Extracurricular Reading of Business English Majors in South China University of Technology: A Survey-Based Comparative Analysis

Abstract

The extracurricular reading situation of Chinese college students has always been unsatisfactory. However, extracurricular reading is one of the important ways to improve the quality of talent cultivation, especially conducive to the implementation of "whole-person" education in Chinese colleges and universities. Therefore, extracurricular reading situation of college students deserves attention. However, no relevant research has been carried out in the past two years, and up to now, there is not yet any research on the extracurricular reading status of business English majors. Through offline questionnaire survey and interview, one third (i.e.72) of students majoring in business English in South China University of Technology were surveyed, and 20 students were interviewed. At the same time, 836 undergraduates of all majors in South China University of Technology were surveyed and 120 were interviewed. By comparing the status of extracurricular reading of business English majors and all majors in South China University of Technology, it is found that business English majors and all majors in the university face the same problem and thus with similar characteristics in extracurricular reading, that is, they both bear heavy academic burdens, most of their extracurricular time is taken up by their professional study, and much of their remaining spare time is also used to surf internet for news or for entertainment. As a result, although they have extracurricular reading enthusiasm and ability, they have less extracurricular reading time, small amount of reading, and fragmented reading. Most students are dissatisfied with their extracurricular reading, but are unable to change. This reveals that for students in South China University of Technology, whether they are liberal arts students such as business English majors or students of other majors, same measures should be taken to improve extracurricular reading of all undergraduate students of the university. This research is the first study conducted by Chinese scholar on the extracurricular reading of business English majors, and it is also the first time to compare the extracurricular reading of business English majors and all majors in the university. The findings may have implications for other science and technology research universities in China in improving extracurricular reading of business English majors and all other majors.