Yan Gao
The integration of industry and education is the core pathway for the high-quality development of vocational education in the new era, and it imposes a practical requirement for English courses at vocational undergraduate universities to transition from a “basic and general” focus to one that “serves the industry.”Currently, university English instruction at vocational bachelor’s degree institutions generally suffers from issues such as a disconnect between course content and academic majors, as well as a lack of alignment with local industrial needs, making it difficult to effectively support the goal of cultivating high-end skilled talent. This study, viewed through the lens of industry-education integration, explores the necessity and feasibility of restructuring the content of university English courses at vocational bachelor’s degree institutions, with the aim of identifying practical pathways to empower local industrial development through curriculum reform. The study proposes that the content system of university English courses should be restructured based on local industrial structures, job competency requirements, and professional foreign language application scenarios. It advocates for the construction of a “Language+” modular curriculum system—a trinity of “language fundamentals + professional English + cross-cultural literacy”—to promote deep integration between teaching content and industrial and job chains. Building on this foundation, the study further proposes practical pathways across proposes practical pathways across four dimensions—content development, organizational logic, implementation settings,and value output—to establish a tripartite “government-school-enterprise”collaborative content development mechanism; develop an industry-chain-driven project-based learning ecosystem; create immersive language practice environments that integrate virtual and real-world elements; and expand a “major + English” collaborative social service feedback mechanism. Concurrently, a support and guarantee system is established across four dimensions: institutional frameworks, faculty, resources, and evaluation. Research indicates that the restructuring of English course content at vocational undergraduate universities not only helps enhance students’ professional foreign language application skills and cross-cultural communication competencies but also strengthens the precision and effectiveness of vocational education in serving regional economic development, providing a reference model for the reform of general education courses in the context of industry-education integration.