The Application of Heuristic Principle in Business English Teaching in 启发性教学原则在大学商务英语课程中的应用年级：2010级专业与班级：XX班学号：XXX姓名：XXX指导老师：XXX2013年6月17日The Application of Heuristic Principle in Business English Teaching inUniversityAbstract:As one of the advanced modern teaching models, heuristic principle teaching guides students to learn on their own initiative by inspiration and encouragement. This article presents the application of Heuristic Principle in Business English Teaching in University. It first analyses the current situation of business English learning in university and then introduces the background of heuristic principle. Next, I combine the characteristics of business English in university study and the teaching methods of teachers to encourage the application of heuristic principle.Key words: application, heuristic principle, business English, teaching, inspirationI. Background of business English in universityWith China’s entry into the WTO and increasing foreign trade, Business English has been the greatest activity and fastest growing area of English for Specific Purposes in China’s university. As a result, recent years have seen a great demand for teaching Business English. According to the statistics, more than 800 colleges and universities offer courses in business English, and more than 300 colleges and universities provide students with a major in business English. However, it seems that the traditional teaching cannot provide to cultivate the creative minds of nowadays students. These people have been used to spoon-feeding teaching. They have no enough critical thinking or discussion and the desire to encourage innovation spirit and practice ability. There are several reasons for these issues. First, many students fail to recognize the practical importance in the field of business English. Most of them just focus on reciting books, words, grammar and sentences without putting their acquisition into exercise. Second, even if some students have a good command of business knowledge, they fail to express themselves fluently and clearly in English in certain business situation due to poor English or oral skills. Third, some of them believe that they are forced to learn business English by persuasion of their parents instead of their inner interest. Such students gradually find it difficult to study English and even give it up during university.All of these problems concerned would make teachers have a trouble in teaching business English in university. So do the quality of teaching in classes. In order to help their students pull through these obstacles, teachers should change the convention teaching principle. They should switch to a new method to trigger students’ interest in learning practical business English. As a modern teaching method, heuristic principle is in line with the practice- focused society and creativity-oriented university. Only when teachers insist on the heuristic principle in business English teaching can they produce a new generation of students with innovation ability and creativeness.II. The basic knowledge of heuristic principle2.1 The source of heuristic principleHeuristic principle teaching had been widely used as a teaching method during the Spring and Autumn Period in ancient China, which was proposed by Confucius. He empathized that teacher should allow his students to think independently without any interference. He used a large number of examples to encourage his disciples to speak out their minds. Meanwhile, in ancient Creeks, a famous philosopher called Socrates once put forward “elicitation teaching theory”. He aimed to inspire followers’deep thinking by asking continuous questions. Both the two methods contributed greatly to teaching. People along the human education history had benefited a lot from such enlightening principle. Nevertheless, the research on new heuristic teaching models and methods has never stopped, such as optimizing teaching process, improving class teaching structure, changing the presentation mode of teaching contents as well as students’ learning styles. The heuristic principle derived from heuristic teaching methods now does not only aim at the teaching method, but it stresses the heuristic theory running through the whole teaching and learning process. By using different kinds of teaching methods to inspire and guide the transfer of knowledge according to different teaching purposes, heuristic teaching principle triggers students to take the initiative to learn, and related trainings. Heuristic Principle is conducive to teachers in business English teaching as guidance to stimulate students’interests in business English learning and cultivate their lateral thinking and practical abilities.2.2 The importance of heuristic principleThe specific teaching methods include that teachers should create question situations in accordance with the teaching content, set up interesting questions, synthetically use antitheses and analogism methods, guide and inspire students to think and desire for knowledge, pay attention to protect students’ curiosity, spurs the students to study independently and so on.For seeing that, Heuristic teaching principle is to change the traditional "teacher-centered" teaching mode, to give students sufficient time and space, and to creative a harmony environment in which students’ independent creative minds can be cultivated and the freedom of language communication in class is supported. Through heuristic teaching, tutors emphasis on the education target of imparting knowledge, at the same time, attaches great importance to the cultivation of the ability to use and the development of non-intelligence factors; Upon the relationship between teaching and learning, the principle of "student-centered" is adopted; while on teaching methods, professionals focus on mobilizing the subjective initiative of students and improve the students' business English application ability. Heuristic teaching is according to the actual circumstance of students’ level, interest, etc. By heuristic principle, mentors are about to clarify business knowledge scientifically and vividly. Heuristic principle plays an instructive role in business English teaching. The teacher in the classroom through a series of questions, enlightens students’brainstorming, assists to develop relevant knowledge and helps to cultivate students’ business