In May 2021, in accordance with the overall development plan of GZUC, the Department of Foreign Languages (School of International Education) established Business English Teaching and Research Office. This office is mainly responsible for teaching the general course Business English and some specialized courses in School of International Education. After one year of preliminary preparations, Business English Teaching and Research Office has completed the following tasks:
1.Completed the selection and ordering of textbooks for Business English.
2.Completed the formation of teacher team of Business English Office.
3.During the summer vacation of 2022, the director of the office completed the syllabus and teaching schedule for Business English.
4.Organized Business English teacher team to finish the teaching plans for the 2022-2023-1 semester.
5.Organized the teachers of Business English to personalize and improve the teaching PowerPoint slides for the 2022-2023-1 semester.
6.According to GZUC’S general deployment, arranged for Business English teachers to conduct demonstration lessons.
On August 12th, Zhang Jiao gave the first lecture demonstration for the course Academic English. All teachers participated in this teaching and research activity. The teachers treated it seriously, prepared meticulously, and fully showcased their teaching designs, receiving unanimous praise from the attending teachers.
To achieve the best teaching results, Zhang Jiao carefully analyzed the textbook, taught according to the students’ specific situations in School of International Education, and used effective teaching methods such as Content-Based Instruction (CBI) to fully motivate students’ enthusiasm and tap into their initiative. This activity demonstrated the current status of teaching in Department of Foreign Languages (School of International Education), as well as solid foundational skills and excellent organizational abilities.
Yang Ting believed that Zhang Jiao emphasized key points and had accurate concepts in this class. Through the example of the tulip bubble incident, she helped students understand the meaning of investment and chose representative cases. What left a deep impression from this class was that academic English is not simply about language norms and practical teaching like college English, but it uses English to convey knowledge in management and economics. In addition to requiring teachers to have strong language skills, it also requires a thorough understanding of management and economics topics, such as currency and investment, human resource management, brand management, etc. The amount of outside class study and knowledge preparation for a language teacher can be very enormous. Zhang Jiao took the lead in showing external teachers what interdisciplinary teaching is, which is admirable.
Dr. Long Anbao believed that the design of Zhang Jiao’s Academic English course was innovative. It followed the model of the National Young English Teachers’ Competition, first introducing the classroom design (5 minutes), and then conducting teaching demonstrations (15 minutes). In terms of textbook structure, it used icons combined with mind maps, extending from the tulip economy to Bitcoin digital economy, guiding students to understand bubble economy and digital operations. He suggested to introduce one hot issue, block chain in classroom teaching. The reverse order method was used, threading through the entire text by asking questions. For knowledge processing, an integrated understanding approach was used. The content was comprehensive, the structure was reasonable and concise, and it was illustrated with pictures, full of passion, and taught in fluent English.
Professor Wang Yang, the Deputy Director of Department of Foreign Languages, summarized and evaluated Academic English course. Zhang Jiao had a solid foundation in teaching, used various means to train students’ basic skills, employed Internet knowledge to create teaching case scenarios, sparked student thinking and discussions, stimulated student interest, cultivated their thinking abilities, promoted teacher-student interaction, and enlivened the classroom atmosphere. This activity greatly improved the effectiveness of classroom teaching. The design ideas were clear, breaking through the traditional classroom teaching methods. They made full use of multimedia to present relevant materials, allowing students to intuitively experience the learning content. At the same time, as a foreign language teacher, teaching such interdisciplinary courses requires a considerable amount of time and effort to prepare for the class. The amount of preparation is substantial, providing good examples and guidance for teachers transitioning from college English teaching to specialized English teaching.
Source: Department of Foreign Languages (School of International Education)
（Translated and Proofread by Zhang Xiaohua）
