The Application of Case Study to Business English Reading Teaching

【摘 要】務英语作为特殊用途英语之一，成为我国外语教学的重要内容之一。为了突破商务英语阅读的瓶颈，本文提倡在课程教学中采用案例教学法，它能有效提高学生对商务阅读材料的解读能力。本文主要分为四个部分，第一部分，总结了有关案例教学法在商务英语阅读应用的文献综述；第二部分：简要介绍案例教学法的理论背景；第三部分：在理论和研究框架说明的基础之上，本文采用教学实验来探究案例教学在商务英语阅读课程的有效实施，探讨了：案例教学法是否能融入商务英语教学中，如何将案例教学应用于商务英语阅读课程，案例教学是否能提高学生商务英语阅读能力。第四部分：论文的假设--案例教学法提高商务英语阅读课程的教学效果是真命题。

【关键词】案例教学；商务英语阅读；运用

【Abstract】 Business English as a subfield of English for Specific Purposes (ESP), has been seen in the past few years in its rapid development in China.  To crack barriers of business English reading and enhance the reading competence of the students of business English major, the thesis advocates the pedagogic strategy-Case Study—to be employed in this course, which effectively promote capability of students to decode business reading materials. This paper is divided into four parts, the first part: presenting literature review on Case Study in Business English Reading Class; the second part: a brief introduction to the theoretical background of case teaching; the third part: on the basis of theoretical and research framework, this paper uses teaching experiments to explore the effective implementation of case teaching in Business English Reading Course, and discusses whether the case teaching method can be integrated into business English teaching, and how to apply Case Study into Business English Reading class and whether Case Study can improve the Business English proficiency of the learners in reading. In conclusion, the hypothesis---Case Study improves efficiency of the teaching of Business English Reading is true．

【Key words】Case Study；Business English Reading；Application

Ⅰ. Introduction

Case-based learning is not a new idea. Christopher Columbus Langdell, former dean of the Harvard Law School, introduced the case method in 1878, replacing the more passive learner methods of treatises, commentaries and lectures. As early as 1 908, the case method migrated to the Harvard Business Sch001. Since that time, a number of schools an disciplines have emulated and adapted Harvards successful case teaching model. Storytelling to share information, teach morals and illuminate concepts is ancient. What is modem is the use of narratives developed to provide authentic learning for students. Case study, hereby, is suggested as a teaching approach for the seniors of business English Major in the business-reading course. The students are advanced language learners, who may have certain grammatical, lexical, or discourse knowledge, but always confused about the peculiar linguistic features and abstract commercial subject. The difficulties students face constantly in the business-reading classroom would be resolved by the case study method applied in the business English reading course. The advantages exhibited in the case study adequately promote students comprehension of the business material.

Ⅱ. Implementation of Case Study in the teaching of Business English Reading

Applying Case Study in the Business English Reading is also composed of a series of systematic activities, however, in conformity with the features of this course, following the principles we mention above: to be rooted in the reading material; to be student-centered；to be contextualize; to be proficiency-oriented; to be assessed dynamically. With principles and objectives in the teaching pedagogy clarified, we will perform the class smoothly. The hypothesis for this study is：Case Study improves efficiency of the teaching of Business English Reading. In this experiment two groups are used：one is all experimental group, which will be taught in the tentative teaching method(the Case Study method), and the other is a control group, which will be taught in the traditional method. Those Students tested(test-takers)came from the Business English Major, Quzhou College. They were juniors studying in two parallel but different classes according to their performance in NMET in 2016. They had been taught by the same English teacher. In Class One there were 34 students, and in Class Two 34 students. For the convenience of teaching and keeping the secret of teaching method in this paper,34 students who came from Class One were chose as the experimental group; while 34 students from Class Two were chosen as the control group. All of them did not know they were treated with different teaching method for the specific purpose of the experiment. Materials used for the pretest were extracted from the book Business English Reading 100, published by World Publication Co.

III. Conclusion

This paper mainly analyzes the application of case method to business English reading teaching by using experimental methods. Firstly, it introduces significance of application of case study in business reading class. Secondly, it presents the theoretical reviews on employment of case—study methodology. Case study methods application in the teaching of business English reading possesses the following five features: being reading material-rooted, student-center, reading contextualized, proficiency-oriented, and dynamically questioned. It effectively improves the comprehensive capability. Thirdly, it elaborates the details of the teaching procedures with application of case study, illustrating that case study will help create perfect class environment where students autonomy is easily cultivated  and a kind of teaching art will come into being. In the end，thepapercarries out a well—designed teaching experiment，and according to the data collectedwe draw a conclusion that case study method get valid application in business English reading teaching. It can be concluded that the case teaching method can be integrated into business English teaching, and Case Study can improve the Business English proficiency of the learners in reading through our experiments comparing the results between control group and experimental group. The results of experimental group obviously indicate that case study method can be applied into Business English Teaching, which is beneficial to students reading comprehension.

【Reference】

[1]Berner, R．Thomas.，Language Skillss [M], Boston：Houghton Mifflin Company, 1994.

[2]Daley,P. Methodology for Using Case Studies in the Business English Language Classroom [J]，the Intemet TESL Journal，2002.v.8，(11).

作者簡介：魏庆（1992—），女，汉族，四川成都人，硕士研究生，单位：西南财经大学经贸外语学院，研究方向：商务英语研究。