Reforming English as a second language into English information literacy curriculum (case of China universities)

EDN:

The pandemic of COVID-19 has caused profound changes globally. The fragile foundations of cross-cultural communication, coordination, and connotation have been shaven to the heap of musty papers. Faced with the ever-increasingly complicated global situation, in May 2021, Professor Pan Maoyuan of Xiamen University (XMU), the 101-year-old leading expert in China’s higher education circle, initiatively proposed the suggestion for the diversification of higher education institutes (HEIs) of China. The diversified development of HEIs is achieved through the promotion of specific industry characteristics of individual HEI, prioritizing peoples’ individual needs of education [1]. Diversification, paralleled with massification and internationalization, are the three key issues from a macroscopical perspective when reviewing the system of higher education in China [2]. These three indicators illustrate both the goals and the trendy issues when conducting “Education 2030: Incheon Declaration and Framework for Action” for the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 4 (SDG 4).

This research project examines the course of General English (College English in HEIs of China), starting from the course nature, that is, and a course of foreign language or second language. The conventional General English course (GE), as a course of second language, is evaluated according to the framework of language curriculum design by I.S.P. Nation and J. Ma-calister1, in the aspects of environment, learners’ needs, course principles, goals, sequence and content, lesson format, and assessment procedures. Faced with the urge for reform General English to match the cultivation objective of a second-language course, English Information Literacy Curriculum (EILC) developed by the teaching reforming team of the authors offers a plan of resolution. The definition of EILC and its process of curriculum evolution are presented. The effectiveness and efficiency of EILC are verified by the learning outcomes and evaluations of learners.

The object of research is the practical significance of converting GE into EILC in HEIs of China. The subject of research is the cultivation objective of specialty embodied in a second-language course for learners in HEIs. The research is relevant to the studies in the connections between second language acquisition and the cultivation aim of professional talents, the collaboration of multi-disciplinary curricula, the evolution of language curriculum design with blended-learning methods, and the positive influence of English information literacy competence on the promotion of one’s scientific integrity.

There are two main hypotheses of this research. One is that GE as a second-language course is designed to achieve a talent-cultivation outcome of candidates’ global competence, the other being those traits of EILC acting successfully as a complementary measure. The hypotheses also present the innovative values of this research, they are:

– the emphasis on student-centered course objectives prioritized study needs and motivations of learners.

– the efficiency and effectiveness of GE is improved by an updated definition of the course nature.

– English courses in HEIs aims at cultivating professional talents entertaining global competence, with multi-disciplinary curricula in need as supportive basis.

This article aims to demonstrate the necessity of converting General English course for undergraduates in China into English Information Literacy Curriculum in accordance with the result of the assessment of curricular nature.

Literature Review

This research is inspired by Professor Yang Huizhong, the founder of CET 4/6 (College English Test Band 4/Band 6). Yang recommends the adoption of any educational administrative measure should be followed by scientific empirical research [3]. From small-scaled, medium scaled, to large-scaled experimental practice, research results are verified and promoted. Only with such method could scientific spirit benefit undergraduates of China.

General English is the term commonly used in HEIs of non-English countries and regions, which is named College English in HEIs of China. There are three important documents of GE teaching guidance greatly influencing the evolution of English courses in HEIs. In accordance to the development of the times and the progress of science and technology, The National Foreign Languages Teaching Advisory Board has been commissioned by the Ministry of Education to draw up “Teaching Requirements for College English Courses” (2007), “Guidelines on College English Teaching” (2015), and

“Guidelines on College English Teaching” (2020). In this section, literature reviews would be conducted along the time sequence of the evolution of course nature of GE, including the intra-connections between teaching objectives and needs of students, and the evaluative indicators of language curriculum design.