thinking, which does a favor for students to apply business knowledge topractice. Considerations, such as cross-cultural communication, etiquette, negotiating skills, could be handled directly and correctly in business occasions. Teachers applying to the heuristic principle can help students improve the ability of practical application so that they can lay a solid foundation in business for the sake of wealth creation in near future. There are several basic requirements to implement the heuristic principle: inspire students' learning motivation, encourage students' positive thinking, make students master the methods of thinking, pay attention to the development of students' language skills and encourage creative thinking. These requirements are very important to the innovation education.III. The characteristics of business English languageAlthough Business English has some common characteristics on vocabulary，sentence structure and grammar with General English. As the name suggested，business English has its special characters in words，sentence expressions and discourse etc. There are some features of business English language.3.1 ProfessionalBusiness English, which related to business theory and business practice in terms of their language, is extremely professional. Business English vocabulary words are abbreviated, which contains a large number of professional terminologies, with the ordinary meaning of the word commercialized, or compound words and abbreviations, such as the D/P（documents against payment）, Exp. & Imp. Inc (export-import incorporated) import and export companies, Some collocates are characteristic of the business English corpus, but hardly occurred at all in general English, such as forex （foreign exchange）. Currency, workfare (work welfare) the work of the welfare system, blue chip stocks, a firm offer firm and so on.Without a certain degree of expertise is simply unable to understand the professional business of the meaning of English vocabulary.3.2 Use of termsThe terms are in precise wording of strict business style, formal and non-personal emotional. To this end, the Business English derivatives commonly used synonyms to substitute the general English vocabulary, which is often said that the wording of books (literary words or learned words), the so-called "big words." Also, there exist a large number of general terms instead of complex terms in business English speaking. Everything concurred to jack up the price in the international market. (Here replace concur with come together).3.3 Use of ancient wordsBusiness style, the ancient words from time to time again reflects the seriousness of the solemn style. Latin words and archaisms are frequently used for a number of compound adverbs, such as: hereby (by this), ad valorem duty and whereat (at / to which place).Prominence of long sentences, frequent use of declarative sentences，large amounts of sentences with established formats are features of businessEnglish at syntactic level. Business English teaching bears the task of making students understand those special linguistic characteristics of business English and the specific meanings of those expressions.The greatest characteristic of business English course requires that English language skills combine with business professional knowledge closely. This particularity determines teachers in business English teaching should not only attach importance to the cultivation of student's English language skills, but also strengthen the business professional skills of students. Business English stresses more practices than general English. Accordingly, at the time of breaking through the traditional language teaching method, teachers should aim at training students' language application skills, stimulating students' language communication in different aspects and the accuracy of the acquired business knowledge.IV. Application of heuristic principle in business English teaching in university4.1 Several requirements in business English teachingTo carry out the heuristic teaching principle, teachers should follow four rules, one is participation principle: the student is the main body of teaching and learning activity, the development of thinking and master of knowledge can only be done by oneself. Influenced by traditional teaching ideas, many students are not willing to participate in teaching activities, especially the students with poor English foundation. This requires teachers in the classroom to encourage students in different ways, namely to cultivate the students' participation. Once students have the interest in English learning, their participation is in desire. In the usual teaching process, teachers should treat every student equally and hearty, giving them equal participation opportunity, rather than for just focus on especially excellent individual.The second is encouraging principle. Teaching is a bilateral process of teaching and learning. In the teaching process, teachers use informal language and diverse teaching skills to create a relaxed, harmonious and pleasant atmosphere of teaching. Moreover, teachers should insist on more praise, more encouragement, less blame and less criticism, so that the students are allowed to complete the learning tasks with a self-confidence, self-improvement, active and aggressive sprit. Over the course of business negotiation, for example, teachers can arrange students in a practice on product price negotiations, as much as possible to encourage each student use various types of negotiation skills to achieve a goal.The third is tolerance principle. Students in the course of learning business English cannot avoid making mistakes. Once a student makes a mistake, the teacher should not hurry to put their faults right, instead, they should let the students correct their own errors by encouraging them to think deeply, so it can help students build a kind of relaxed and happy learning atmosphere. Through this way, students become bolder and inspired, and able to better use the business language.The forth is divergent thinking, ask the students to imagine in different directions, ways and angles,to explore a variety of answers and consummate the problem eventually. This gives full play to man's imagination and expansion in basic knowledge. Next, teachers help students to recombine the acquired knowledge and ideas and then look for ways