Research on Bilingual Teaching of Graduates for Computer Specialty in Financial and Economical Colleges

Published Online October 2009 in MECS

With the further reform and opening, computer and communication technology are developing rapidly in China. Computer technology during the national economy construction plays an important role, and social demand on computer professionals and also increases dramatically. In recent years, computer education in colleges and universities has played increasingly prominent status, specialty flourishes in scope and transports a large number of computer professionals.

Manuscript received January 11, 2009; revised June 7, 2009; accepted July 17, 2009.

The authors are grateful to the support of the Foundations under Grant No.2007234, 2007306, GH08125, 2007127

With the development of society and the progress of times, bilingual teaching has become a popular trend internationally. China is following this trend to satisfy the society’s demand for human resource and improve the third level institutions’ competitiveness to meet the challenge of the new millennium. The reform of computer graduates in teaching must follow the trend of internationally building of bilingual teaching.

At present, the state of bilingual teaching courses for computer graduates in China is not satisfactory. The main weaknesses include inflexible teaching methods, outdated textbooks, lack of adequate teaching staff, ineffectiveness in coordination and so on[1-4]. Acknowledging these facts, in order to enhance the quality of bilingual lecturing, the necessity and feasibility of bilingual teaching for the courses of computer graduates are demonstrated in this paper. In addition to this, based on teaching experience accrued over the years, we suggest an effective strategy of instructing bilingual courses, a new mode of teaching for computer graduates students in financial and economical colleges and to train the ability of self learning for computer, economics and English language is also proposed in this paper.

• II.    The characteristics of computer graduates

EDUCATION AT HOME AND ABROAD

The United States is the first country in the world in which large-scale graduate education is done, which is adaptive with the United States 19th century industrial revolution and economic development and of the urgent need of a large number of professionals. After a long time of development and improvement, the graduate education in the United States has developed a unique style and mode. It transports numerous high-level personnel for the development of United States. At the same time, it also attracts the best students from other countries to the U.S. to continue studying. In the United States, the education of computer graduates has the following characteristics.

• •    For the curriculum: (1) Meet the needs of different levels of demand, (2) Core courses focus on professional foundation, (3) Elective courses embody the newest computer science and technology.

• •    For teaching methods: (1) There is no uniform teaching outline and textbooks, (2) Emphasis on the participation and moment accumulation, (3) Encourage participation, questions and research capabilities, (4) Focus on teamwork ability.

• •    For teaching and management: (1) No makeup, only the repair, (2) Plagiarism and cheating will be severely punished.

In China, some education problems of graduates have become more prominent since prodigious expansion in scope, which will be bound to hinder the smooth development of graduate education. These problems contain:

• •    Educational infrastructure is laggard, such as lack of literature, lack of research fund, no guarantee for experimental practice, poor science research atmosphere and so on.

• •    The malpractice of tutor, such as the ability of tutors need to be improved further, tutors lack the power to improve cultivate quality.

It is difficult for management to adapt to the needs of quality assurance [5-7].

• III.    The Meaning of Bilingual Teaching

In the Longman dictionary, ‘Bilingual Teaching’ is interpreted as ‘the use of a second or foreign language in school for the teaching of content subjects’ which implies the use of a second or foreign language to teach various subjects. At present, bilingual teaching generally adopts English in China, which requires the instructors to speak English frequently for explaining to students in class. So, ‘bilingual teaching’ is actually using two languages for lecturing, by studying the course, students not only learn of the subject, but also improve their second language at the same time. Presently, there are four major bilingual teaching modes such as soakage mode, immersion mode, transition mode and maintain mode. Moreover, there are Dutch interactive mode, German two way mode and Japanese two teacher mode beside the four major modes for lecturing internationally [8-10].

• IV.    The Feasibility and Importance of Bilingual Teaching

Computers is a general subject internationally, and English is the operating language of the computer. All third level institutions are providing experimental bilingual computer courses, which are beneficial for the students to grasp computer technology and improve English skills to enhance overall ability. Especially in Financial and Economical Colleges, in order to realize the goal of ‘high level application’, people with both computer expertise and economy management knowledge are demanded for society. So it is important to take the initiative of bilingual teaching [11-18]. Moreover, it is also one of the advantages of graduates in Financial and Economical Colleges. Therefore, how to improve the quality of ‘bilingual teaching’ in computer graduates courses financial and economical colleges has become a crucial topic of research.