2007-2014 : From Examination-Orien ted to Application-Oriented Course. The Requirements was issued to promote the importance of capability of English listening and speaking, matching the needs of furtherance of reform and opening policies [4]. However, there was a dearth of concerns about the practical needs of students. Professor Shu Dingfang, one of the top EFL education experts in China, specially pointed out the absence of learners’ demand analysis in the curriculum designs of GE [5]. Professor Cai Jigang, the leading Applied Linguist of China also spotted the absence of learners’ needs and study motivations. It was a mistake of orientation that the teaching objective of GE is defined as grasping fundamental-levelled English [6]. Conventional College English course is designed to prepare students for CET 4/6, that is, an examination-oriented course. On the contrary, Academic English is a student-centered curricular, which facilitates students’ studies in their specialties². To sum up, the need for inter-disciplinary talents calls for the reorientation of GE curriculum with local characteristics of China.

2015-2019: EGP EAP, or ESP? In the time span of 2015 to 2019, the confusion between conceptions of EGP (English for General Purposes and GE, the improper position of EAP (English for Academic Purposes)/ESP (English for Specific Purposes) as follow-up courses for College English, have been witnessed in the cultivation plans in local HEIs with industrial features. The issue of “Guidelines on College English Teaching” (2015) elucidated the value of GE, teaching objectives, course system, assessment, teaching methods and means, and faculty development. Moreover, the 2015 Guidelines offered a perspective for HEIs of China from which teaching reforms could be designed and teaching quality of GE be improved [7]. The concept of General courses in HEIs has been mixed with the concept of EGP. The teaching contents of EGP overlap contents of English course in senior middle school [8].

The ignorance of students’ needs and motivation has been a major obstacle in universities [9; 10]. The universities of China have been recommended offering engaging campus environments and adopting innovative teaching methods to support students’ individual learning process and positive learning experience [11]. English teaching in HEIs of China is no longer in a typical foreign language environment but engaged in a complex environment presenting characteristics of second language acquisition [12].

On February 2017, Fudan Consensus on New Engineering Construction was released as a guideline of reforms in HEIs of China. Aiming at grasping the initiatives of China’s sustainable and sound development of technology and industrial power, interdisciplinary integration should be encouraged in the thorough exploration of the comprehensive advantages of in engineering-related disciplines3. Hereto, GE is supposed to act as the core course to connect knowledge of various disciplines.

2020 till now : A Core Course of General Education. In “Guidelines” (2015), GE has been defined as a compulsory general-shared course for the majority of non-English students in the stage of undergraduate education. While “Guidelines on College English Teaching” (2020) being issued, GE is defined as a CORE general-shared compulsory course for the majority of non-English students in the educational stage of undergraduate. The new orientation of a CORE course of undergraduate-stage education changes the connotation of GE courses [13].

To match the orientation of a core course, GE, in addition to education of humanities, is required to be organically combined with scientific education of specific disciplines. Besides the shift from a single-disciplinary to a multi-disciplinary course, ethical contents need to be woven into all courses to generate the scientific integrity and cultural confidence of students4. General education entertains both interdisciplinary and professional features, which demand not a general context but a context of ESP (English for Special Purposes) [14].

In the discussion of literature review, the two hypotheses of this research are preliminary testified. The course of GE, with the developmental sequence from 2007 till present, has gradually shown traits of course of second language rather than foreign language. As a second-language course, GE conveys consideration to learner’s holistic structure of knowledge (in courses of both general education and specialties), the fosterage of individual cognitive ability, matching their specific needs of study. The microscopical change of teaching objectives generates the innovation of course contents, of teaching methods, and of didactic research methods [15]. Yang Hua suggests adding contents of Chinese Culture into teaching contents, with students being encouraged to make short videos in English to introduce Chinese Culture to foreign audiences online [16]. Cai Jigang points out that the content of GE, strictly speaking, is no longer the knowledge points of English language, but the disciplinary knowledge of specialties delivered in English [17].

In short, when granted the position of the core course of general education in HEIs, GE should be designed and constructed as a curriculum cultivating learners’ the abilities of utilizing the communicative tool of English language to achieve their goals in academic or scientific communication. Therefore, in the teaching practice in a specific HEI of China, GE demands evaluation of the teaching environment, followed by corresponding reform strategies in the cultivation objectives, teaching sequence and contents, lesson format, and assessment procedures.

