International Education Forum

Assessing Intercultural Communicative Competence in Business English Classrooms in Chinese Universities: Challenges, Strategies, and the Measurement Gap

Wanhua Zhang — 2026-08-13

The development of Intercultural Communicative Competence (ICC) is increasingly recognized as a defining goal of Business English education, yet a persistent gap exists between this ambition and classroom reality in Chinese universities. While prior reviews have cataloged challenges and proposed pedagogical strategies, the field has largely neglected the question of how ICC should be measured—leaving teachers without the evaluative tools needed to know whether their instruction is working. This review reframes that measurement gap as the central problem. Drawing on studies published between 2015 and 2025, the paper first maps three structural challenges to ICC development in Chinese Business English contexts: limited culturally-situated communicative experience, the communicative constraints imposed by high-context norms and face maintenance, and motivational and pedagogical distortions produced by exam-oriented schooling. It then evaluates four teaching strategies—authentic materials and case studies, role-play and simulation, intercultural comparison tasks, and project-based learning—not in isolation but in terms of their compatibility with realistic assessment. The review argues that assessment is not a secondary concern to be addressed after teaching design is settled; it is the architectural constraint that determines whether ICC instruction can be held accountable. The paper proposes a multi-method assessment framework integrating portfolio evidence, rubric-based performance assessment, and validated self-report instruments, and identifies specific priorities for empirical research in the Chinese Business English context.

The Symbiosis Exploration of Figurative Form and Abstract

Mi Tang — 2026-08-13

Nowadays, contemporary oil painting creation has entered the stage of multi-integration. The traditional research paradigm of binary opposition and boundary separation between concreteness and abstraction in the past can no longer meet the needs of innovative iteration of oil painting language. In most existing studies, the realistic modeling logic or purely abstract formal laws are explained separately, and the symbiotic mechanism of their coexistence and embedment has not been systematically sorted out. At present, a large number of creative practices have already broken the boundary between the two styles, and completed the collaborative expression of concrete object carriers and abstract formal elements in the same visual plane. Based on the symbiotic relationship as the core research perspective, this paper combs through the theoretical origin and aesthetic characteristics of their symbiosis. It refines the creative path from four dimensions: visual framework of the picture, artistic conception creation, media application, and narrative expression. Combined with typical Chinese and foreign oil paintings, this paper clarifies the complementary logic of concrete bearing narrative and abstract emotion, and proves that their symbiosis is not a superficial form splicing, but an organic unity of visual order and spiritual connotation, which can broaden the expression boundary of contemporary oil paintings and provide targeted theoretical and practical reference for creators.

The Application of Gray Tonal Language in Modern and Contemporary Copperplate Prints

Tianfeng Yang — 2026-08-13

The gray tonality is a color language with both neutral characteristics and rich levels. It has something special in the creation of modern and contemporary copperplate prints, and it is easily overlooked. This paper starts with the visual attributes, emotional bearing, and aesthetic characteristics of gray tonality, and analyzes its internal logic of correspondence with the copperplate media technology. Thinking about the creative practice of flying dust, line engraving, color printing, and other different techniques, this paper analyzes the concrete application and spiritual expression function of gray tonal language in copperplate printing. It is considered that the gray tonality can deepen the expression of the spirit of copperplate prints and give a new practical way to explore the diversification of color language in contemporary copperplate prints.

Generative AI and Evidentiary Displacement in Second Language Writing: A Critical Integrative Review of Feedback, Composing Processes, and Assessment Validity

Bin Wang — 2026-08-13

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) has become embedded in second language (L2) writing not only as a source of correction, but also as a participant in planning, drafting, translating, revising, evaluating, and genre modeling. This critical integrative review argues that the central pedagogical problem raised by GenAI is evidentiary rather than merely technological. In much classroom and assessment practice, learner texts continue to function as privileged evidence for engagement, authorship, composing decisions, and writing ability. GenAI unsettles this relation because it can produce ideas, structure, language, feedback, and evaluation from minimal input while leaving no reliable trace in the submitted text. This review conceptualizes this problem as evidentiary displacement: evidence of learning is not destroyed, but redistributed across less visible processes of prompting, selecting, evaluating, revising, rejecting, and integrating machine output. Drawing on post-2022 work on GenAI-mediated L2 writing and longer-standing scholarship on feedback engagement, composing processes, and assessment validity, the review examines displacement across three sites: feedback, composing, and assessment. It argues for selective process evidence—revision rationales, decision-point annotations, feedback engagement records, and learners’ accounts of their choices—while also cautioning that documentation can increase workload, reproduce inequities, invite surveillance, and become strategically performed rather than pedagogically meaningful.

