Experiencing Business English in Community-Based Projects

Abstract

With more emphasis on the communicative and pragmatic function of Business English learning, the author discusses a case study of a Business English course based on projects conducted by the students in their community.This curriculum aims at students experiencing and implementing their knowledge of Business and English in the real business environments, engaging community in the process, and avoiding isolation and separation of business English teaching and learning from communities. The research lays more importance on the students' experiencing and participating process by providing them with a series of guidelines as reference and assessment, but meanwhile, the students have their freedom of choices and decision-making in many aspects. Integrative skills are practiced including linguistic skills, business-related skills, communicative skills, and technology-related skills. Specifically, the students are required to conduct a mini market research in their community. The topic of the research is negotiated, classified, and grouped in the entire class until each individual student belongs to a group. The project procedure and requirements are given to the students on weekly basis, including field of research, questionnaire, data collection and analysis, report, and the final group presentation. Based on their experience from the research, the students write down their reflections. Based on the observation of the instructor and students' feedback, the research found that students' expectations and teacher's roles varied in a number of aspects. A variety of knowledge and skills have been practiced. Problems have also been found in each step of the project.Keywords: Business English, experiential learning, community, project IntroductionThroughout the past decades, the concept of education has been transformed from teacher-centered teaching to learner-centered education, and from more controlled instructions to more flexible and innovative projects. Kilpatrick (1918) proposed project method that supported the idea of learning by living and the concept that life is the curriculum. Dewey (1997) has also discussed the critical need of learning-by-doing concept of learning, DA VID PUBLISHING D EXPERIENCING BUSINESS ENGLISH IN COMMUNITY-BASED PROJECTS 907In line with the requirements of syllabus in a great number of universities in China, Business English students are supposed to meet the requirements in language, business, and the related cultural and entrepreneur competence. With observations in a number of business English classes, people may trace the changes taking place generally in the optimistic direction. In some schools and classes, students are more involved in various tasks and projects assigned by their teachers. However, a gap is assumed to be filled between the projects that the students do in the classroom and the projects that they conduct in their community. In other words, it is essential for the students to connect their learning experience with their living environment.In foreign language teaching...