There are two specific difficulties in deducing the results. One of the difficulties is the survey on learners’ study needs and motivation has not achieved the sorting of identified elements, the other being the converting of quantitative data into qualitative results. In future research, Q methodology would be adopted to resolve the aforementioned difficulties with rotation of quantitative data, sorting the priority of individual influential elements of learners’ needs and motivation.

Materials and Methods

As a core course of talent cultivation, the focus of GE shifts from the formation of cultural quality to the cultivation of critical thinking and intercultural communication skills. The values of general education lie not only in the development of knowledge structures through the understanding and communication of multidisciplinary knowledge, but also in the cultivation of global competence.

The arguments from a macroscopic perspective are not applicable in all HEIs. This research employs the teaching reform practice in University of Science and Technology Liaoning (USTL) as the case of example to illustrate the core research question, that is, the necessity of the conversion from conventional GE course to EILC in local industrial HEIs in Northern Eastern China.

USTL, like many other local HEIs of a certain industry, has made substantial contribution to the development of metallurgy industry. Facing the challenges of massification, internationalization, and diversification, USTL’s talent cultivation goal is reoriented to cultivate highly qualified application-oriented composite engineering talents with solid basic knowledge, strong practical ability, and innovative spirit.

English is a lingua franca serving the globalised scientific, economic and academic communication. Taking SCI (Science Citation Index) as an example, this database covers more than 8,000 journals of 176 disciplines, with 95% publication in English. In other words, GE could not serve students’ practical needs of study unless the course successfully fosters learners applied English ability in coping with intense professional competition of proficiency and global competency. The objectives of EILC are foster engineering Students need to develop their capabilities of English Information Literacy, which include abilities listed as below:

– to use information tools in an English sociocultural environment.

– to identify, process, transmit and create information in English.

- to develop personal attitudes and individual methods of independent learning.

– to consolidate the spirit of scientific criticism, academic integrity consciousness and social responsibility.

The second research question is to explore an innovative format of GE to achieve the specific talent-cultivation outcome of candidates’ global competence. Traits of EILC are evaluated as a verification of the research hypotheses.

This research adopts the framework of language curriculum design (fig. 1) to devise and to implement the investigation schedule in the following aspects, respec-tively5 [3].

Surveys and Bibliometric Mappings Analysis are employed to deduce the goals of GE as a second language curriculum.

The survey is conducted in 2020, the teaching reforming team led by the authors investigate what knowledge interest students.

The questionnaire of survey is distributed to students’ end of SuperStar App. The total participant number is 314. The participants are GE students of engineering specialties in USTL, who still have credit vacancies for selective courses in language and culture. All 314 respondents were clearly informed about participation in the study. All respondents were informed about the purpose of the study and expressed willingness to cooperate. The Author has obtained informed consent for participation and processing of the collected responses from all respondents.

It is significant to bear on researchers’ mind that needs are not objective but subjective. Needs are deduced from analysis of various materials which reflecting the subjective understanding and feedback of the stakeholders [18]. In this case, researchers must ensure that the participants and their feedback are appropriate and relevant.

As shown in figure 2, there are 276 positive answers to the competence of English for social communication, ranking the number 1 prioritized study need of respondents. Sequentially, from number 2 to 6, the study needs are the competencies of cross-cultural communication with 221 positive answers, ESP 207, EAP 196, search for English literature 175, and preparation for international English exams 137.

5 Nation I.S.P., Macalister J. Language Curriculum Design: An Overview. In: Language Curriculum Design.

F i g. 1. A Model of Factors of Curriculum Design Process

Source: Compiled by the author based on data from a book Nation I.S.P., Macalister J. Language Curriculum Design. New York: Routledge; 2010. p. 3.

176                            ТЕОРИЯ И МЕТОДИКА ОБУЧЕНИЯ И ВОСПИТАНИЯ

F i g. 2. Survey on Selective Courses in Need (2020)

Source : Compiled by the author.

Except for preparation for international English exams with 137 positive answers, the rest competencies attract student over 50% of the total number of participants. The reason for such a result is that with an increasing number of international students of English-taught undergraduate programs in Civil Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Chemical Engineering, Software Engineering, Telecommunications, and Architecture, Chinese undergraduates were exposed to cross-cultural communicative occasions with international in laboratories, library, canteens, and events. The study needs for these specific English language competencies emerge automatically.

