with others in a way that will help prepare them for their future professional life, and to develop theoretical and practical knowledge quickly and amenably.
Usually, classes taught by western lecturers are packed, thereby limiting individual opportunities for engagement. Often a large amount of professional knowledge is crammed into one to two days of intensive instruction. The language barrier, large volume of material conveyed and lack of time to absorb information, often causes students to have difficulties in understanding. A remarkable 48 percent of students said that they only understood “ a small proportion” of lectures taught by foreign lecturers. This is consistent with Yang’s (2012, p.23) observation that Chinese students reported difficulty in understanding Western theories of deficiencies in their English language proficiency.
Language (s) of instruction
All universities currently offering the CIAP use the Chinese and English languages in their classes. Instruction in English (with elaborations in Chinese where necessary) is believed likely to help students develop their thinking in English and improve their ability to listen, speak and analyze accounting issues and problems in English. However, the proportion of English teaching in the CIAP is relatively small because most participating universities are in the early stages of offering bilingual instruction. For their part, 79 percent of student respondents preferred lecturers to encourage thinking in English during classes. Simultaneously, 71 percent of student respondents wanted sufficient self-study time for English outside of class time, instead of having to complete English courses to improve the standard of their English.
Chinese universities offering the CIAP prescribe English language versions of teaching materials, assignments, exercises and PowerPoint slides that are usually provided by international textbook publishers. Because some students have considerable difficulties in comprehending lecture subject matter unless it is taught in Chinese, they need to spend a considerable amount of time after classes to read through English teaching materials. They need to revise the lecture content, making sure that they can understand the professional vocabularies and technical jargon used. An increase in the ratio of English teaching will help to develop better English comprehension skills in students. This will enable students to adapt better to the ever-changing accounting demands of the international environment.
Materials
The nine CGA courses in the CIAP commonly use English language teaching textbooks and associated instructional aides provided by overseas publishers. From the second year onwards, CIAP students are required to take two CGA courses per semester, using original English teaching materials. Usually, there are two assigned texts for each course- a textbook and a complementing study guide.
In Financial Accounting 3 the prescribed text is Kieso et al. (2010). In financial Accounting 4 the prescribed text is Hoyle et al. (2010). Both of these texts are accompanied by a comprehensive study guide and PowerPoint slides for the benefit of instructors and students.
Such English language teaching materials help cultivate an understanding of international accounting terminology and GAAP. They are important because the major professional guidance (accounting standards and auditing standards) influencing the practice and development of accounting internationally are all published in English. As Deloitte (2011) notes, the official language of IASB discussion documents, exposure drafts, IFRS and interpretations, is English. IFRS, issued by the IASB, have been adopted in approximately 120 nations and reporting jurisdictions (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), 2011). Thus, the use of original English language teaching English language teaching materials seems likely to help students keep up-to-date with international trends in accounting.
As well, the use of English language teaching materials will help lecturers develop a more sophisticated understanding of in-company systems of accounting and of the causes and consequences of major corporate failures in international contexts. The English language textbooks and associated materials provided by western publishers contain many up-to-date examples and suggested readings, including copies of recent articles in newspapers and business periodicals. These materials help students to broaden their horizons internationally and adopt internationally accepted methods of accounting. The breadth, variety and quality of these teaching materials helps cultivate learning and develop enquiring minds, instead of merely implanting knowledge.
Overseas textbooks are often lengthy and are accompanied by a large volume of case study and ancillary reading material. For instance, Intermediate Accounting by Kieso, Weygandt and Warfield has an exercises section at the end of each chapter and a section called “using your judgment.” The latter section usually contains a financial reporting problem, a comparative case for analysis and a financial statement analysis problem that requires students to use the knowledge they have learned in the chapter. There is also a “bridge to the profession” section that typically requires students to access the IASB web site to address an accounting issue. In a “professional simulation” section students are asked to solve a real-world problem as a professional accountant.
In contrast, local Chinese teaching materials have more of a technical focus and are not expansive. They offer few case studies. Perhaps this reflects the reluctance of Chinese university accounting lecturers to use case studies because of the difficulties they perceive in implementing them in large classes. Chinese. university accounting lecturers should not perceive case studies in this way, given the evidence of Doran et al. (2011, p. 245) that “case studies can be successfully delivered in large class settings” in accounting. However, we must be mindful of the reservation raised by Healy and McCutcheon (2010, p. 555) of the important need to recognize “the manner in which accounting educators actually engage with the case method.”
Chinese students need to spend a large amount of time before and after classes reading English language teaching materials, memorizing accounting terminology and finishing lesson assignments and exercises in English. Long lists of prescribed reading and the language barrier can cause them considerable stress. In contrast, Chinese-sourced and Chinese language teaching materials mostly focus on delivering key points of knowledge but are weaker in engaging with practice. They devote less space to contextualizing accounting practice and offer few, if any, case studies.