to update more ideas and knowledge.4.2 Requirements to teachers in business English teachingSince there a great amount of knowledge in a textbook and the relative courses for students are limited, teachers should refine and update the materials of textbooks, select only a few basic subjects related to the courses and focus on the practices in class. Firstly, the teacher has to make a suitable syllabus design to make every week’s topics clear. It will facilitate the case searching. Full preparation is really important to both teachers and students. Take the management communication cases study for example, if teacher wants to help students to better understand the case and better fulfill their task, he or she can explain the language features, pre -teach the language required to discuss the case study and introduce some background information about the company or institute. Therefore, teachers should first survey the issue deeply and figure out the details of the case before classes. While discussing the case with students, teachers can bring out the basic information and help to provoke students’ critical thinking. During the process of mutual discussion, both teachers and students learn a lot. What’s more, teachers can change or modify the forms of case study from time to time and develop a sound system of evaluation to encourage students to get involved. Teachers should frequently renew the materials on hand. For instance, when a teacher gives a lesson about communication ethics (Management Communication Chapter 3), he or she can make a comparison between the soul of Dell and that of other computer companies in China so as to grant students enlarge their minds and eyesight about the importance of ethics in business communication. After assisting learners to how to specify the business problem and critical issue of the case, he or she should encourage students to do the same job about another relevant case. In response to the students’ conclusion, teacher needs to preciously analyze his reasoning process and inspire his divergent thinking. All these work require teachers’ hard work and application of the foresaid rules.Second, teachers seeking to discussion method can arouse the initiative of students. It does good to develop the students' initiative spirit effectively. Because the discussion-based teaching is entitled to give each student a chance to speak out their opinions, and be ready to answer all sorts of questions. When students push their own different views at any time, a lively discussion and debate is effected. For example, when a teacher lessons the strategies to targeted market, he or she should allow learners to have a pre-discussion about the definition of a market and the connection between market and targeted market. Then after elaborating the strategies to targeted market, the master come up with a case and make his followers discuss how to realize the strategies to solve the problem. To some extent, it will benefit students’ divergent thinking to similar matters.Third, it would be beneficial for teachers to exercise the analysis capacity. In class, whenever a student answer a question and draw his own view, teacher should support his analytical reasoning andactively thinking. Although sometimes view is one-sided, and even there is an error, students will have an extensive knowledge about his point after full discussion and comprehensive analysis. After that, he or she will be able to draw a correct conclusion. It is the step-by-step process from simple to complex, from part to whole, from wrong to correct that help to analyze students’ major problems and find out the best solution. Use of analysis procedure can well reflect the principle of "according to learners’ aptitude".Through presentation, discussion and analysis, teachers can quickly understand each student's learning level and characteristics, so that they will take a different approach and provide targeted guidance to fulfill the teaching task. All the methods mentioned above are required in applying the heuristic principle in business English teaching. Teachers should think highly of such requirements while enlightening and inspiring learners in class.V. ConclusionNowadays, the teaching goal of business English course in universities is to develop a student to do well in listening, speaking, reading, and writing and, what’s more importantly, be able to apply business knowledge to the practical use. It follows that teachers should pay more attention to their followers for practical knowledge in class than to focus on books. The heuristic principle needs to be applied and can be an effective approach in business English teaching. To implement the heuristic principle, the characteristics of business English language cannot be neglected in this subject teaching. Teachers need to combine the business knowledge and English language features while using ```Also, teachers’ application of` heuristic principle in business English should base on the participation, encouraging, tolerance and divergent thinking rules. Refinement and renewal of materials is required when teachers consider applying the case study. Discussion and analysis ability is beneficial to teachers to realize the heuristic principle in Business Negotiation, Management Communication and other fields in business English course teaching. Although there are obstacles hindering the application of` heuristic principle these obstacles can be overcome by advance refinement and preparation of the teacher, suitability of the course syllabus，stimulate students' motivation，simulation of certain business activities in which the learners are involved as well as adequacy of the assessment measures and objectives pursued in the case. The application of heuristic principle in business English teaching in university also needs a further survey to the problem-solving process. I will continue the issue for better application in business English teaching.References1. Li Chengbiao, Zhang Qin, A Research on Application of Heuristic Teaching Methods in the Teaching of Management[C], proc in IEEE First International Workshop on Education Technology andComputer Science, May 20092. Liu Hui, New Theory of Heuristic Teaching Thought: the Contents and the Characteristics [J], Journal of Tianjin Vocational Institute, July 20093. 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