This research is designed and conducted by a group of teachers in practice. The influence of their proposals of physical facilitation which are supportive to the experimental practice is too limited. Hence, the research questions are targeting at manageable “software” contributing to the extra-environment directly affect the learning outcomes.

Through bibliometric mapping via VOSviewer (1.6.19 version), the connections between heatedly discussed key words in 112 articles under the topic of “EFL curriculum design” indexed in WOS core collections, from 2018 till now, are visualised (fig. 3).

F i g. 3. A Bibliometric Mapping of 112 “EFL Curriculum Design” Papers Indexed in WOS 2018–2023 (Core words: Curriculum Design)

Source : Figures 3, 4 were generated via VOSviewer by the author.

It is observed that the “context” and “teacher (EFL teachers, instructor)” are closely connected with “curriculum design”. “Need” is also examined in these articles. However, the need is not of learners (fig. 4).

“EFL learner” is not directly connected with “curriculum design” or “need”. Furthermore, the updated information technologies are not evaluated as a generator of innovative teaching methods. Only through SuperStar App could the research team achieve high-effectiveness quantitative surveys. The development of new information tools and learning resources must be taken into consideration when examine the environment.

Hence, the goal of teaching is deduced as follows: the GE course is a core curriculum of general education which prepared engineering talents for competence of English information literacy. In the short term, such competence promotes professional proficiency. In the long run, the formation of learners’ global competence would be achieved.

Results

Compared the endemic problems in developing the GE course in HEIs of China with some monologues on the topic of English Curriculum Design from European authors, it is observed that course designers and education practitioners had tried content-oriented, outcome-oriented, and application-oriented designing connotations. The results of the previous temptations have not totally failed in fulfilling the educational anticipations, however, being left behind the wheels of scientific and technical iteration. The designs of EILC are led by the novel talent-cultivation concept of local industry HEIs represented USTL. Hence, it is concept oriented.

EILC takes the responsibility of a core curriculum of general education, whose aim is to prepare engineering talents for global competition with competence of English information literacy. The teaching objectives are not targeted at the professional proficiency of graduates, but at the fosterage of talents’ global competence maybe revealing 5 years after graduation. EILC is designed to confront the future challenges.

F i g. 4. A Bibliometric Mapping of 112 “EFL Curriculum Design” Papers Indexed in WOS 2018–2023 (Core words: EFL Learner)

All EILC courses are delivered in English. Except for the course of Search for English Scientific Literature which combines lectures and online practice in computer rooms in library, other courses, including College English, are taught with a blended teaching method. The same online resource of one course could be shared with other courses (Table 1).

The joint construction of EILC by China-Russia team have realised five breakthroughs as below:

• 1.    Limitation on the promotion of online learning resources has been broken through. Two sides jointly practise “integrated multi-media” online teaching.

• 2.    Limitation on on-campus or domestic teaching research has been broken through. The cross-boundary cooperation in the internationalised development of foreign language teaching is conducted virtually.

• 3.    Subject isolation and lack of linkage have been broken through. EILC is systematically designed and the general cultivation objective of scientific integrity acts as a bond between individual courses.

• 4.    The gap between students’ needs and teacher’s anticipation of learning outcomes have been broken through. The connotation of information literacy has been expanded to facilitating the mastery and the improvement of student’s professional proficiency.

• 5.    The limitation on the service target of MOOCs or SPOCs has been broken through. Teachers are the managers of online courses, who accept “orders” from course user (the teacher of the class selected EILC MOOC or SPOC as their online teaching materials).

EILC is a collection of English selective courses revolving around the compulsory course of College English. The sequence of available EILC courses is shown in table 1.

There are three advantages of such designs.

Firstly, by strengthening the systematisation and coherence of the logical lines of contents, the teaching objectives of each course serve a unified goal of talent cultivation, that is, to foster the scientific integrity of individual engineering talents. The unified goal of cultivation effectively interconnected EILC courses, which avoid the negative learning experience of fragmentation of knowledge and abruptness of sensationalisation.

