Research on the International Trade Practice Teaching System Based

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Research on the International Trade Practice Teaching System Based
on the Occupation Ability Promotion of Independent Colleges
TIAN Junfang, HUANG Hui
Wuhan Textile University, P.R.China, 430072
[email protected]
Abstract: Practice teaching system refers to the specific teaching content which presented by the
reasonable collocation of each practical teaching links, with the concrete target of teaching assignments.
To improve and cultivate the occupation ability of international trade major students, the independent
college should arrange the practice teaching content for the purpose of occupation ability cultivation, to
practice the basic occupation skills, specialist skills, comprehensive vocational ability according to the
teaching aims and concrete assignments in each teaching links.
Keywords: Independent college, Occupation ability, International trade, Practice teaching system
1 Introduction
Nowadays, the study on the international trade practice teaching mainly concentrates in five areas: the
need of practical teaching, the existing problems, teaching system, teaching methods and the related
recommendations as well. Such macro research restricted the development and innovation of
international trade practice teaching system which due to the lack of the practical basis as well as the
guidance in scientific theory.
2 Needs Analysis of International Trade Occupation Ability
Occupation ability is a comprehensive concept. Firstly, it includes the attitude, knowledge, skills, self
development and learning ability and the ability to work effectively in a specific position; secondly, it is
a complex structure of quality, it is the occupation competence network graph formed by a variety of
knowledge, skills, comprehension ability, all the elements interact and indivisible, play a role as a
structural one; in addition, it not only includes the ability of occupation required, but also includes the
ability relevant to creation, innovation and the ability of sustainable development.
The occupation ability of international trade position required can be described with KSAO mode. The
K means knowledge, it contains the following knowledge: politics, economic management, legal basis,
theories of international trade; the S means skill, it contains the following skills: market research, market
development, marketing, business negotiation, contract fulfillment, economic applied writing; the A
means ability, it contains the ability of learning, understanding, adaptation, innovation and expression;
the O means other characteristics, it consists of interest, personality, attitude, behavior habit etc. To the
international trade specialty graduates, in the short term, employment competitiveness mainly comes
from the K and S, but in the long run, the growth driving force is the A and O.
With the continuous development of the economy, the society and enterprise haven put forward higher
requirement to international trade specialty students. To international trade specialty of independent
colleges, it is more important to focus on training application and operation foreign trade personnel
which having the ability to solve practical problems in foreign trade field. They need to have a series of
core competences: business oral English ability, professional knowledge and skills, communication
skills, IT skills and the ability of continue learning.
At present, the independent colleges are aware of the importance and urgency to international trade
specialty students of developing these core competences, but the practice effect is not satisfactory, many
colleges still remain in the level of consciousness. To effectively improve these abilities, in independent
colleges, international trade specialty practice teaching must have a practical, complete system.
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3 Principles in International Trade Practice Teaching System Construction
3.1 Construct the practice curriculum system based on occupation ability
The construction of international practice teaching system of independent college should effective
integrate teaching resources based on occupation abilities of its target position required,
comprehensively promote practical operation ability of students. It should integrate teaching, learning
and practice, main with post occupation abilities, to realize the combination of theory and practice,
tutorial and process, evaluation and standard, actuate students to complete the professional learning by
typical work task.
3.2 Cooperate with enterprises to carry out practice activities
We can adopt two ways: the one is the front-line salesman of foreign trade enterprises bring the real
project or contract into college; the other one is directly send students to the forefront of foreign trade
enterprises to let students understand the demand of foreign trade enterprise for talents and enterprise
culture, gradually cultivate their occupation moral and basic business skills.
3.3 Organize practice teaching by task-driven method
Based on the combination of work task and project team, we can divide students into some project teams,
make them to establish long-term trade partnership, incentive them to participate in practice and
exploration activities of international trade professional courses in competition mode. In the running
process of the teams, organization management ability, cooperation ability, language expression ability,
knowledge acquisition ability, innovation consciousness and innovation ability of the students can be
overall improved. In the work task, oriented with foreign trade business processes, strengthen the
proportion of comprehensiveness, design, exploration, innovation; gradually improve the basic
operation ability and professional skills of the students.
3.4 Cultivate student’s research capacity through academic competition
Organize students to participate in various national, provincial foreign trade operational competence
competitions, such as the National College Merchandiser (Textile) Occupation Ability Competition,
POCIB National College Foreign Trade Operational Competence Competition, National Vocational
Colleges Foreign Trade Competence Competition, National Undergraduate Electronic Commerce
“Innovation, Creativity, Entrepreneurship” Competition, etc. Through the competition and
entrepreneurial activity, we can not only exercise their perseverance, broaden their horizons, but also
can stimulate their learning and exploring interest, constantly improve their ability of innovation and
entrepreneurial.
4 International Trade Practice Teaching System of Independent College
We should combine with the actual situation of the applied talents cultivation of independent colleges,
start from the management system, teaching content, teaching mode, teaching methods, quality control
and assurance system of practice teaching, integrate and optimize the relevant content through the
research on various elements, guide with the cultivation of overall quality, operational competence and
innovation ability of students, to construct a rational and scientific, effective and practical practice
teaching content system, that is “task-driven, capability promotion, progressive levels” international
trade practice teaching content system. (See Table 1)
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Table 1 “Task-driven, capability promotion, progressive levels” international trade practice teaching system
4.1 The practice teaching modules in system
4.1.1 Professional competence modules
This module mainly trains students to enhance their vocational skills. It includes business negotiation,
international trade comprehensive training, and software simulation training and graduation practice.
