CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION
1.1 Research Background
Business English, as a major in Chinese higher education, has been given a lot of attention in order to improve its education quality. Many researches have been conducted with this purpose, and among these studies some focus on improving Business English curriculum. Curriculum, as a basic form of teaching and training students, is considered an indispensible part in graduate education. It has great significance to graduate students in expanding their knowledge volume and developing research abilities. Thus it has attracted a lot of attention from both educators and graduate students. Although many researches have been done in the field of graduate curriculum, few of them are empirical studies from the perspective of students. As students are the direct audience of curriculum, the author thinks that students’ evaluation will give helpful insights to improve curriculum.
Therefore, this paper offers an empirical study from the perspective of graduate students, aiming at finding out possible solutions to perfect Business English graduate curriculum. To get empirical data, it investigates Business English graduates’ satisfaction of the curriculum offered by the Business English graduate program in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (henceforth GDUFS). Thus, this thesis is also a case study. The subjects of the investigation are the graduate students in the three-year Business English graduate program. The aspects investigated are curriculum design, course content, teaching, and performance assessment, etc.
.......................
1.2 Research Purpose and Significance
By investigating graduate students’ satisfaction of the Business English graduate program, the study tries to get full information on: First, what are their expectations from the curriculum and what are their evaluation of the curriculum in terms of its value and quality; Second, to what extent they are loyal to the program and whether they have complaints ; Third, which aspects of the curriculum have greater influence on student satisfaction than others; Fourth, whether there are differences in student satisfaction between students of different grades in the program, and if yes, what are they, and what are the possible reasons. The information will give insights into not only students’ overall perception of the program, but also suggestions about what can be done to improve student satisfaction as one possible way to improve the quality of curriculum.
This study has both theoretical and practical significance. On one hand, this paper further develops student satisfaction theory, as it expands student satisfaction into a new field , Business English education. On the other hand, it also enriches the research i