Studies on the Characteristic Training Mode of Foreign Business Talents of Private University Taking International Economy and Trade Major of Wuhan Yangtze Business University as an Example ZHANG Xiaojun, XIONG Xiaoliang School of Finance and Business English, Wuhan Yangtze Business University, P.R.China, 430065 914057104@qq.com Abstract: Private Universities create distinctive talent training mode in China s educational system reform and innovation. This paper takes International Economy and Trade major of Wuhan Yangtze Business University as the example, analyzes the advantages of educational system demonstrated by private universities, and the characteristics, measures and effectiveness exerted on the training mode of foreign business talents. Keywords: Private University, Talent Training, Characteristic Private university is an innovation in China s educational system reform. There is no fixed mode to follow due to the short history of private university in China. Wuhan Yangtze Business University (originally named Engineering and Commerce College of South-central University for Nationalities) is a private college with 10 years of history in education. The university firmly holds morality & intelligence & harmony & pioneer as the school motto, and obtains a good effect by training students with innovative spirit and strong practice ability. College of Finance and Business English exerts the advantages of educational system, makes innovation in International Economy and Trade major, and develops a route for characteristic training of foreign business talents. 1 Characteristics of Training Mode of Foreign Business Talents The characteristic training of foreign business talents refers to an innovative mode featured by innovative spirit, application knowledge, and practice ability. The mode realizes the systematic integration of training direction of foreign business talents, teaching objectives, training patterns, and employment orientation. 1.1 Training direction: market demand The university breaks through traditional teaching system, and emphasizes on English communication skill training based on the consolidation of the existing international trade basic curriculum. The university establishes teaching system adapted to the adjustment of industrial structure and market demand through integration into the new trends of the development of international trade, for example, introducing new courses related to the recent development of international trade such as service trade, cultural trade, etc. 1.2 Training objective: strengthen ability According to the personnel training requirements of undergraduate institutions "thick foundation, wide caliber, strong capacity, high quality", the university establishes three principles of "strengthened training" in order to improve the application capability of the students. First, strengthen foreign language training to enhance the language communication skills; second, strengthen the professional and technical training to enhance the application capability; third, strengthen comprehensive knowledge training to enhance the employment competitiveness. 506
1.3 Teaching method: close to industry The university actively organizes students to participate in national vocational qualification examinations and skill competitions, aimed at foreign trade positions with strong operability. Thexaminations include qualification examinations or competitions of custom declaration, international trade documentation specialist, inspection specialist, international freight forwarder, foreign trade salesman, export sales and securities. These qualification examinations and the national foreign trade skill competitions stimulate the study enthusiasm of the students. The students are expected to obtain at least 1 to 2 professional certificates before graduation and improve their acquaintance with the related industry. 1.4 Teaching environment: university-enterprise cooperation The university establishes school-enterprise cooperation system to increase the proportion of training in practice procedure, and to improve teaching effectiveness by classroom training, laboratory simulation training and post practice training, and so on. The University and the enterprises jointly build a core curriculum system of foreign business major, and establish special learning websites for the courses of Foreign Trade Document Practice, International Business Negotiation and Commercial Bank Business Management. The related teaching resources are linked with the websites, which creates good environment and conditions for students independent learning, and realizes the objective of solid foundation, strong adaptive capacity, simple style, courageous innovation for foreign business personnel training. 2 Main Measures of Characteristic Training Mode of Foreign Business Talents Establishment of characteristic training mode demands supporting theoretical research and practice. The university takes the following measures in developing theoretical research and teaching practice related to International Economy and Trade major. 2.1 Improve teaching methods focus on practice and innovative ability of the students In order to break through traditional curriculum structure and methods, the university takes a series of flexible approaches in special courses training, such as participatory pedagogies, media pedagogy", "case pedagogy", "practice pedagogy and research pedagogy. These approaches provide space for the students to speculate, explore, and communicate specialized knowledge. A group of quality courses, multimedia courseware and experimental courses on improvement of operating skills are welcomed by students. Compared to the students of corresponding major in other colleges, the students in Wuhan Yangtze Business University with International Economy and Trade major have a perfect mastery of both operation ability and language ability, and are generally acknowledged in the community. 2.2 Strengthen talents induction multi-channel to emphasize the construction of the teaching faculty (1) Establish the major cordinator system. The university does not require exclusive employment of the outstanding talents, but aims to exploit their useful expertise. The university engages outside experts with high academic achievements and teaching level who are familiar with the dynamic development of the discipline and the major, and understand the talent demand of society to this major; (2) Strengthen the training of young teachers. The university demands that the teachers of special courses should take turns to work in foreign enterprises to continuously improve their practical ability; (3) Hire front-line managers of the enterprise as part-time teachers to take certain teaching tasks of practical courses, which establishes a normal communication mechanism between inside and outside teachers. For example, the course of "Commodity Investment Analysis" given by the part-time teachers from Shanghai Zhongquan Company in 2012 was widely welcomed by the students. As of 2012, there are over 40 teachers of International Economy and Trade major take part in training and emulation in other universities, and 507
