Problems in Business English Reading for Comprehension of Weekend Business English Students at Phranakhon Rajabhat University

This study investigates the communication and learning needs of Master of Business Administration (MBA) business English students and their perceptions of effective curriculum design. The research instruments are two-stage surveys of 99 MBA students from a public university in China. The results of the study show that English is not extensively used in the workplaces of MBA business English students, and that the majority of them use Chinese. Most English usage occurs in foreign businesses. The most difficult skills for MBA business English learners are found to be oral communication and listening comprehension. However, there are still very strong needs for further improvement in English communication. For the MBA business English courses, oral communication activities, especially with expatriate teachers, are particularly needed. The MBA business English courses should connect with real-world practice and be relevant to job and business needs. This study has significant implications for MBA business English curriculum reform in both Chinese and international contexts.

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Fostering learning and collaboration through computer-supported collaborative inquiry among Chinese tertiary business English students

10.5353/th_b4490192 ◽

2010 ◽

Author(s):

Ke Zhao

Keyword(s):

Collaborative Inquiry ◽

Business English ◽

Learning And Collaboration ◽

English Students

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Business English students learning to write for international business: What do international business practitioners have to say about their texts?

English for Specific Purposes ◽

10.1016/j.esp.2013.01.002 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 32 (3) ◽

pp. 144-156 ◽

Cited By ~ 23

Author(s):

Zuocheng Zhang

Keyword(s):

International Business ◽

Business English ◽

Business Practitioners ◽

English Students

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Exploration on SPOC-based Blended Teaching Strategies in Business English Reading Course

E3S Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/e3sconf/202021804030 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 218 ◽

pp. 04030

Author(s):

Jinchun Zhang ◽

Dongshui Zhang

Keyword(s):

Education Reform ◽

Language Teachers ◽

Business English ◽

Teaching Mode ◽

Effective Strategies ◽

English Reading ◽

Learning Path ◽

Teaching Content ◽

Teaching Concept ◽

Blended Teaching

As the new direction of education reform in the internet era, the SPOC-based blended teaching mode has become increasingly popular in universities, because it can enrich teaching content, diversify learning path, enhance interaction between teachers and learners, and most importantly improve students’ learning enthusiasm and effectiveness. However, due to the lack of substantial knowledge and strategies on SPOC-based teaching concept as well as computer technology, many English teachers cannot conduct SPOC-based blended teaching mode well in their classes even though they have the intention to do it well. Therefore, taking business English reading course as a case study, this paper explores some effective strategies on how to apply SPOC-based blended teaching in English courses, so as to provide useful enlightenment for foreign language teachers in universities and colleges to better conduct blended teaching in their classes in the future.

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Collex-Biz

ITL - International Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1075/itl.155.04bla ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 155 ◽

pp. 77-93

Author(s):

Kristin Blanpain ◽

Liesbet Heyvaert ◽

An Laffut

Keyword(s):

First Year ◽

Business English ◽

Web Based ◽

News Reports ◽

Course Materials ◽

Business News ◽

Learning Platform ◽

Exercise Design ◽

English Students ◽

Selection Of

This paper reports on the development of Collex-Biz, a corpus-driven web-based learning platform for general economic English. The design of this platform was informed by a number of research-based principles, particularly frequency and collocation, which are insufficiently incorporated in existing Business English course materials. Following Sinclair & Renouf (1988) and Nelson (2000), we first developed a ‘lexical syllabus’ for first-year Business English students on the basis of frequency data from a self-compiled 6 million word corpus of business news reports. A didactically inspired selection of the most useful single words and collocations was then thematically classified. On the basis of concordances, finally, exercises were created in which lexical items were maximally contextualised and systematically recycled. In this article, we discuss the criteria that guided our selection of items and elaborate on the principles behind the exercise design.

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