Secondly, students’ selection of extralanguage courses is rewarded with certain credits, which grants students sense of obtainment and sense of achievement. Online tasks are no longer extra-burdens in English study. The compatibility of MOOC and SPOC resources among EILC courses ensures a thorough exploration and an avoidance of knowledge repetitiveness in conventional blended teaching designs.

Thirdly, order-based management of online resources offers an innovative measure of collaborative teaching reforms. One of the biggest problems of Cross-School Credit Study programme is that cultivation plans vary from HEI to HEI. It is almost impossible to find an external MOOC/SPOC matching the learners’ and teachers’ needs. EILC managers promise to tailor the course content and complement appointed exercise into the bank of drills.

Finally, it must be stressed that participants in EILC are not required to take all the selective courses. Format of Presentation: A Blended Layouts.

Except for Search for Scientific Literature, all EILC courses are instructed in a format of online and offline blended learning method. Due to the principle of student-centered curricula, the role of teachers has been shifted from center of classroom-activity arrangement to managers of learning procedure. In addition, except for College English, all selective EILC courses hold only 16 teaching hours in Classroom with 1 credit being granted to learners who successfully accomplish the study. Hence, to ensure the sufficiency of learning contents, the ratio of online and offline learning hours is kept around 1:1. Blended learning requires a relatively high standard of students’ competence of autonomic learning, with which a student is capable of arrange one’s online studies and classroom participation in a rational way. Although such competence is generated from students’ subjective consciousness, curriculum designers can guide students time-allocation with delicate arrangement of TLPAE plans in every classroom hour.

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T a b l e 1. Contents and Sequence of EILC

Course Title / Course Nature	Types of Online Resource / Operative Platforms	Settings of Learning Groups	Objectives of Scientific Integrity
College English (1st Semester) / compulsory An Overview on China and Chinese Culture (OCCC) / selective	MOOC of OCCC / xueyinonline.com xuetanggx.com	Domestic undergraduates Domestic and international undergraduates	Tell authentic China’s stories and strengthen one’s cultural confidence. Actively engage in cultural exchanges, in mutual learning among civilizations, promoting common development and progress in countries along the Belt and the Road.
China’s Cross-Cultural Communication with The World / selective		Domestic and international undergraduates
College English (2nd Semester) / compulsory Readings of Scientific Literature (RSL) / selective Culture and Translation / selective	SPOC of RSL / chaoxing.com	Domestic undergraduates Domestic and international undergraduates Domestic undergraduates	With cases of representative achievements in engineering construction overseas, especially in the origin countries of international students on campus, domestic students’ cultural confidence and sense of national pride are strengthened. Solid sense of academic ethics is established, which resolutely put an end to misconducts in scientific research.
College English (3rd Semester) / compulsory Search for Scientific Literature / selective	SPOC of RSL, SPOC of VAOE / chaoxing.com	Domestic undergraduates Domestic and international undergraduates	Students’ essential competence of information literacy is forested, along with their retrieval ability and academic information processing ability. With the cases of scientists entertaining rigorous scientific spirits, students are guided to establish firm concepts of academic ethics and consciously put an end to academic frauds.
Video, Audio, Oral English (VAOE) / selective College English (4th Semester) / compulsory	SPOC of Academic Writings / chaoxing. com	Domestic undergraduates Domestic and international undergraduates	With the latest English audio-visual reading materials, students are guided to analyze the economic and cultural reports on foreign media from a critical perspective, so as to forge rendering analyses on the materials. Students’ cultural confidence is Strengthened, being able to tell authentic China’s stories in English. Engineering ethics are woven into educational contents in order to further develop students’ critical analysis in reading and writing scientific papers, encouraging automatic avoidance of scientific misconducts.

Academic Writings / selective

Source : Hereinafter all tables in this article are made by the author. Contents in tables 1, 2 are extracted from the teaching practice of the author’s.

