scholarly journals A Comparative Study of College English Teaching Modes and Effects in Chinese Universities and Sino-Foreign Cooperative Universities

2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. p328
Author(s):  
Yang Feng ◽  
Yanhong Feng
Keyword(s):  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Academic English ◽  
College English ◽  
Teaching Objectives ◽  
Long Time ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Competence ◽  
Language Environment ◽  
English Learning Motivation ◽  
Chinese Public

College English course in Chinese domestic universities focused on Comprehensive English and could not bring a satisfactory result in a long time. Students in theses universities often underperformed in English and they were left far behind by the students in Sino-foreign cooperative universities (SFCU). Through questionnaires, interviews and classroom observations on 256 students and 30 teachers in five Chinese public universities and four Sino-foreign cooperative universities, a huge gap in teaching objectives and modes, teaching staff, medium of instruction, the number of courses taught in English and class size, students’ English learning motivation and teaching effect between the two types of College English courses was found. The time to study and use English for non-English majors in SFCU in the four-year university study can reach 12,000 to 15,000 hours, which is 10-20 times longer than that of the students in Chinese domestic universities. In addition, 90% of students in SFCU can get Band 6.5 in IELTS, but less than 50% of students in Chinese domestic universities can get Band 5.0 in IELTS and 30%-60% of them will regress in English ability when they graduate. This study finds out that SFCU focus on academic English in College English lessons and their teaching modes and language environment can enhance students’ improvement in English, which shows the significance of reference for the reform of College English and the development of students’ English competence in China and other non-English-speaking countries.

scholarly journals Foreign­ Language Environment of the University as a Resource for Development of Leading Universities of Russia (2014–2019 Monitoring Results)

2020 ◽  
pp. 43-55
Author(s):  
N. N. Abakumova ◽  
A. V. Fakhrutdinova
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
Experimental Work ◽  
Research Universities ◽  
English Language ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Teaching Staff ◽  
Monitoring Study ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Language Environment ◽  
The University

The presented study updates the problem of assessing the development efficiency of the foreign language environment in the leading research universities of Russia. The necessity of forming the language environment for the universities participating in the “TOP 5–100” project is shown. The monitoring study of the level of formation of the foreign language environment in universities is conducted in 21 leading universities, starting from 2014. In the experimental work the results of the six-year monitoring study have been summarized, which allowed identifying and fixing the mechanisms of language environment improvement: the development and implementation of English language for Bachelor, Specialist and Master programs; active language practice, the creation of special structures in the university, etc. The active development of the English-speaking environment in the higher educational institutions is shown, which attracts foreign applicants, promotes the participation of the teaching staff and students in international professional communities and associations.

An Investigation of Chinese Undergraduates’ Ability to Translate Chinese Cultural Items into English and Predictors of Such Ability

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 105-125
Author(s):  
Haiyang Sun ◽  
Yuan Gao
Keyword(s):  
Chinese Culture ◽  
Cultural Knowledge ◽  
Home Culture ◽  
College English ◽  
English Class ◽  
Positive Attitudes ◽  
English Major ◽  
English Competence ◽  
English Learning Motivation ◽  
Chinese Undergraduates

AbstractCollege English teaching in China has long focused on importing cultures of English countries while neglecting to enhance students’ English competence in home culture. The present research aims to investigate Chinese non-English major undergraduates’ competence in translating Chinese cultural items into English and the significant predictors of such competence. With a test and a questionnaire as research instruments, this study was conducted to assess 82 undergraduates’ ability to translate three different levels of Chinese culture-specific items into English and explored the factors which might have affected the students’ home culture translation ability. The results show that the participants did well in translating the surface layer cultural items, but their performance in sub-surface and deep layer culture translation tasks was far from being satisfactory. It was also found that students had positive attitudes towards Chinese culture and were willing to learn to express Chinese culture in English, but their English learning motivation in general was not strong enough, and they were not given much input on Chinese culture in their English class. Students’ Chinese cultural knowledge and their awareness of the importance of learning Chinese culture in English were found to be the two significant factors that can predict their performance in the translation tasks. These findings have implications for the teaching of culture and cross-cultural communications in EFL classes.

scholarly journals Teaching Anxiety and Foreign Language Anxiety Among Chinese College English Teachers

SAGE Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 215824402110165
Author(s):  
Meihua Liu ◽  
Bin Wu
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Language ◽  
English Teachers ◽  
Individual Characteristics ◽  
Language Teachers ◽  
Language Anxiety ◽  
Foreign Language Anxiety ◽  
College English ◽  
Teaching Anxiety ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
English Competence

