从我国三所高校学生的学习负荷感受看英语专业课程改革的困境和出路

A Study of English Major's Curriculum Reform Constraints and Future Directions Based on the Students' Workload-based Perceptions at Three Chinese Universities

近年来,我国高校英语专业出现了许多以提高思辨能力为目标的改革。本文作者连续两年访谈了三所相同年级的英语专业的学生,通过分析学生的感受,发现英语专业课程改革应该把人的全面发展放在首位,而不是提高"思辨能力"。英语专业课程必须在"语言能力"、"人文教育"和"专业特性"三者之间取得实事求是的平衡。作者认为,中国高校英语专业的课程改革要以学生的长远发展为目标。

In the last twenty years,China's English language education has been rife with criticisms for students' lack of critical thinking ability or even lack of thinking capacitiy because of the concentration on the language skill training. Therefore,universities and colleges of different levels tried to reform their curriculum by adding newcourses or professional orientations to the existing programs. The current study reports a two year-long investigation of three universities at three tiers in the eastern part of China. The study,based on the student's conceptons of curriculum challenges,and gains,suggests that the so called "lack of thinking skills"is a misfire,and that the specialty component added to the existing curriculum could be a possible solution for some universities,but probably a misguided fad for others which may hurt student's motivation of learning.With different types of students,each university should build up its own curriculum based on the best configuration of the three components: language skill training,liberal arts education and training in specialty.