy to do a need analysis for the questionnaire may not discover all the needs. hutchinson waters (2002: 60) made it clear that interpretations of needs could vary according to the point of view of the particular respondent. the answers from the lectures and students could be different individually. the lecture might exaggerate the need for english, since english is significant in esp courses. on the contrary, students might lower the need for english after considering their own interest and future job opportunity. their case studies (2002: 57) showed there was no necessary relationship between necessities as perceived by different stakeholders. in this case, it was possible that students think a teacher was “perfect” only if they loved. ellis (2002: 71) 13 mentioned the two key areas of needs which brought in a new term “job analysis”, defined as addressing the kinds of specific purpose which business english learners were likely to have by looking at different categories of jobs. thus, observing the changing job market was another indispensable task when investigating the target situation. need analysis is a complex process, by emphasizing the term “process”, the writer attempts to explain that learners need is dynamic and changeable. it is this characteristic that determines conducting needs investigation will be more than a one-day work or the work can be done once and for all. in depth, there is pre-course, in-course and after course need analysis; in breadth, views from various stakeholders should be included. gathering information from a variety of sources and balancing the diverse answer objectively is the most challenging issue of need analysis. 1.1.2 locating be in higher educat