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Education Research Frontier
March 2014, Volume 4, Issue 1, PP. 1-6
The Importance of the Bilingual Teaching Plan
for Molecular Biology Course
Yu Yang
School of Minerals Processing and Bioengineering, Central South University
Key Laboratory of Biometallurgy, Ministry of Education Centre of Biometallurgical Engineering, 932 South Lushan Road,
Changsha, Hunan, China, 410083
E-mail: csuyangyu@csu.edu.cn
Abstract
Bilingual teaching reform aims to educate high-qualified inter-disciplinary talented citizens with wide international perspective
and conform to the international trend of high education. The bilingual teaching does inject more vigor and vitality into the class,
but some teachers sometimes ignore the importance of the writing of bilingual teaching plan. Thus, the relationship between
teachers and students could be affected negatively, which would finally play an important role in teaching efficiency and result. In
this article, we try to find and solve some problems of the high education in writing the bilingual teaching program for molecular
biology course. Finally, some novel opinions are put forward and discussed.
Keywords: Bilingual Teaching Plan; High Education; Molecular Biology Course
1 INTRODUCTION
In 2001, the Ministry of Education proposed the measures such as "Actively promote the use of English and other
foreign language teaching" and "Undergraduate education needs to create conditions for the use of English and other
foreign languages in courses teaching" in the Several Opinions on the Strengthening of Institutions of Higher
Learning of Undergraduate Teaching to Improve the Quality of Teaching, which was the first time in the form of a
document, tertiary institutions cooperate actively and exert themselves to create conditions of bilingual education on
related professional courses, and has achieved remarkable success. In August 2007, the Ministry of Education issued
the Notification on Starting Bilingual Education Model Curriculum Construction and pointed out that from 2007 to
2010, they would have supported 500 bilingual teaching model curriculums. In order to conforming to the
professional teaching reform initiatives in 2001 proposed by the Ministry of Education, since 2002, the Resources
Processing and Bioengineering Academy of Central South University began the bilingual teaching of biochemistry,
molecular biology courses. Over the past ten years, students' after-school reflection and curriculum test results have
fully demonstrated the advantages of the bilingual teaching of these subjects. At the end of 2011, I participated in the
Central South University Young Teachers teaching plans competition on behalf of our academy, and molecular
biology courses bilingual teaching plans eventually was named the Top Ten teaching plans. Some new understanding
of the preparation of molecular biology bilingual teaching plans through this competition, and the teaching plan
should had something to do with the high education class. Many requirements exist in the high education class for
universities. Maybe, a teaching plan should have some unique characteristics to meet the requirements from the high
education class. Combining many years' experience of molecular biology bilingual teaching and several surveys to
analyze the high education class, some questions were raised at the end of the study, as well as providing some
reference for colleagues.
2 THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHING PLAN FOR HIGH EDUCATION CLASS
The teaching plan is a blueprint of the class. However, the development of information technology and the wide
application of computers make more teachers select a series of computers, projectors and other audio-visual
equipments in teaching. Especially some young teachers who are not graduates of normal universities. Most of them

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have good professional knowledge and research capacity, but lack of the teaching ability and skills. As PPT
courseware can be more intuitive to teach students the knowledge, animation and pictures can attract students'
attention, which makes more and more teachers inclined to the careful preparation of courseware, while ignoring the
preparation of teaching plans in lesson preparation. This case is more common in middle-aged and young teachers
who teach and stay in the university after graduation from the non-normal universities, which fully shows that they
do not realize the importance of teaching plans for class teaching. Some teaching experts pointed out that, lectures,
courseware and teaching plans are the three highlands to improve the quality of class teaching. A clear thinking,
concise, reasonable structure and specific teaching plan can be used as a script of multimedia courseware production.
It can be seen that the preparation of teaching plan is of crucial importance in terms of class.
Then, what is the position for high education class with the teaching plans?
2.1 One of the Most basic Reference for College Students Awareness to the Teachers with the
Teaching Plan
University Class is different from the class of middle high school and primary school in the fundamental nature. In
primary and high school education, teachers and schools are in the compulsory supervision teaching status. However,
in the university class, the status of teachers lacks certain mandatory, to most of the students consciousness of
learning space. However, how the students understand the teachers' teaching attitudes and teaching psychologies? It
is teaching plan. Teaching plan let the students to see a complete picture of the whole teaching before the class.
Teaching integrity is conducive to students with a good mental outlook and a strong interest in learning new
knowledge, and the teaching plan is one of the most basic characteristics of the teaching integrity.
2.2 The Teaching Plan is an Essential Part of Textbook Knowledge Transformation.
As generally believed that the logical starting point for teaching and learning activities is to read textbooks, and the
second step the most important step is to impart knowledge to students. The teaching plan is the key point to connect
these two steps. After digesting the textbook, the teacher must summarize the knowledge points, the teaching
methods, the emphasis and difficulties and some other key parts in his teaching plans, then teach the knowledge
points to students completely and in orderly manner in accordance with the record and the teaching plans in the
class.
2.3 The Teaching Plan Ensures the Orderly and Systematically for Teachers in the Class.
Teaching experience cannot be the fundamental guarantee of the quality of the teaching effect. So, teachers need to
write teaching plans to make the class teaching purposefully and systematically. The comprehensiveness of the class
teaching requires teachers to read and search for the latest teaching materials before class, design and plan their class
carefully, and implement the teaching objectives purposefully. These need to write the teaching plans. So the quality
of teaching plan is often the key to the success of a lesson. As mentioned above, it is impossible to remember all the
teaching plans, especially for young teachers. Teaching plans can be placed on the teacher's desk in order to
occasionally read, which will not only prompt the sequential teaching, but also help to save class time for the
teachers.
2.4 Teaching Plan is the Main Way to I mprove Teachers' Teaching and Research Ability.
The preparation of teaching plans not only provides teachers with class teaching model, teachers can also exercise
the writing expression ability. Data searching and summarization also can indirectly improve the teacher's academic
quality. Teaching plan can also be accumulated, become the first hand materials for teaching and scientific research.
The preparation of teaching plans can improve the teaching methods, provide certain reference significance.
3 MOLECULAR BIOLOGY BILINGUAL TEACHING PLANS AND THE HIGH
EDUCATION CLASS
Bilingual teaching was the necessary development stage in our colleges and universities specialized courses and
public courses. Since the words Bilingual Education appeared, there have been two views towards it. The narrow

