Managing Effective and Efficient Learning in the Context of Transnational Education: A Case Study of the English Teaching Reforms in a Sino-australian Joint Education Program

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In a Sino-Australian joint vocational education program held in Nanchang China, students are required to raise their level of English language skills within half a year so that they would be able to take the courses taught in English by Australian teachers in the following two and half year's study, so how to meet the urgent needs of students' improvement of English ability is a challenge for the teachers and administrators involved in the program. This paper presents four effective measures that are feasible to realize the goal of efficient teaching and learning of both language and specialist courses. First of all, to shift the focus of English teaching from language knowledge to communicative skills provides students with much more chances to do the cross culture communication practice in English in the classroom with both foreign and Chinese language teachers; secondly to shift the teaching method from traditional teacher centered model to student centered model enforces the function of a teacher as a guider instead of a commander in the classroom; thirdly to shift the goal from test oriented to the practical application oriented allows teachers and students to have more freedom to choose their favorite training skills and reading materials; finally to shift the contents of English textbooks from literature materials to some practical business or information technology introduction paves the way for students to study specialist courses in the near future. With these reforms in the structure of the teaching contents and teaching method, most of the students in this program laid a good foundation for the effective and efficient learning and consequently achieved expected learning outcomes.

Stream: Literacy, Language, Multiliteracies; Languages Education and Second Language Learning

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I have been a teacher of English for more than twenty years in an university in China and now I am also working as the deputy dean in the school of international education in charge of teaching affairs.At present I am working at my doctorial dissertation which is about the establishment of the quality assurance system in cross border higher education program.I am very much interested in the innovative teaching and learning methods and also the theories and pracitical strategies of evaluation and audit of teaching processes.