The contextualization of western case studies imposes considerable cultural challenges for Chinese students few of whom, from our experience, have travelled outside of China. This may be a reason why 48 percent of respondents said that they ignored (the predominantly western) case examples in their textbooks. Although there are some good published case studies that focus specifically on the Chinese context, these tend not to focus on accounting, but on cognate disciplines (such as management, in which there is a Journal of Management Case studies, published in China in Chinese on a bi-monthly basis).
To redress this situation, Chinese academics should be given performance review reward incentives to write and publish suitable case studies and generally to engage in innovative teaching strategies. A case writing competition similar to that conducted by the Institute of Management Accountants (2011) would facilitate this. Chinese accounting journals be encouraged to publish accounting case studies and other innovative (and tested) teaching resources in a fashion similar to that of international accounting journals (such as Issues in Accounting Education published by the American Accounting Association, accessible at http://aaahq.org/pubs/issues.htm;Accounting Education: An International Journal the official education journal of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research, accessible at www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09639284.asp; and Accounting Perspectives, an official journal of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association, accessible at htt://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1911-3838 ).
Curriculum and timetable
The CIAP timetable is congested. At the Capital University of Economics and Business, students wanting to obtain an accounting degree majoring in international accounting need to take at least 2,464 lecture hours in non-elective subjects over their three and half years off coursework (the final half semester comprises a thesis and an internship). On average, students need to take 352 lecture hours each semester. Given that Capital University of Economics and Business (like most Chinese universities) has a 16-week semester, this means that students are required to take an average of 4.4 lecture hours in non-elective subjects day.
The heavy lecture load faced by Chinese accounting students mitigates the effectiveness of English language teaching resources sourced from overseas. The congested timetable means that many students simply do not have time to read and comprehend the large volume of examples and reading materials contained in overseas textbooks and study guides. Three quarters of students responded that the time available for after class self-study time was insufficient. Thus, ultimately, the full benefits of overseas teaching materials are not realized. Students have little extra time to read any other accounting-related English publications apart from the reading materials assigned. This is a characteristic of the CIAP and it need to be considered when participating universities are drawing up timetables. Students should
with others in a way that will help prepare them for their future professional life, and to develop theoretical and practical knowledge quickly and amenably.
Usually, classes taught by western lecturers are packed, thereby limiting individual opportunities for engagement. Often a large amount of professional knowledge is crammed into one to two days of intensive instruction. The language barrier, large volume of material conveyed and lack of time to absorb information, often causes students to have difficulties in understanding. A remarkable 48 percent of students said that they only understood “ a small proportion” of lectures taught by foreign lecturers. This is consistent with Yang’s (2012, p.23) observation that Chinese students reported difficulty in understanding Western theories of deficiencies in their English language proficiency.
Language (s) of instruction
All universities currently offering the CIAP use the Chinese and English languages in their classes. Instruction in English (with elaborations in Chinese where necessary) is believed likely to help students develop their thinking in English and improve their ability to listen, speak and analyze accounting issues and problems in English. However, the proportion of English teaching in the CIAP is relatively small because most participating universities are in the early stages of offering bilingual instruction. For their part, 79 percent of student respondents preferred lecturers to encourage thinking in English during classes. Simultaneously, 71 percent of student respondents wanted sufficient self-study time for English outside of class time, instead of having to complete English courses to improve the standard of their English.
Chinese universities offering the CIAP prescribe English language versions of teaching materials, assignments, exercises and PowerPoint slides that are usually provided by international textbook publishers. Because some students have considerable difficulties in comprehending lecture subject matter unless it is taught in Chinese, they need to spend a considerable amount of time after classes to read through English teaching materials. They need to revise the lecture content, making sure that they can understand the professional vocabularies and technical jargon used. An increase in the ratio of English teaching will help to develop better English comprehension skills in students. This will enable students to adapt better to the ever-changing accounting demands of the international environment.
Materials
The nine CGA courses in the CIAP commonly use English language teaching textbooks and associated instructional aides provided by overseas publishers. From the second year onwards, CIAP students are required to take two CGA courses per semester, using original English teaching materials. Usually, there are two assigned texts for each course- a textbook and a complementing study guide.
In Financial Accounting 3 the prescribed text is Kieso et al. (2010). In financial Accounting 4 the prescribed text is Hoyle et al. (2010). Both of these texts are accompanied by a comprehensive study guide and PowerPoint slides for the benefit of instructors and students.
