English major undergraduates’ needs and perceptions of business english activities and resources in a chinese university

Abstract

This article explores English major undergraduates’ views on business English skills and topics, and investigates their perceptions of the meaningful activities and resources in one Chinese university context. The main research instruments are questionnaires containing rating and open-ended questions, and researcher’s participant observation with 149 English major undergraduates enrolling in Business English courses in 2016. The results show that participants most often require improvement in note-taking skills, public speaking and need to learn business communication topics. Participants value communicative teaching methodologies, including role plays, oral presentation, theme-based discussion, games and group work. Participants more often rely on electronic media resources, such as videos, internet and mobile applications than the print media resources such as library, books and dictionaries. This study serves as basis for further business English curriculum development and resources provision in the higher education setting. The study also indicates the potential for business English resources development and exploitation in China within the international education environment.