Research on the Integrated Path and Practical Exploration of Ideological and Political Education in Vocational Education: A Case Study of Zhejiang Institute of Communications

Lei Lyu — 2026-08-13

In the new era, vocational education shoulders the vital mission of cultivating socialist builders and successors with all-round development of morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics, and labor skills. Ideological and political (I&P) education serves as the fundamental guarantee for vocational education to stay true to its educational mission and strengthen connotative development. Taking Zhejiang Institute of Communications as the research object and based on the strategic background of building a powerful transportation country in the new era, this paper focuses on the core proposition of deep integration between vocational education and I&P education. It systematically analyzes the college’s I&P education model featuring “ideological guidance, industry empowerment, cultural immersion and practical education” from four dimensions: educational connotation, practical paths, guarantee mechanisms and achievement transformation. The study shows that establishing a vocational education system integrating “transportation characteristics and red genes” and building a cultural education brand of “Five Actions Fulfill Five Educations” (cultivate morality, intelligence, physical health, aesthetics and labor through practice), as well as innovating a trinity education field covering “classroom-practice-online”, can effectively realize coordinated development of vocational education and I&P education. It provides practical references for vocational colleges to implement the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education in the new era.

Practical Exploration and Optimization Path of AI-empowered Personalized Mathematics Teaching in Higher Vocational Colleges

Huihong Jin — 2026-08-13

Based on the Chaoxing AI Workbench, this paper targets the long-standing structural bottlenecks in higher vocational mathematics teaching, including diversified student demands, crude learning diagnosis, and insufficient teaching resources. A “Four-dimensional Linkage” enabling mechanism is constructed, which realizes precise stratification through student learning portrait diagnosis, solves the problem of homogeneous resource supply via stratified resource adaptation, runs through three classroom links with full-process teaching implementation, and guarantees personalized learning outcomes through dynamic diversified evaluation, forming a complete closed loop of “Diagnosis — Resource Supply — Teaching Implementation — Evaluation.” Practice results show that this mechanism achieves remarkable effects in improving teaching quality, narrowing gaps between students and optimizing learning experience. Aiming at practical shortcomings such as insufficient resource reserves, insufficient teachers’ digital literacy, poor technical adaptability and imperfect institutional guarantees, this paper further puts forward optimization countermeasures including inter-collegial co-construction and sharing, three-dimensional teacher transformation driving, collaborative tackling of technical defects and perfecting supporting systems, so as to provide useful reference for the intelligent transformation of public basic courses.

Application of Blended Teaching in English Cross-Cultural Classrooms

Nan Cao — 2026-08-13

Blended teaching combines the self-study mode of the Internet with the offline classroom to offer a new way of doing English cross-cultural teaching. At present, there are many restrictions on the integration of resources, forms of interaction, and assessment systems in English cross-cultural classrooms, so it is difficult to fully achieve the practical effect of cultivating cross-cultural competence. According to the values embedded in blended teaching, this paper will identify the actual problems of English cross-cultural classroom teaching and put forward three stages of optimization paths for the construction of resource banks, interactive scenario creation, and evaluation mechanisms, etc., to provide a reference for reforming English cross-cultural classroom teaching.

Exploring the “Four Collaborations and Four Integrations” Collaborative Cultivation Model for the Design Majors Driven by the Demands of the Digital Design Industry

Wei Chang — 2026-08-13

With the development of China’s digital economy and the accelerating intelligent transformation of the design sector, design education faces great pressure to restructure its talent development systems. Local universities, in particular, struggle with curricula that lag industry practice, shallow university–enterprise partnerships, and assessment methods that bear little relation to professional standards. Drawing on theories of industry — education integration, constructivism, and design thinking, this study proposes a “Four Collaborations and Four Integrations” model. The collaborative dimensions (co‑construction, co‑management, co‑creation, and co‑evaluation) establish a governance framework, while the integrative dimension merges curricula with industry capabilities, faculty expertise with professional practice, teaching spaces with production platforms, and academic evaluation with industry benchmarks. The model starts from a dynamic mapping of regional digital design competency needs. It introduces agile pedagogies such as project‑based flipped classrooms (PBL 2.0) with live industry briefs and design sprints and builds a hybrid practice environment combining on‑campus digital workshops with enterprise project sites. A multi‑component value‑added assessment system (drawing on portfolios, process logs, employer feedback, and competition results) completes the loop. A two‑year action research cycle in the institution indicates that the model has improved students’ integrated professional readiness, strengthened faculty members’ dual‑qualified profiles, and deepened the discipline’s regional embeddedness. The findings offer a workable, adaptable blueprint for reform in applied design education, with both theoretical relevance and practical transferability.

Class Culture Construction in Universities and an Analysis of Ideological and Political Education for College Students

Jing Luo — 2026-08-13

As an important venue for students’ daily lives, university classes serve as the core carrier and critical channel for carrying out ideological and political education. This paper aims to explore the interrelationship between class culture construction and ideological and political education for college students, address existing deficiencies in university class culture construction, and advance the sustainable development of ideological and political education for college students.