Designing and Launching a Year-Long Executive Education Programme at Lse Confucius Institute for Business London – Chinese Language and Culture for Business (Clcb)

Abstract

This paper focuses on designing and launching the first year-long executive education programme, namely Chinese Language and Culture for Business (CLCB) at LSE (London School of Economics) in London. The essential features of this program include the curriculum design, delivery mode and on-going student support. A blended learning (BL) approach is adopted in the Mandarin teaching, with course delivery and assessment taking place in face-to-face contact hours in class, combined with the use of online learning environment and mobile technology out of class. This combination is used to meet the needs of busy business professionals, to provide them with online and offline support, and thus to maximise their learning outcome. From the intercultural communication perspective, the programme provides intensive training and business master sessions addressing core values of Chinese culture and Chinese business communication styles. The invited guest speakers who hold senior positions in different businesses areas share their live experiences with the students on the unique Chinese business concepts and practice such as ‘hanxu’ and ‘heqishengcai’. Meanwhile, talks and events, from China Business Briefings to Open Business Forum, are organized to provide the students with global networking opportunities. Embedded in this program, a fortnight summer study trip to Tsinghua University enables students to fully immerse themselves in Chinese language and life. The paper addresses some practical considerations and challenges in designing the programme with the hope to shed light on and provide pedagogical implications for other programme leaders and course designers in the field of language teaching for specific purposes.