Research on the Training of Applied Business English Talents

School of Foreign Languages,Changchun University Of Finance And Economics,Changchun,China Email:75696658@qq.com

[Abstract]Business English talents can be a connecting bridge among enterprises.Enterprise application oriented business English talents put the stress on enterprise.In cooperation between companies,those people show great power and advantages,especially in foreign trade.From the aspect of the characteristics of business English and teaching,this paper elaborated how the higher education schools cultivate the talents of business English for enterprise application,and the teaching methods were studied.

[Keywords]applied talents;business English;enterprise;education

Introduction

as a kind of English for special purpose,business English appeared with the development of economic globalization.The employees’business English knowledge and ability can directly influence the status of China in the international business competition.Therefore,cultivation of high-quality business English talents who can adapt to the background of economic globalization is what our enterprises need to be concerned most at present.

Business English has its own uniqueness,and business English teaching is not completely identical with ordinary English teaching.From the current economic development of our country,enterprise application oriented business English talents are required by the markets and to some extent they are lacking.According to the research by Li Zhao and Zhao Han(2006),over 500 universities and colleges have established the major of business English.Business teaching developed from the late 1960s,and passed four steps:special vocabulary,gambits,function language and business skills training(Cole&Smith,1993).

The Ability Requirements of Applied Business English Talents

Firstly,it is professional ability.Basic ability of English language and international business students of special knowledge,professional skills and special ability are directly related to the occupation.Professional ability is an ability of teachers to engage in specialized work.The professional ability is based on professional knowledge.As a teacher,the fundamental task is to learn a good set of professional courses and be armed with knowledge.Therefore,teachers should take the initiative and make full use of the resources provided by the university.Teachers also need to make a good reserve of professional knowledge to lay a solid foundation for the profession.In order to enhance the competitiveness in the job markets,foreign language majors should learn more about business,finance,law and other fields.

Secondly,it is application ability.It includes the ability of independent thinking,the ability of judging and decision-making ability,the ability to use information,the ability to master the new technology and innovative ability and so on.According to national strategy of China’s Ministry of Labor and Social Security in 1998,the“core competence”is divided into eight categories,including:communication with people,digital applications,information processing,cooperation,problem solving,self-learning,innovation and application of foreign language.Professional core competence refers to the ability to engage in any professional activity and adapt to the continuous change of positions and the rapid development of technology.

The last one is social ability.It includes the ability of organization and coordination,the ability of communication and cooperation,the ability to adapt to the transformation,the ability of criticism and self-criticism,the ability of oral or written expression and psychological endurance and social responsibility.Teaching can no longer meet the needs of the development of the market economy and the diversification of interests.Moreover the individual consciousness and subject consciousness are also increasing.On issues of employment,the teachers strive to make a wise choice.More and more teachers will work hard and burden their responsibilities.

Reconstruction of Business English Courses

according to Ye Xingguo(2012),the undergraduate BE program is a carrier of talent education for the Business English discipline and curriculum links between the Business English discipline and the Business English program.Survey shows that the current business English curriculum can’t fully meet the needs of students.Either business theory or time is far less than the students’needs,and much lower than the social requirements.After defining the teaching goal of applied business English talents,it is necessary to optimize the curriculum structure and adjust the curriculum.

First of all,the training objectives of business English majors are determined.The focus is to cultivate the party’s basic line,in Germany,Chile,the United States and other aspects of the comprehensive development of international trade professionals.Therefore,the teaching objectives should focus on mastering the basic skills of business English in actual work and acquiring the knowledge of international trade.As Students majored in business English,you are supposed to be familiar with foreign trade policies and regulations and have professional ethics,physical and mental health.In addition,you are required to have scientific thinking ability,good communication skills,innovative spirit and practical ability.The setting of core courses needs to be closely integrated with teaching goals.The main consideration is the following three aspects.First of all,the curriculum and professional requirements must be consistent.Main courses are set up according to professional requirements,such as“International Trade”,“Marketing”,“Business English”,“Trade Law”and other courses.Secondly,the setting of courses should be closely related to social needs.Thirdly,the courses should be consistent with the language points of authoritative examinations,such as the National English Test and so on.