TLPAE is a closed-loop mode of “Teaching objective – Learning objective – Participatory learning and practice – Assessment – Evaluation” under the OBE concept (Outcome based education). The core goal of learners’ acquisition of global and local competence could be achieved with ensured effectiveness and efficiency. TLPAE acts as a lesson planning tool embodying in- terconnection between learning outcomes and students’ allocation of time and energy. Another reason for TLPAE being employed as the tool of teaching plans is smart technologies and requires a format of course presentation to function as a measurement tool of teaching quality and learning efficiency. The TLPAE links in an individual teaching session are listed as below:

– T – teaching objectives work as a bridge-in section;

– L – learning objectives are realized via pre-test on the new knowledge for learners. With the real-time results of pre-test, learners are required to set individual expected study outcomes;

– P – participatory learning and practice of new knowledge points;

– A – assessment includes both pretest and post-test in every session. Section A assists learners to set their expected learning outcomes and to evaluate their learning achievements;

– E – evaluation covers self-evaluation on individual learning outcomes, peers’ evaluation, learners’ evaluation on teaching and the teacher, and teacher’s summarizing evaluation on learners’ performance.

The operation of TLPAE is realized with the linked procedure listed above. This paper takes Lesson 2 Chinese Bridges of Unit 6 Architecture in “An Overview on China and Chinese Culture” as the case to illustrate the lesson plan (Table 2).

In the link of T, an intriguing leadin material should be selected to inspire students’ proactive thinking. The teaching objectives are announced to students.

In link L, a pre-test on SuperStar offers the teacher an instant evaluation on the outcome of students’ preparation study online. Such a testing task could be operated with a 5-min quiz distributed to students’ smartphones. The teacher needs to adapt the paces or instructional discourses to the level of preparation study outcomes. The expected study outcomes are clarified to students in order to generate individual adjustment to their time and energy allocation in the following study hours.

In link P (Participatory learning), students are supposed to be engaged in participatory learning activities. Information tools and method of flipped classroom are employed to achieve objectives announced in link T and self-planned in link L. When designing participatory learning, class size and the students’ willingness of participation should be closed examined.

In link A, students’ real-time study achievements are evaluated by post-test on smart phone via SuperStar. The instant results are crucial for the teacher and the students to make the summary evaluation.

In link E, the teacher makes comments on students’ group performance and offers recommendations on strategies of improving individual study outcomes. Although link E is brief, it is crucial to the entire lesson. It is in the link E that students could reflect on their learning experience and make self-evaluation on their actual performance. Link E connects the previous and precedes the following. Monitoring and Assessing: A Formative Assessment.

Due to the limit on the numbers of classes involved in the experimental practice of EILC, the Assessment of College English is required to follow the unified standard and method molded by the author and the EILC teaching team. Nonetheless, the assessment of selective EILC courses, a formative assessment model is adopted to reward students with acknowledgement of their contribution and participation in the learning procedure. The level of knowledge mastery is assessed in real time for a single distributed task. Students gain their global competence in practice.

Adequate online autonomic learning hours contribute 20% to the final score of an individual course of English Information Literacy, results of online quizzes and tests – 20, performance in online and offline cross-cultural communicative tasks – 20, results of offline closure reports or exams – 30, antecedence rate of offline participatory learning – 5, frequency of autonomous studies – 3, and participation in online discussion – 2%.

Such a development-oriented assessment model values learners’ participation in the TLPAE links of blended learning, facilitating the formation of competence of autonomic learning.

In brief, the lingual-cultural influential factors are systematically and organically implanted into English Information Literacy Curriculum, which aims at the formation of learners’ global competence. Only in this way could the teaching objectives and learning objectives be narrowed. To effectively and efficiently realize the competence development goals of the courses, the blended teaching model of TLPAE has been designed and practiced during offline participatory learning and online autonomic learning hours.

