Transformation of American FL Departments and Reforms of English Major Education in China
The paper reviews and analyzes in full length the problems American FL departments have been facing in the new millennium, and the solutions proposed by the MLA executive committee.And then it argues that Chinas English major education suffers in similar ways but its reforms take place in differing contexts.In view of this, the author believes what American FL education community is doing should be applicable to China.The 9/11 terrorist attack and a series of ensuing geopolitical events have caused Americans to realize that the whole nation is in the danger of language deficit.As a result, the troubled American FL education started to make changes under the leadership of Modern Language Association.The problems in collegiate FL programs were soon identified, which include the shortsighted program goal, (he dissociated curricula, the biased faculty power structure, shortage of qualified teachers and the flawed teacher development plans and so on.Years efforts have paid off with valuable proposals and recommendations.The American FL education authorities resolve to set trans-lingual and trans-cultural competence (TTC) as the ultimate goal, eradicate language-content divide in the FL curricula, transform FL departments by balancing power between language instructors and literature professors, and develop qualified teaching faculty through redefining qualifications for FL professors. By contrast, Chinas FL teaching reforms have taken place in a different context where the needs of learners and employers have always been top priority. Driven by instrumentalist ideology, which has been under constant criticism for its deviation from constitutive nature of language study, Chinas English major education, although achieved some success after more than three decades improvement, was born with a number of defects.The monolingual goal, which has not been challenged until recently, needs more scrutinize, and the curricula are also bothered by the language-content divide.The teaching faculty is frustrated by the research first teaching second phenomenon.However, what happens in US should be relevant and meaningful to its counterparts in China.
American FL departments English major teaching reforms Trans-cultural and Trans-lingual Competence curricula faculty development
Huiyong Hu
The School of Foreign Languages Anhui Agricultural University Hefei,China
国际会议
成都
英文
122-126
2011-07-15（万方平台首次上网日期，不代表论文的发表时间）