Paper Abstract

Teaching Business Chinese to College Students:
Issues and Concerns

This paper is based on the first six semesters of an on-going business Chinese course at Brigham Young University. However, it does not mean to describe the details of its two-year development process from 1992 to 1994. The following paragraphs are quoted from the SUMMARY section of the paper.

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There could be very different approaches for the design and instruction of a business Chinese course. Depending on its arrangement and objectives, it could be language-emphasized or business-emphasized. In a language-emphasized business Chinese course, such as Chinese 347 at Brigham Young University, I found it necessary to still work on the principal foundations of the language and at the same time pay special attention to the formal style and formulaic expressions relevant to business contexts. Cultural awareness seems to be especially important for the kind of intermediate-level students I have been teaching. To prepare the students for versatility and adaptability, I have chosen to teach something of "everything". which means a balance among all the language skills with moderate expectation in every aspect. PRC-oriented or Taiwan-oriented does not seem to be a problem for the course.

I have been using Business Chinese 500 as the textbook, but not being limited to it. While only emphasizing some of the requirements in the book, I have been providing a wide range of outside materials, such as authentic business documents and correspondence, newspaper articles, government documents, advertisements, commercials, business video tapes, proverbs and sayings. Special concern has been given to cultivating and improving the students' cultural awareness. Other typical methods that have been applied include simulating real business practice, combining required and optional tasks, and having students of different backgrounds help each other.

--presented at the 13th Annual Conference on Languages and Communication for World Business and the Professions, Ypsilanti, MI, 1994

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