as a program for specific business purposes,business English has its unique terminologies and word-formation methods in the language level,and it also requires distinctive teaching objectives,teaching contents,teaching evaluations,and curriculum design.(You & Zhang,2011,pp.160-162)Firstly,it is practicality and pertinence.In order to cultivate the Business English talents with enterprise application,we should use industry-related books as teaching materials.Secondly,it is authority.The National English proficiency test,or PETS,is the National English proficiency test system designed by the Ministry of education.It is the test of listening,speaking,reading and writing which ensures that the scores of different tests at the same level are comparable,and candidates can take the test at any time.Even after graduation you must further study and obtain a higher certificate,which makes this examination continuous.Therefore,we chose the national English test textbook as our reading material.Finally,choose the latest version of the textbook and eliminate the old,outdated textbook.The content of PETS textbooks keeps pace with the times and can attract students’attention.

Highlight of the Characteristics of Business English

Business English is based on general English,so it has the linguistic features of general English.At t he same time,business English is a combination of business knowledge and English and it is a functional variant of English which has obvious characteristics.

In the course of teaching,it is necessary to highlight the characteristics of business English.At present,business English professionals are very popular in the market,but they are also challenged by other related majors,especially in professional fields such as international trade and international finance,part of whose courses is consistent with business English majors.In order to make the students take the advantage in the fierce market competition,it is necessary for business English majors to give prominence to their own advantages.In particular,the English language must be firmly maintained on the advantages of their own,while the students targeted to learn business knowledge,and highlight business practice courses.(Daniel,2005)

Firstly,the accuracy of business English is conducive to promote the circulation of commercial information.The world has gradually entered the era of knowledge economy,and the knowledge economy is to promote the coordination of man and nature and the sustainable development of the economy,which is the intangible assets investment based economy.Intangible assets investment plays a decisive role in the role of macro-control,scientific decisionmaking in knowledge is the increasing trends in the economy.In modern society,the value of knowledge is far higher than that of human,financial and material,which is the most basic factor in all the factors of value creation.In international trade,it is very important for the enterprises to use the English language to acquire the relevant knowledge of business.For example,“Thank you for the normal expression of your letter of last month.”In business English,it’s better to say“Thank you for your letter dated 1st June”.The exact expression can avoid time fuzzy disputes arising due to trade activities and help to improve the efficiency of commercial information circulation.

Secondly,the politeness of business English is helpful to improve the ability of foreign trade personnel.With the development of international trade,more and more Chinese are engaged in foreign trade.How to occupy a place in the management of foreign companies,in addition to trade knowledge,language differences are the biggest obstacles they encounter.Except academic English,business English is the most important modern communication tool.This requires foreign trade personnel not only to be familiar with the trade process and norms,but also to strengthen the use of business English and to create favorable conditions for the success of trade activities.At the same time,before getting in touch with the customer,you must understand the customer’s interest.For customers in their hometowns,according to local customs and practices,you should take time to understand the customer’s situation before visiting.In this way,a tacit and harmonious relationship can be established very quickly with customers.In the process of preparing for learning,it has a very positive effect on improving the cross-cultural communication ability of foreign trade business personnel.The politeness principle in Business English requires that we should try our best to benefit from each other’s interests and stand on the other side’s position to express our wishes.For example,your active participation in this conference will be highly appreciated.Pronouns can make each other feel respected.So in business English,use the second person pronouns as much as possible instead of the first person pronouns.