• V.    The cultivation objectives for computer

GRADUATES IN FINANCIAL AND ECONOMICAL COLLEGES

The cultivation goal on graduates for computer specialty in financial and economical colleges is different from the comprehensive universities. Social development needs of multi-standard, multi-types of personnel, different colleges should have different characteristics and advantages. Only by making full use of own education characteristics and establish in the existing foundation and advantages, combine the cultivation direction of graduates and the preponderant subjects, follow the target of schools to adapt to the development of market economy, which can improve really the quality of graduates [19-31].

After years of feasibility studies, investigation and practice, the cultivation measures of computer graduates that suit the developmental direction on financial and economical colleges were established. The specific cultivation objectives: strengthen the foundation construction of application-oriented, based on the goal that the computer specialty has the characteristics with financial and economical colleges’ advantage, cultivate advanced computer science and technology professionals who are adapt to economic and social needs of the 21st century with thick foundation, broad knowledge, strong ability, high-quality, innovative and personalized characteristics. They not only have skilled fundamental computer science theory, methods, skills, but also have tax, finance, and accounting knowledge, so that achieving the development model with financial and economic characteristics, cultivate high-quality professionals for economy, education and research fields to further demonstrate the education characteristics.

• VI.    The main measures of computer graduates for Bilingual Teaching in financial and

ECONOMICAL COLLEGES

The education experience of graduates abroad gives us some advice on some aspects of the development of graduates’ education. We should be based on national conditions, seek more appropriate graduates’ education mode, management methods to promote graduates education level in China.

According to the actual situation of our school and financial and economical colleges, the following advice on computer graduates’ training is proposed in this paper.

A.    Improve the quality of tutor staff

Graduate tutors play a vital role in cultivating students, therefore, building high-quality and outstanding graduate instructors are the key to ensure the quality of graduate cultivating, we can take some measures:

• •    Introduce talents from multi-channels and promote diversification of instructors. Through cooperating with domestic and foreign well-known institutions, and recruiting a senior

professor, the well-known business experts and foreign teachers as tutors or graduates part-time tutors. Introducing excellent doctors and postdoctoral at home and abroad to enrich teaching and research. Strengthen the cultivation power for outstanding youth teachers. After several years of efforts, we have made gratifying achievements on teaching staff construction. The results are shown in Table 1 and Table 2.

• •    Establish effective incentive mechanism to improve teacher enthusiasm for jobs. Implement allowance system for tutors, the tutors who have made outstanding contributions in cultivating graduate students will be given much reward.

• •    Establish effective mechanism of competition, and engage the system of tutors. Recruit high-level, highly educated talents as teachers, truly on-demand duties, competition for posts, staff can be in or out, and the treatment can be high or low.

TABLE I.      T he statistics results of teachers of the title

OF A TECHNICAL POST STRUCTURE

Time	Total	Professor		Associate Professor
	Number	Number	Rate (%)	Number	Rate (%)
2005.8 2006.7	24	1	4	5	21
2006.8 2007.7	24	2	8	5	21
2007.8 2008.7	46	4	9	15	33
2008.8 2009.7	46	8	18	17	37

TABLE II.      T he statistics results of teachers of the title

OF A TECHNICAL POST STRUCTURE

	Total Number	Lecturer		Assistant
Time		Number	Rate (%)	Number	Rate (%)
2005.8 2006.7	24	7	29	7	29
2006.8 2007.7	24	7	29	7	29
2007.8 2008.7	46	17	37	17	37
2008.8 2009.7	46	18	39	18	39

TABLE III.     T he statistics results of teacher degree

Time	Number	Degree structure
		Doctor		Master
		Number	Rate (%)	Number	Rate (%)
2005.8 2006.7	24	1	4	14	58
2006.8 2007.7	24	1	4	14	58
2007.8 2008.7	46	2	4	41	89
2008.8 2009.7	46	12	26	32	70