This study explored teaching anxiety and teacher foreign language anxiety (FLA) in 151 Chinese college English teachers in relation to their individual characteristics. Analyses of data collected from mixed-form questionnaires revealed the following major findings: (a) Major causes for teaching anxiety were concern about classroom teaching, research, other work and promotion, and interest and confidence in teaching, and major sources for teacher FLA were apprehension of speaking English, fear of negative outcomes, and confidence in English competence; (b) the participants of various backgrounds suffered from varying degrees of teaching anxiety and teacher FLA; (c) gender, age, educational level, English proficiency, and experience of visiting/studying in English-speaking countries significantly affected the participants’ teaching anxiety and teacher FLA levels; and (d) anxiety seriously affected the participants’ work and life. Evidently, anxiety is an important issue faced by university language teachers and needs to be further researched and seriously handled.

scholarly journals A text-based learning model for college General English

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-173
Author(s):  
Christina Eli Indriyani
Keyword(s):  
Learning Model ◽  
English Department ◽  
English Learning ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Learning Program ◽  
College English ◽  
The Mean ◽  
English Competence ◽  
Addie Model ◽  
D Model

The fact that an English learning program is provided to equip college students with English skills poses several problems since every university, even every non-English department, likely has its own system. One solution is to provide an acceptable material that is arranged based on the language that needs to be acquired. In order to solve the problem of supporting the English learning process in college, this research aims to produce a learning model for the novice level, i.e. college general English. The general English course is needed to provide the students with college English before academic English. Thus, the problem discussed in this study is what is the acceptable product of the text-based college general English? The researcher employed ADDIE model for the instructional design. The researcher also adopted Borg’s and Gall’s R&D model as the research methodology. The final result was a course book named College Just Ahead. This book consists of five units, which has two or three sub-units in every unit. The result showed that the product was acceptable by the mean score above 4.00 out of 5. Therefore, when it is completed, the course is more transferable. The students and instructors more focus on the process of acquiring an English competence, so that the product is more valid and reliable.

scholarly journals Automatic Recommendation System of College English Teaching Videos Based on Students’ Personalized Demands

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (21) ◽  
pp. 42
Author(s):  
Xinyao Yang
Keyword(s):  
Recommendation System ◽  
Interface Layer ◽  
Social Needs ◽  
Student Centered ◽  
College English ◽  
English Teaching ◽  
Level Of Satisfaction ◽  
History Of ◽  
English Competence ◽  
Language Environment

With the emergence of computers and networks, the social needs for English competence have presented a diversified and professionalized trend. The current single teaching model can no longer satisfy students’ needs. To cater to different demands of students and improve their level of satisfaction with personalized and automatically recommended teaching videos, an automatic recommendation sys-tem of college English teaching videos, which consists of interface layer, busi-ness logic layer, and data layer, was designed. The quality of recommended teaching videos was ensured through the strict management of English teaching videos within the system. The degree of interest in videos was calculated accord-ing to students’ browsing history of teaching videos. The content of teaching vid-eos that meet students’ personalized demands was established on the basis of the degree of interest. The Naïve Bayesian classification method was used to precise-ly, rapidly, and stably divide the teaching videos into two classes—interest and disinterest—according to the abovementioned information. Results show that the recall ratio and precision ratio of this system reach as high as 95.18% and 97.2%, respectively. The system recommendations averagely rank top, the recommenda-tion precision is high, and the recommended video contents are abundant, with an applause rate of 97.79%. This designed system can establish student-centered college English teaching methods, create a favorable language environment, and better promote the teaching of English among college students.

scholarly journals From “the Moon Is Rounder Abroad” to “Bravo, My Country”: How China Misperceives the World

2021 ◽  
Vol 56 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-130 ◽  
Author(s):  
Haifeng Huang
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Chinese Society ◽  
The Moon ◽  
Foreign Countries ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Global Affairs ◽  
Chinese Public

AbstractFor a long time, since China’s opening to the outside world in the late 1970s, admiration for foreign socioeconomic prosperity and quality of life characterized much of the Chinese society, which contributed to dissatisfaction with the country’s development and government and a large-scale exodus of students and emigrants to foreign countries. More recently, however, overestimating China’s standing and popularity in the world has become a more conspicuous feature of Chinese public opinion and the social backdrop of the country’s overreach in global affairs in the last few years. This essay discusses the effects of these misperceptions about the world, their potential sources, and the outcomes of correcting misperceptions. It concludes that while the world should get China right and not misinterpret China’s intentions and actions, China should also get the world right and have a more balanced understanding of its relationship with the world.