T a b l e 2. A TLPAE Time-Allocation Plan of Chinese Bridges (100 mins)

Links	Time Allocations	Teaching Media	Teaching Contents
T	00.00–04.29	Classroom Lecturing	Evaluating students’ performance in the previous lesson. Present Zimbabwean student Chatira’s video of reciting a Chinese poem of missing one’s family on a festival night. The video is shot besides a bridge. Do you think the bridge hints emotional connections between people?
T	04.30–20.00	Classroom Lecturing	Teaching Objectives of this lesson: The architectural characteristics of the Chinese Bridges; – China’s achievements in modern infrastructural constructions; – China’s contribution to infrastructure construction in other developing countries, especially in African countries; – the cultural meaning of bridge and its significance in the context of “Belt and Road”.
L	20.01–26.59	SuperStar App	A quiz on the preparation reading tasks is distributed to students’ smart phones. Students could see answers and individual score instantly submitting their answers via SuperStar. The teacher evaluates students’ performance according to the scores shown on app. Students are required to set their expected study outcomes, that is, learning objectives.
P	27.00–39.59	Classroom Lecturing	Introduction of teaching contents and course arrangement
	40.00–59.59	Classroom Lecturing Flipped Classroom	Meaning of Qiao: In this part, the teacher explains the meaning and the evolution of Chinese character “ 桥 ” (bridge) in detail. This section leads international students to show the writing method corresponding to the national bridge, and effectively integrate students into the classroom interaction.
	60.00–69.59	Flipped Classroom	In this part, ancient bridges of China are introduced by students to the class. The selected bridges are Zhaozhou Bridge, Lugou Bridge, and Wuting Bridge.
	70.00–79.59	Classroom Lecturing	Modern bridges of China: The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is introduced.
	80.00–89.59	Ethical Connection	The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is used as an example of a physical bridge bonds people’s psychological connections.
A	90.00–95.59	SuperStar App	According to the content of this class, the students’ mastery degree of new knowledge is evaluated by a quiz delivered via SuperStar app. Students will actively participate in the feedback section.
E	96.00–100.00	Classroom Lecturing SuperStar App	The teacher summarises the performance of students. Three cross-cultural tasks are distributed via SuperStar. Students could choose one out of three to finish and submit back to SuperStar. 1.    Find Bridge in Anshan and tell the type and building material. 2.    Compare Chinese bridge and your hometown bridge. 3.    Talk about how BRI affect you.

Discussion and Conclusion

The lean-managed design of integrated multi-channeled teaching resources promotes students’ blended learning experience of “zero pressure”. From 2020 to present, students involved in EILC have achieved considerate study outcomes, including

8 awards of national English competitions, 10 of provincial English competitions, and 8 of university-levelled awards. Students published 10 articles on the topic of language and cultural comparisons in journals indexed by CNKI (China’s RSCI). In 2023 and 2024, supervised by the teachers,

28 EILC undergraduates of EILC from specialties of Computer Science, International Economics and Trades, Mechanical Engineering have attended 4 international conferences on language and culture and presented their cooperative articles.

The regular exposure to occasions of cross-cultural communication with international study pals in classrooms and in assigned communicative tasks and activities, domestic students of GE practically comprehend the meaning the BRI. Curriculum designs of EILC occupies the high position in cultivating engineering talents, assisting students’ possession of global competencies with internationalized scientific vision and consolidated scientific integrity.

In the recent feedback survey on satisfaction of EILC, 293 participants from 5 engineering-specialty classes of 2 local industrial HEIs shared their attitudes towards this reforming curriculum. For the course of An Overview on China and Chinese Culture, in a class of 110 undergraduates, 97 of them (88.2%) evaluated this course as “highly distinguished”; in a class of 97 undergraduates, 80 of them (82.5%) evaluated “highly distinguished”. For the course of Readings of Scientific Literature, among 86 students from 3 administrative classes, 62 of them (71.5%) evaluated this course as “highly distinguished”.

More than 95% of the students involved this innovative English curriculum as a quite difficult one, with a comment as “it is difficult, but I like it”.

This research starts from the highlights on the significant of methodological, as well as conceptual evolution of the education of GE in HEIs of China. Terms of aim, goal, objective, approach, method, methodology are no longer mixed in discussion. The clarification of the definition boundaries of the theoretical foundation for the research project, ensures the effectiveness of results. GE is evolved from a general course to a core course of general education, whose principles, goals, contents, format, and assessment method need to be changed to fit for the new disciplinary position in the cultivation plan for undergraduates of non-English majors but faced with intense global competition.

