A Brief Introduction to the Components of Core Competencies among English Major Students in Higher Education

It is a significant challenge in the educational field to carry out the principles in The Development of Core Competencies for Chinese Students in specific educational and social activities so as to further realize its functions and values of educating people. On the basis of that, this article creatively proposed the core competencies among English major students in higher education, which consist of three elements: well-versed humanities accomplishment, interdisciplinary professional abilities and open professional scopes. The core competencies of students' development mainly demonstrates the necessary qualities and critical abilities that students should acquire in order to adjust to lifelong development and social development. For students in the 21st Century, what core competencies should they possess in order to enable them to successfully integrate into the future society, and thus promote the healthy development of the whole society? Having undertaken students management in universities for many years, the author of this paper discovers that on the one hand, the homogenous competition tends to appear in the education of English majors. There are over one thousand universities that educate English majors in our country currently. The number of undergraduates majoring in foreign languages and literatures has been more than 800,000 by 2015. On the other hand, the society is increasingly demanding interdisciplinary talents who have the comprehensive knowledge of both English and certain professions. It is a challenge for traditional English majors. What are core competencies for English major students? How do they develop their core competencies for achievement in academic performance and future career so they can satisfy the needs of individual lifelong development and the needs of the society? The Development of Core Competencies for Chinese Students (abbreviated as The Competencies hereafter) was newly published in September, 2016. How to transform it from theoretical framework or educational objective system into the implementation and practice in specific educational and social activities? People are heatedly focusing on the blending of core competencies and curriculum standards and penetrating into every part in educational reform, such as curriculum implementation, teachers' training, and exam evaluation and so on. Combining years of managing practice of students in the universities, the author attempts the preliminary exploration in components of core competencies among English major students.