Abstract

With the development of globalization and increasing need of international communication, there have been more demands for talents with a good command of English language skills. Therefore college English education is of great significance as it is the middle link between high school English education and advanced English education. Recent years have witnessed China’s remarkable success in improving the quality of college English education after several attempts of education reform.
 Despite all the achievements, there are still problems that we can’t ignore. Firstly, many universities still give priority to exam-oriented English education, which has resulted in students’ lack of English application ability. Secondly, current course design is inadequate and lacks variety and teaching approaches need to be altered to be more balanced and flexible. Thirdly, more attention should be paid to improving students’ communicative English skills, especially that of non-English majors. Fourthly, nowadays much emphasis is put on English education for practical purpose while little regard is paid to English education for educational purpose.
One way to further enhance English education is to turn our eyes to other EFL( English as a foreign language) countries for reference and enlightenment. This paper chooses Japan for comparative study because it shares similarities in cultural background and English education background with China. By comparative study of college English education in China and Japan, we can broaden our horizon and draw lessons from Japan's English education policy. This paper covers a variety of subjects related to college English education in the two countries, including historical development, current situations, teaching objectives, teaching approaches, assessment of student ability, etc. Based on material collected from various sources, the author uses the method comparison and contrast to analyze the data. Finally the author will seek to provide suggestions on possible solutions to current problems with China’s college English education.

Keyword: China; Japan; college English education; comparative study

摘要

随着全球化的深入发展和对外经济文化交流的需要，能够熟练掌握英语已经成为现代人才的必备素质之一。我国大学英语教育普及发展多年，并经历数次改革，目前已经取得了丰硕的成果。
但同时我们必须看到大学英语仍存在一些不容忽视的问题，如：①许多学校未能摆脱应试型英语教学的束缚，忽视学生的综合英语应用能力；②课程设置较为单一，教学方式应更灵活多样；③对非英语专业学生的交际英语重视不够；④英语教学多以实用性为目的，忽视了教养英语的重要性。
本研究选取在本国文化背景、英语教育背景上与我国有相似点的日本作为研究对象，从发展历程、教学目标、课程设置、教学方式、教学评价等多方面采集资料并进行整合、分析，采用比较、对比的研究方法，对两国英语教育教学观进行分析研究。最后，笔者就如何我国大学英语教育存在的问题与今后的发展提出建议，以供参考。

关键词：中国；日本；大学英语教育；比较研究