As a course of second language, the design of GE is required to fulfil the goals of industry talents with global competence, maintaining high-levelled competitiveness when confronted with English communicative occasions. Talents of Engineering specialties in this research should prepare themselves for cross-cultural social communications, international scientific and technological exchanges, and composition of scientific research articles. English, answering the practical demands of talents, acts as the communicative tool on the mentioned sociocultural, scientific communicative, or academic exchanging occasions. Competence of English information literacy needs to be fostered by the innovatively designed GE course.

GE has been assigned new position in the cultivation programs in HEIs of China. The cultivation-concept-orientated curriculum presents features of second language course, which demands socio-cultural linguistics being employed to clarify the principles of EILC constructional designs. The case study of EILC project offers an experimental example to EFL teachers and researchers. The experience of EILC suggests the significance of investigation on nature of general education courses and concerns with learners’ needs and motivation. The practical value of EILC framework has been verified with not the students’ scores in examinations of English, but their achievements in the application of lingual knowledge, cross-cultural communicative skills, and scientific research spirits to actual exchanges of academy or specialties.

Finally, there remain some unsolved questions.

The first difficulty of research lies in the avoidance of misunderstandings between international students and domestic students. Because the basic full-English courses involved in the IELC project were of English degree programs for international students, some Chinese participants mistook the best teachers of English and the teaching facilities are only available for foreign students. There were rumors of priorities of international students, causing small-ranged negative public opinion.

The second problem is the deepening of this research. In 2023, the courses of An Overview on China and Chinese Culture (OCCC) and Readings of Scientific Literature (RSL) are open for enrollment on the provincial platform of Mutual

Recognition of Credits, which mean, the issue of widening the research result is solved. However, to further the depth of research, disciplinary knowledge of psychology should be involved. The joint research team of China and Russia has proposed to USTL for more supports to improve the cooperative teaching research and recruit experts of pedagogical psychology from the Russian partner university.

The third problem relates to the second. The deeper the project goes, the bigger problem reveals in the dearth of trusts from teachers to learners. The teachers prioritized lessen the study burden of students. For example, when teaching the course of OCCC, the teacher always offered 3 tasks for students to choose. Such over-consideration for students’ willingness of taking challenges equals to treating students as not trustworthy. Teachers should trust students for their cognitive ability to identify their needs of study, trusting them for adequate courage and enthusiasm to take the most challenging tasks.

General English has been a heated topic of discussion among researchers and teachers in multi-disciplines of EFL pedagogy, applied linguistics, and psychology. The practice of EILC design has initiated a innovative strategy of constructing a collection of selective courses to match the cultivation goals of general education of English in HEIs.

In conclusion, the significance of EILC lies in three aspects.

The first value is the theoretical enlightenment on multi-disciplinary engagement. Taken as a curriculum of second language, socio-cultural linguistics is employed to illustrate the cross-disciplinary nature of GE in this era of global communication.

The second value is the empirical verification of concept-oriented language curriculum design. The development of EILC begins with the connotation extension of principles. Together with evaluation of the objectives and the environment, the goals of cultivation concept have been deduced, which orients the format, the content, the sequence and the assessment of the entire curriculum.

The third value is the practical attempt of on-campus internationalization. Although massification of higher education has been achieved in China years ago, the inequalities in reception of internationalized education are commonly witnessed because of a gap in household educational budget. The settings of international learning group and full-English selective courses have offered participants a relatively equal opportunity of experiencing internationalized education on campus.

Most of the work described in this article is not rewarded in financial forms. The enthusiasm to serve the students, serve the people, and serve the nation, supports the author and the joint research team to overcome the difficulties. The author and her team are confident in the practical significance of this microscopic reforming project in ELF, which would support the macroscopic policies and benefit students.

Practitioners of foreign language pedagogy are faced with opportunities and challenges of globalisation, with an emphasis on the localisation of the globalised developmental factors. It is anticipated that the curricular design framework of EILC and the teaching method of TLPAE would offer teachers of General English in universities a new perspective of course development.