Improvement of Teachers in Enterprise

The professional quality of business English teachers in the teaching practice has been put forward for nearly twenty years.Due to the particularity of business English,English teachers are also very special.Business English teachers with professional English knowledge can teach business knowledge in English teaching,and they also need to have a more comprehensive understanding of business knowledge and put forward their own views and opinions,instead of fully echoing the content of the book.In this way,most of the ordinary English teachers are not competent,and the problems of the teachers mentioned above appear.It is necessary and feasible to improve the professional quality of business English teachers.Nowadays,some scholars have proposed the training of“dual-qualified teachers”.Teachers must not only possess relevant knowledge of their profession,but also have working experience in a company.The author believes that this“dual-qualified teacher”is very useful for business English teaching,but it needs to be improved.This kind of teacher has its own unique advantages,but it can only meet the teaching requirements in theory,and practical knowledge is still lacking.Nowadays,business English teachers have acquired business knowledge from business English teaching and textbooks,so that they fully meet the theoretical requirements of business English teachers.If conditions permit,the school should select excellent teachers to go to relevant companies for training for three to six months,so that they can better engage in business English teaching in the future.

The teacher is the executor of the teaching activities.Teaching reform is the key to improve the quality of talent training.It is necessary to put forward higher requirements for teachers on the knowledge structure,practical ability and innovation ability.Teachers should develop self-improvement plans to cultivate better talents for the society.Colleges and universities should pay attention to the improvement of teachers'academic ability and academic quality,in order to maintain and improve the scientific research level of colleges and universities,strengthen the scientific research management and evaluation of teachers,and improve the university's educational philosophy and sustainable development ability.At the same time,it is an important way to encourage teachers to continue their study by stages,which is essential for teachers’self-development.At present,our team can adapt to the needs of professional development of teachers.There is a serious shortage of teachers in colleges and universities,and the workload of young teachers is large.Teachers cannot continue to learn while completing the teaching workload.We must pay attention to the professional development of teachers to encourage on-the-job learning.We should guide teachers to set their own research directions according to the goals of school professional construction and make their own learning plans.

There are two ways to train teachers.One is to select excellent teachers for short-term study in domestic firstclass universities.Teachers can continue to study one or several courses and pay attention to the practice of course learning.Another way is to strengthen on-the-job learning and practical learning capabilities in relevant enterprises and institutions.In addition,we must be good at researching problems in practical teaching to improve teaching ability and practical application level.Normally,the time for teachers to study is on vacation.There are also two ways to hire talents from other universities and enterprises.If the number of professional teachers in our school is insufficient,we can hire other university teachers to join our school curriculum construction and teaching.Another way is to hire talents from relevant enterprises and institutions to participate in teaching activities,especially practical teaching content,in order to change the current situation of insufficient dual-qualified teachers in our school.Regardless of the form of employing part-time teachers,the main function of teachers is to assist teaching and improve teaching standards.

Implications and Conclusion

Business English professional teaching should be combined with enterprise application-oriented training,focusing on comprehensive quality education.To make the graduates become the applied talents with characteristics in the social competition,we should establish the training concept of“firm foundation,wide-ranging,focusing on practice,highlighting individuality,and high-quality application-oriented talents”.In the future,we will further study and explore the talent training model,and continue to cultivate more excellent business English talents for the development of export-oriented economy.At present,social development has entered the space and stage of global economic development,and the requirements for the quality of business English talents are getting higher and higher.However,the training goals,textbooks and teaching content,teaching methods and teachers’quality of business English at this stage are difficult to achieve the purpose of application-oriented talents training.There are still many problems.This paper puts forward the goal of cultivating practical business English talents.In the process of training,we should optimize the curriculum structure,reform the teaching methods and improve the quality of teachers.In order to meet the needs of business English talents,the existing situation of Business English talent training must be changed.

Acknowledgements

The paper is the phased research result of The Scientific Research Planning Project of The Education Department of Jilin Province in 2020:Research on the Ways of English Majors in Financial and Economic Colleges to Serve Local Economic Construction,Contract Number:JJKH20201264SK; Industry-University-Research Collaborative Education Project of Ministry of Education in 2019:Application of Virtual Reality Technology in Foreign Language Practice Teaching under the Background of“Internet+”,Project Number:201902206018; The Research Project of Undergraduate Higher Education Reform of The Education Department of Jilin Province in 2020:Research on the Construction of Business Foreign Language Teachers from the Perspective of School-enterprise Collaborative Education.