“Business Negotiation” module trains students’ ability to negotiate and contracting with foreigner;
“International Trade Comprehensive Training” module cultivates students’ operational ability and the
ability to analyze and solve problems; “Software Simulation Training” module trains students to
improve their ability of identify, analyze and solve problems; “Graduation Practice” module mainly
trains students to establish their correct outlook on world, life and values, taking understanding and
serving the community as the main content, a variety of activities as the carrier to guide students out of
school, through professional internships, social surveys, voluntary service, charity events and other
practical activities to deepen their understanding of the profession, to confirm a suitable job, prepare for
the transition to the workplace, thereby enhance their employment competitive advantage.
4.1.2 Professional skills practice modules
This module mainly trains the needed basic skills of international trade professional talents. It includes
Professional Awareness Education, Career Planning, Market Research and Curriculum Design.
Professional Awareness Education is designed to let students to develop perceptual knowledge about
foreign trade import and export business, and lay the foundation for future professional courses learning;
Market Research is after the learning of Practice in International Trade, Marketing, Management and
other theoretical knowledge to make students to fully understand the market and the position and role of
market research in business management, to improve their abilities of analyzing and dealing with
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problems through in-depth practical investigation, analysis, research; Curriculum Design includes
Import and Export Plan Design, Import and Export Contract Performance Simulation Training, Business
English Training, mainly trains the needed basic skills of international trade professional talents. For
example, the “Import and Export plan Design” module focuses on training students’ costing skills.
Based on the commodity research, develop import and export plan and choose the best business
processes; the “Contract Performance” module mainly train students’ relevant skills of contract
performance. Students simulate formalities such as L/C auditing, shipping, inspection declaration,
customs declaration, foreign exchange settlement and others, prepare the needed documents, and handle
the specific procedures in simulated relevant business units.
4.1.3 Innovation ability cultivation modules
This module includes organizing students to participate in a variety of scientific and technological
activities, teachers’ research projects and foreign trade operational skills competitions. Organize
Students to establish research groups or social practice service teams to exercise their solidarity and
innovation ability; organize and guide students to actively participate in “National Students' Innovative
Experimental Plan” and “National Undergraduate Innovation and Entrepreneurship Training Program”
to take charge of market research, the project determination, drafting the declaration and completing the
project content in teams; organize students to participate in “National College Foreign Trade
Operational Competence Competition”, “National College Merchandiser Occupation Ability
Competition”, “Business Negotiation Contest”, “Oral English Competition” and so on, take these
competitions as the platform to promote the combination of practice teaching of international trade
specialty with industry needs, cultivation students’ innovation awareness, ability, spirit and personality,
enhance students' professional competence and professionalism.
4.2 The integration of practice teaching system
4.2.1 Professional practical skills integrated with job qualifications certification
First, investigate the needs of employing business, screen and identify major professional vocational
qualification certificate associated with international trade specialty (Export Sales Certificate,
International Commercial Documents Certificate, Customs Declaration Certificate, Inspection
Declaration Certificate, Foreign Trade Merchandiser Certificate, Freight Forwarder Certificate, etc.),
detailed analyze the content of the examination, clear the ability of post required, to make the goal of
practice teaching clearer and content and methods of practice teaching more targeted; Secondly, in
practice teaching process, propose to get one or two post qualification certificates as the inspection
standards and ultimate goal of international trade specialty practical skills training. So, in the process of
practical skills training, under the guidance of teachers, students obtain relevant professional
qualification certificate through their own efforts, in the meantime, they deepened grasp and understand
the workflow of related foreign trade post, and increase their employ competitiveness.
4.2.2 Individual skills training integrated with comprehensive skills training
The way is create simulated foreign trade companies, assign students to act different roles according to
post duties, guide students to operate the whole foreign trade business process. The whole practice
teaching system is divided into a plurality of individual training program according to foreign trade
positions; they are International Commercial Documents Training, Foreign Trade Merchandiser
Training, Inspection Declarer Training, Freight Forwarder Training, Customs Declarer Training, and
Export Sales Training. After completing these individual skills training, start international trade
comprehensive skills training which covering the whole foreign trade business process.
4.2.3 Graduation internship training integrated with special training in practice base
Establish practical training bases by introduce corporate resources; establish outside training bases by
joint with enterprises around college; establish outside training base in students’ provinces by the
combination of internships and employment; deepen the cooperation with enterprises, select advantage
specialties to achieve both development. Internship is a fully adaptive pre-employment training of
students. In order to reflect the actual requirements of occupational environment and jobs, we can
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widely establish campus training base, outside training and practice bases, so that students can really
participate in workflows and jobs, according to the inherent post division, exercise their work ability
teamwork, learning ability, quality consciousness and discipline in the process to complete the work,
and achieve the real training effect, thus truly realize the comprehensive training mode of “graduation
design”, “graduation practice” and “internships” integration.
5 Conclusion
Though detailed analysis of professional competence in international trade positions and the knowledge,
skills, experience, attitude and other elements that make up the competence, according to the
professional positions requirement, we organize and design practice teaching content. According to the
requirements of modern enterprises on international trade professional positions, establish practice
teaching modules corresponding to foreign trade positions, implement the knowledge and abilities of
each position should be aware of in the training courses, eventually form a professional practice
teaching system of distinctive characteristics, cultivate applied international trade talents of market
needed.
Fund:
This paper is under 2013 provincial teaching research project of Education Department of Hubei
Province (2013464) “Research and practice of international trade specialty practice teaching system
based on occupation ability promotion”.
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