The Unique Study of Talent Cultivation for English Major in Private Universities of China

Abstract

The paper focused on the research of talent cultivation for English major in the universities of China, especially in private universities. It is often criticized that the English major makes no difference from public English or English training. The main problems of English major at present in China Universities are in its personnel cultivating program, and course design. These problems are shown in the paper mainly by case studies, literature research from the authors’ teaching experience. To solve these problems, the traditional English major must make some tentative innovation and improvement. For the personnel cultivating, it must make a balance between specialists and generalists. For the major setup, it should make refinement in different fields and aspects to let the students make a choice according to their own interests and characteristics, so the paper proposed the mechanism of general enrollment and stratified cultivating. For the course design, it is necessary to make a change from “learning English” to “learning in English”. Learning English mainly lies with students. The learning process, especially the skill-based learning, mainly lies in the learners themselves, while the task of the teacher plays the role of mentor and supervisor. Learning in English is the main direction of English teachers’ efforts. It is the main mission of the teachers of English major to teach humanities courses in full English, cultivate students’ critical thinking in teaching, and let students actively participate in classroom interaction. With these changes, the English major can strive to achieve its own development by being unique and new.