B.    The Choice of Textbooks

The quality of textbooks is another important factor in determining the success of bilingual teaching. It is a shortcut to select original textbooks in English to lead the Chinese education to go internationally. Firstly, good original textbooks in English could improve the English of both the teacher and students effectively. Secondly, it can help to broaden the graduates’ scope of specialized knowledge. In addition, the English of the students can be improved along the way of subject study. Lastly, new thoughts of teaching in the textbooks could aid the teacher on the job. But in selecting the suitable textbooks, the actual ability of graduate students must be weighed carefully.

C.    Establish Suitable Examination Mechanism

Exam is one of the major motivations for graduates who study hard, so the exam is usually taken in English. Aiming for higher grades, the graduates naturally concentrate the quality of bilingual teaching. In this way, the students may master subject knowledge and English. In revision for the final exam, graduates read textbooks in English repeatedly, which will strengthen the students’ interest and ability of reading the journals written in English.

D.    Establish innovation selection system for graduates

Establish an innovation selection system, which needs to change from examine knowledge to examine the innovation ability as the main graduates selection mechanism. It begins from select, examine and matriculate and stress to select the creative students.

E.    Develop multi-class and multi-level cultivation system

The multi-class and multi-level cultivation systems for graduates enrich the graduate education. Many graduate in-service personnel who can study while working. Although graduate cultivation system in China has made some progress, but it is still in an imperfect stage, which there are still many restrictions on graduate candidates and age problems.

F.    Pay more attention to cultivate the ability of scientific research for graduates

Higher education, especially graduate education, its focus is to cultivate the ability of scientific research. It needs to cultivate students to more independent learning and thinking ability and guide graduate students to read the relevant professional literatures and books. Set up compulsory credit hour of practical, actively create a favorable environment for scientific research, train into the classroom and outside, and organize students to participate practice training. Tutors should apply for research projects to actively attract students to participate in and strengthen the guidance process. Tutors should encourage students to actively participate in various science activities, and encourage students to publish high-quality research papers in journals.

G.    The Settings of research interests for computer graduates in financial and economical colleges

Based on economy and management analysis, we should make full use of computer and mathematical methods in science and technology, research, analysis, forecasting and economic changes. Focus on the cross and integration among computer science and technology, mathematical methods and economy and management analysis, which compose the unique characteristic of financial and economical colleges. The research interests include: finance engineering, intelligence economy analysis, economy simulation based on intelligence computation methods, etc.

H.    Establish and improve the mechanism of graduates education quality evaluation and supervision

Reasonable quality assessment and supervision mechanisms are very important for improving the quality of graduates training. It is throughout the whole process of training graduates. Its essence is to judge for the teaching activities and monitor for the cultivation goal and process. In order to improve the quality of training, the cultivation modes are optimized and combined by regulation and feedback. The scope of quality assessment and quality supervision system includes teaching, the direction of tutor, and the assessment of dissertations etc.

It is central to monitor whether the bilingual taught course has reached its target and meet the students’ need. The method for evaluation of bilingual courses is a combination of reviews of teaching and the results of teaching. For example, the grades of students which should be commented from students, the parents of students, supervisors are all consulted. All these information collected will help the instructors to improve their quality of teaching. From experience in years of teaching, it is possible and important to establish a whole set of evaluation system for bilingual teaching in computer courses. It is advisable to build a certification system for ensuring the quality of teachers offering bilingual courses for long term benefits. If a national certification system is established, the problem of teaching with insufficient ability will be resolved, and it will enhance the formation of a training system for bilingual teachers.

After several years of practice, teaching ideas and methods proposed in this paper has been put into practice in Financial and Economical Colleges which has achieved good results. Fig.1 is the statistical results of students’ interest in learning the courses of ‘‘Intelligent Computing’ and ‘Program Analysis’ which has been instructed by me. In addition, the results of percentages of excellence and good for ‘Intelligent Computing’ are also shown in Table 4.

We can find clearly from the graphs and data that some satisfactory results are obtained by utilizing the measures and teaching methods introduced in this paper, so they are feasible and effective in the field of computer courses bilingual teaching.