summer social practice, and share their practice achievements with the students. 2.3 Build competition system test teaching quality on all-round perspective and multi-level The university builds a series of multi-level and all-round competition system and creates a new practice platform of foreign business talents based on skill competition by organizing students to participate in intramural English speech contest, English drama competition, stock trading simulation competition, international business negotiation simulation game, and the National English Contest for College Students, the National Foreign Trade Skill Competition, the Hubei Province "Challenge Cup" Contest. These measures not only create an environment for students to improve competitiveness, but also test the quality of foreign business personnel training. For example, the International Business Negotiation Competition has been held for the 8 th session, with the scale of nearly a hundred participants annually. Participating students also actively involve in the national and provincial competitions. 22 of them won the national award; 2 people received the first prize in the National Foreign Trade Skill Competition; 2 people got the National Stock Trade Contest championship; five people won the third prize in Hubei Province "Challenge Cup" Contest; and 76 won rewards at the 17th session of Hubei Province translation Contest. The competition system ensures and improves the quality of foreign business personnel training. 3 The Effectiveness Analysis of the Characteristic Training Mode of the Foreign Business Talents The characteristic training of foreign business talents proves to be very effective. The students majored in International Economy and Trade has won nearly a hundred awards at national, provincial, or university level in recent years. In May 2012, the major of International Economy and Trade was approved by Wuhan Yangtze Business University as one of the first group of key majors and received internal and external praise. 3.1 The characteristic training mode boosts the complementation of English and the international trade teaching advantages By strengthening the practice training of reading, writing, listening and speaking for the students majored in International Economy and Trade, the University increases the practice time of reading, writing, listening and speaking of English, breaks through the bottleneck of oral and written English, and enhances students' English proficiency and application. In the Fifth National Vocational Institutions Foreign Trade Skill Competition held in 2012, the participating students won the group first prize and personal first and third prize in undergraduate group of the foreign trade document skill competition. The fact proves that the characteristic training of foreign business talents not only solves the mismatch phenomenon between the students profession and foreign language, but also promotes the teaching reform, and boosts the complementation of teaching advantages and resource. 3.2 The characteristic training mode intensifies teaching content and method reform The new methods refined and summarized in special courses teaching have achieved good results in the core curriculum. The courseware of Foreign Trade Document Practice course won recognition award in the Third Multimedia Courseware Game held by the school in 2012. The negotiation training process of International Business Negotiation course made by students of the 2008 International Economy and Trade major was uploaded to Tudou website and was widely praised by students, community, and enterprises. 3.3 Characteristic training mode effectively enhances practice capability and employment competitiveness of the students Experimental contest exercises the practice and innovative ability of the students in foreign business 508
major, and enhances the students' confidence. The employment rate is higher than 95% in recent years, and 10% of the students go to national key universities to continue their postgraduate study. The pass rate of various vocational qualification certificates is up to 80%, exceeding the national average pass rate. The competency rate of the graduates evaluated by the employers is 96.4%, with a 82.3% rate of excellent or good. Some 2010 graduates started their own business of Wuhan Yitiantang Network Technology Co., Ltd. Now the fixed assets of the company reach 2 million RMB, and pay 200000 RMB tax annually. The company was named as "best partner" and "outstanding Partner" by China Telecom Hubei Company and China Telecom Wuhan branch. The company's deeds are reported by many media including CCTV network, Sina, China Youth Daily, China Education Daily, Changjiang Times, Hubei Economic TV and so on. 3.4 Characteristic training mode effectively enhances the awareness and ability of teachers to serve the society The quality level of teachers directly determines the level of social service quality, and private universities are no exception. In view of the comparatively short history of the college, and the teacher structure mainly made up of young teachers, the characteristic training mode, which integrates teaching, learning, practicing as a whole, improves both teaching quality and the awareness and ability of the teachers to serve the Society. Characteristic training mode aims at applied talent training, which determines that the teachers in special courses must train personnel in accordance with the requirements of the foreign professional position groups. They must persist in the mission and functions of entering the society, serving the society, promoting and guiding social development, making the teachers training functions reasonably extending to the functions of serving the society. Moreover, characteristic training mode motivates the teachers to develop research and practice according to the characteristics of industry, business, and region, based on the requirement of foreign-related enterprises and local economic development, which effectively enhances the ability of the teachers to serve the society. In recent years, the research of the faculty has been continuously published in the journal at home and abroad related to foreign business, and social science research projects of provincial and national class have been frequently declared and completed. The teachers of special courses actively participate in various national and international annual academic conferences and won the first prize of outstanding paper awards many times as private college teachers. 4 Conclusion The characteristic mode of training foreign business talents exerts the advantages of flexible educational mechanisms of private colleges. It effectively demonstrates how to educate the talents that could meet the needs of both society and the development of the students. In the case of the current situation of higher education homogenization competition and the outdated teaching model, its talent training mode has more practical significance. References [1]. Li Aiqi, Liang Ling. The research conditions of practice teaching in Chinese universities in recent 20 years [J]. Journal of Ningbo University (Education Edition), 2010 (11): 19-22 (in Chinese). [2]. Xu Jingshu, Zhang Jianqiu. A study of practice teaching system of application-oriented undergraduate education [J]. Heilongjiang Education (Higher Education Research & Appraisal), 2008 (6): 61-62 (in Chinese). [3]. Zhang Xiaojun. A study on training application talents in international economy and trade major [J]. Logistics Engineering and Management, 2009 (8): 167-169 (in Chinese). [4]. Zhang Xiaojun. A study on training mode of applied innovative talents in international trade major 509
of independent college [J]. Market Modernization, 2009 (10): 76-77 (in Chinese). [5]. Yuan Yongyou. A discussion on widening service trade in international trade major of independent college [J]. Foreign Economic Relations & Trade, 2011 (12): 9-11 (in Chinese). [6]. Yuan Yongyou. Top-grafting the Innovation and positioning of constructing international trade major [J]. Yunnan Finance & Economics University Journal of Economics & Management, 2005 (1): 123-125 (in Chinese). 510