Scientific Publishing in English for Non-English-Speaking Academicians

2019 ◽  
pp. 278-294
Author(s):  
Eda Başak Hancı-Azizoglu
Keyword(s):  
Data Sets ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Scientific Publishing ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Lingua Franca ◽  
Significant Challenge ◽  
Scientific World ◽  
The World ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Different Cultures

The majority of scientific research in the world is published in English. The chapter expands the discussion on English as a lingua franca a step further to initiate a discussion on English as a scientific lingua franca. English as a scientific lingua franca poses a significant challenge for the non-Anglo-Saxon scholars by disregarding their data sets and research unless the research is written in academic English with culturally determined rhetorical conventions. This chapter investigates why different cultures have tendencies to write in culturally affected writing styles and forms. Toward that end, the chapter shows how the failure to give proper attention to other rhetorical styles results in losing crucial intellectual information from the non-Anglo-Saxon scholars. With this in mind, the chapter offers short-term solutions for academicians to join in the scientific world despite possible language barriers.

The use of general and specialized corpora as reference sources for academic English writing: A case study

ReCALL ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 243-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji-Yeon Chang
Keyword(s):  
Academic Writing ◽  
Engineering Students ◽  
English For Academic Purposes ◽  
Discourse Community ◽  
Academic Experience ◽  
Academic English ◽  
Training Corpus ◽  
English Writing ◽  
English Speaking

AbstractCorpora have been suggested as valuable sources for teaching English for academic purposes (EAP). Since previous studies have mainly focused on corpus use in classroom settings, more research is needed to reveal how students react to using corpora on their own and what should be provided to help them become autonomous corpus users, considering that their ultimate goal is to be independent scholars and writers. In the present study, conducted in an engineering lab at a Korean university over 22 weeks, data on students’ experiences and evaluations of consulting general and specialized corpora for academic writing were collected and analyzed. The findings show that, while both corpora served the participants well as reference sources, the specialized corpus was particularly valued for its direct help in academic writing because, as non-native English-speaking graduate engineering students, the participants wanted to follow the writing conventions of their discourse community. The participants also showed disparate attitudes toward the time taken for corpus consultation due to differences in factors such as academic experience, search purposes, and writing tasks. The article concludes with several suggestions for better corpus use with EAP students regarding the compilation of a corpus, corpus training, corpus competence, and academic writing.

scholarly journals Scholastic Grammar in College English Teaching

2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 191
Author(s):  
Yanghua Peng
Keyword(s):  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
English Language Teaching ◽  
College English ◽  
English Teaching ◽  
Vital Part ◽  
Long Time

The research of grammar has been received much concern at home and abroad and the instruction of grammar is a focus and difficulty in English language teaching. The role of scholastic grammar has been paid little attention to for a long time. Some linguists and teachers believe that the traditional or school grammar should be the key in the classroom instruction, but others argue that scholastic grammar is a vital part in language itself. Based on the theories of second language learning and the viewpoints of Otto. Jespersen and H. Poutsma about scholastic grammar, this article conducts a research in colleges and analyzes the stylistic effect of attributive post-position from scholastic grammar perspective and finds that it is necessary to reconsider the important role of scholastic grammar in college English teaching. The paper ends with a conclusion about some implications of the present research for college English language teaching in China.

scholarly journals Ethnic Differences in Decisional Balance and Stages of Mammography Adoption

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 278-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina Otero-Sabogal ◽  
Susan Stewart ◽  
Sarah J. Shema ◽  
Rena J. Pasick
Keyword(s):  
Stages Of Change ◽  
Transtheoretical Model ◽  
White Women ◽  
Private Insurance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Decisional Balance ◽  
Behavioral Theories ◽  
Phone Survey ◽  
Long Time ◽  
English Speaking

Behavioral theories developed through research with mainstream, English-speaking populations have been applied to ethnically diverse and underserved communities in the effort to eliminate disparities in early breast cancer detection. This study tests the validity of the transtheoretical model (TTM) decisional balance measure and the application of the TTM stages of change in a multiethnic, multilingual sample. A random sample of 1,463 Filipino, Latino, African American, Chinese, and White women aged 40 to 74 completed a phone survey of mammography beliefs and practices. Consistent with the TTM and independent of ethnicity, decisional balance was associated with mammography stage in all five ethnic groups when controlling for socioeconomic and other factors. In addition, having private insurance and a regular physician and being a long-time resident in the United States were positively associated with mammography maintenance. The application of the TTM for mammography is supported in a multiethnic and multilingual sample.

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