Figure 1. The statistical results curve of students’ interest.

TABLE IV.     T he results of percentages of excellence for

‘I ntelligent C omputing ’

Time	2006	2007	2008	2009
Percentage	15.04	24.85	36.72	53.22

I.    The reform of teaching mode

Course system is a product of social times, and it must be developed with the development of society. The information society calls for higher requirements in knowledge structure for professionals. So the setting of graduate course category is especially important for graduates in financial and economical colleges. The arrangement of courses must follow the principle: the combination of software and hardware, the combination of foundation and profession, the principle of compulsory and optional, the principle of dynamic update and the principle of social needs. The setting of the Computer graduate core curriculum should focus on the foundation of specialty and research ability, including writing skills and English language ability. The setting of the curriculum should be both the depth and breadth. It is the combination of "generalist" education and "professionals" education, which greatly expands the scope of knowledge for students, improve students’ knowledge structure and levels, and enhance the abilities of students to adapt to the future capacity and employment prospects.

The characteristics of the courses in financial and economical colleges for graduates reflect on the economics curriculum. According to demand of professional training programs, it will train students who have the financial and economic advantages and computer skills, so that students can make a more systematic study of economics courses, and can apply computer theory and related knowledge analysis, forecasting and solving economic problems. The main courses includes: program analysis, intelligent computing, artificial intelligence, accounting practices, financial accounting practice, tax practice, enterprise resource planning (ERP), economic decision analysis, econometrics, economic data analysis methods etc.

In teaching methods, from the student's interest and understanding characteristics, change the method of “All In Class” teaching, widely use the discussion-style, heuristic, the problem type and task-driven style. Mobilize and inspire students’ study interest, innovate thinking and enthusiasm, and improve the quality of postgraduate training.

J.    Strengthen the effective integration of industry, study, research

Graduate education is the highest level of higher education, so graduate education is the highest level of higher education. The graduate education courses need not only ensure effective learning, but also according to social needs, through various channels to establish training bases, and to strive to do research work and to improve their level of scientific research. Strive to build a good work relationship and environment between schools and enterprises to achieve the integration of industry, study and research.

• VII. Conclusion

In order to improve the quality of graduates and achieve the cultivation objective of graduates in financial and economical colleges, implementing bilingual teaching is very important for computer graduates. On one hand, it facilitates the students to understand and have a taste of the frontier of research in computer science field; on the other hand, it can cultivate graduates with the abilities of English, economics, and management. Owing to the importance of bilingual teaching, there are some feasible and effective approaches such as improving the quality of tutor staff, establish suitable examination mechanisms, select the right textbooks, establish innovation selection system for graduates, develop multiclass and multi-level cultivation system, pay more attention to cultivate the ability of scientific research for graduates, establish and improve the mechanism of graduates education quality evaluation and supervision and reform teaching mode and so on; these are all introduced and discussed in detail in this paper. To improve the graduates’ ability and quality, realize the aim of making education ‘internationalization’, a whole set of perfect bilingual teaching still needs our further study, consideration, summarization and research. For the education and development of computer graduates at home and abroad, the authors conducted an in-depth analysis, and for the current development status of computer graduates in financial and economical colleges, the authors conducted an in-depth research. Moreover, a feasible and effective measure is proposed in this paper that can improve the quality of graduates. The satisfactory results are obtained after years’ of practice. We achieved the objective of high-level computer professionals. Moreover the students have more advantages with financial and economic technology.

Acknowledgment

The authors are grateful to the support of the Social Science Foundation of Jilin Province under Grant No.2007234, the Social Science Programming Foundation of Jilin Province under Grant No. 2007306, the Science Technology Research Foundation of Jilin Province under Grant No. 2007222, 2007247 and 2007251, the Doctoral Funds of Changchun Taxation College under Grant No. 2007001, and the Natural Science Funds of Changchun University of Technology under Grant No.2007127. the Education Science Programming Funds of Jilin Province under Grant No.GH08125 and the Education Research and Reform Funds for Quality Engineering of Changchun University of Technology.