Such English language teaching materials help cultivate an understanding of international accounting terminology and GAAP. They are important because the major professional guidance (accounting standards and auditing standards) influencing the practice and development of accounting internationally are all published in English. As Deloitte (2011) notes, the official language of IASB discussion documents, exposure drafts, IFRS and interpretations, is English. IFRS, issued by the IASB, have been adopted in approximately 120 nations and reporting jurisdictions (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), 2011). Thus, the use of original English language teaching English language teaching materials seems likely to help students keep up-to-date with international trends in accounting.
As well, the use of English language teaching materials will help lecturers develop a more sophisticated understanding of in-company systems of accounting and of the causes and consequences of major corporate failures in international contexts. The English language textbooks and associated materials provided by western publishers contain many up-to-date examples and suggested readings, including copies of recent articles in newspapers and business periodicals. These materials help students to broaden their horizons internationally and adopt internationally accepted methods of accounting. The breadth, variety and quality of these teaching materials helps cultivate learning and develop enquiring minds, instead of merely implanting knowledge.
Overseas textbooks are often lengthy and are accompanied by a large volume of case study and ancillary reading material. For instance, Intermediate Accounting by Kieso, Weygandt and Warfield has an exercises section at the end of each chapter and a section called “using your judgment.” The latter section usually contains a financial reporting problem, a comparative case for analysis and a financial statement analysis problem that requires students to use the knowledge they have learned in the chapter. There is also a “bridge to the profession” section that typically requires students to access the IASB web site to address an accounting issue. In a “professional simulation” section students are asked to solve a real-world problem as a professional accountant.
In contrast, local Chinese teaching materials have more of a technical focus and are not expansive. They offer few case studies. Perhaps this reflects the reluctance of Chinese university accounting lecturers to use case studies because of the difficulties they perceive in implementing them in large classes. Chinese. university accounting lecturers should not perceive case studies in this way, given the evidence of Doran et al. (2011, p. 245) that “case studies can be successfully delivered in large class settings” in accounting. However, we must be mindful of the reservation raised by Healy and McCutcheon (2010, p. 555) of the important need to recognize “the manner in which accounting educators actually engage with the case method.”
Chinese students need to spend a large amount of time before and after classes reading English language teaching materials, memorizing accounting terminology and finishing lesson assignments and exercises in English. Long lists of prescribed reading and the language barrier can cause them considerable stress. In contrast, Chinese-sourced and Chinese language teaching materials mostly focus on delivering key points of knowledge but are weaker in engaging with practice. They devote less space to contextualizing accounting practice and offer few, if any, case studies.
The contextualization of western case studies imposes considerable cultural challenges for Chinese students few of whom, from our experience, have travelled outside of China. This may be a reason why 48 percent of respondents said that they ignored (the predominantly western) case examples in their textbooks. Although there are some good published case studies that focus specifically on the Chinese context, these tend not to focus on accounting, but on cognate disciplines (such as management, in which there is a Journal of Management Case studies, published in China in Chinese on a bi-monthly basis).
To redress this situation, Chinese academics should be given performance review reward incentives to write and publish suitable case studies and generally to engage in innovative teaching strategies. A case writing competition similar to that conducted by the Institute of Management Accountants (2011) would facilitate this. Chinese accounting journals be encouraged to publish accounting case studies and other innovative (and tested) teaching resources in a fashion similar to that of international accounting journals (such as Issues in Accounting Education published by the American Accounting Association, accessible at http://aaahq.org/pubs/issues.htm;Accounting Education: An International Journal the official education journal of the International Association for Accounting Education and Research, accessible at www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/09639284.asp; and Accounting Perspectives, an official journal of the Canadian Academic Accounting Association, accessible at htt://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1911-3838 ).
Curriculum and timetable
The CIAP timetable is congested. At the Capital University of Economics and Business, students wanting to obtain an accounting degree majoring in international accounting need to take at least 2,464 lecture hours in non-elective subjects over their three and half years off coursework (the final half semester comprises a thesis and an internship). On average, students need to take 352 lecture hours each semester. Given that Capital University of Economics and Business (like most Chinese universities) has a 16-week semester, this means that students are required to take an average of 4.4 lecture hours in non-elective subjects day.
The heavy lecture load faced by Chinese accounting students mitigates the effectiveness of English language teaching resources sourced from overseas. The congested timetable means that many students simply do not have time to read and comprehend the large volume of examples and reading materials contained in overseas textbooks and study guides. Three quarters of students responded that the time available for after class self-study time was insufficient. Thus, ultimately, the full benefits of overseas teaching materials are not realized. Students have little extra time to read any other accounting-related English publications apart from the reading materials assigned. This is a characteristic of the CIAP and it need to be considered when participating universities are drawing up timetables. Students should
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