Jiayao Yang

China Jiliang University

Abstract：

Amidst the wave of globalization in higher education, Business Chinese, as an important branch of "Language for Specific Purposes" (LSP), is experiencing increasing market demand. The core challenge in its instruction lies in the "gap between theory and practice." Traditional teaching overemphasizes format and "rote memorization," while neglecting students' ability to solve practical problems in authentic, complex situations. Therefore, even  if students master standard writing formats, they still feel inadequate when facing real, complex, and dynamic business scenarios. The challenges they face are manifold: not only linguistic barriers but also, more profoundly, "Sino-foreign differences in thinking and culture" and a lack of higher-order abilities, such as constructing effective arguments and handling complex cross-cultural communication. To address this instructional bottleneck, this paper introduces the Design Thinking EDIPT model from Stanford's d.school. EDIPT is a "human-centered," "solution-based" iterative approach specifically used for solving "ill-defined" complex problems. We will argue that the writing process itself is a design process. Introducing the EDIPT framework aims to fundamentally shift the focus of business writing instruction from traditional "language accuracy" to "communicative efficacy." Through a specific case study, this paper will detail the operational instructional design of the five EDIPT stages.

Key Words：

EDIPT model; business Chinese writing instruction; problem-based case