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sense of Bilingual Education referred to using second or foreign language to teach the subject matter education in
school, and the generalized sense of Bilingual Education refers to using two kinds of languages to teach. Using two
kinds of language teaching is to adapt the institutional requirements of the new era of teaching. Molecular biology is
one of the main courses of high education in agronomy and biology students. We compile Molecular biology
bilingual teaching plans in order to coordinate the bilingual teaching of the course. Molecular biology bilingual
teaching plans has many characteristics of the course itself, so that teaching plans is also unique, which is truly for
meeting the requirements of high education class.
3.1 Bilingual Teaching Plans Should Reflect the Prospective of High Education Class
In order to meet the new requirements of the development of the teaching period, China's high education has the
certain teaching prospective, which means that our university education cannot always stay in "an old book"
education mode. In addition, in some subject nature of professional course, prospective teaching was very necessary.
Molecular biology course is the main course, which must be taught for biological sciences, biotechnology and
bioengineering and other majors. Because of the rapid development of molecular biology, many theories are still in
the research stage, many important conclusions need to be summarizing from more latest academic papers. However,
many teachers have a single choice of teaching materials, they may think that only one English book can meet all
their teaching planning needs when preparing of bilingual teaching plans. Actually, the class can accept some more
new knowledge, which is important. In September 2011, the bilingual teaching plans of molecular biology courses I
taught compiled from Instant Notes of Molecular Biology, (edited by PC Turner, etc.) and Nature, Science, Cell and
other world-renowned authoritative journal references. In order to make the bilingual teaching plans more complete,
the related content extracted from the literature, which mentioned in the teaching plans will indicate the
corresponding references in the notes section below the teaching plans. This is not only conducive a more detailed
search of new knowledge to the teachers themselves, but also makes the compilation of bilingual teaching plans
more systematic and overall significance.
3.2 Bilingual Teaching Should Reflect the Purpose of the University Class
The purpose of high education is to not only impart knowledge and educate people, more important is to make
students understand the academic significance. Molecular biology bilingual teaching plan is not English notes, also
more than a simple translation of the Chinese teaching plans. The teaching plans must be in a more systematic and
holistic level to show the simplicity. Teaching plans do not need too much narrative, some teachers teaching plans
use too much depiction to elaborate a knowledge point, in fact, and teaching plans need to be written in a more
straightforward way, because the teachers themselves also need more time to try to figure out how to speak in class.
My molecular biology bilingual teaching plan for each lesson is divided into seven parts: Time, Goal, and Method,
Teaching aid, Outline, Emphasis and Difficulty, and Questions. It should be noted that the emphasis and difficulty is
the essence of the class, which does not matter the quality of teaching. Therefore, the emphasis and difficulty of the
teaching plans in each chapter must be specifically listed and should also be well-designed. With a key images and
text used in the class to explain the emphasis and difficulty. Only in this way, teachers can carefully prepare before
class in order to impart knowledge to students in a simple way. The bilingual teaching plans are not the script of class,
but it must cover the entire contents of the lecture notes, and this is reflected by not only the simplicity of the
bilingual teaching plans, but also its refined features.
Another point of note is that in each section of the teaching plans, according to the knowledge point for the chapter,
teachers should list some of the eye-dotting questions. These questions can be used as class questions as well as
academic exchanges, can be used as the homework questions, and can be used as the final assessments of alternative
topics. This part of teaching plans is a concentrated expression of the heuristic method for students.
3.3 Bilingual Teaching Plan Should Reflect the Characteristic of Students First for the High
Education Class
The real purpose of the teaching plans is to serve in the class, and without a doubt, the bilingual teaching plans
cannot be contrary to the fundamental significance of the existing teaching plans. Relative to the ordinary class, the

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location of the second language in the bilingual class is extremely critical. English is the second language of the
bilingual teaching of Molecular Biology of Central South University, and so many students want to improve their
English proficiency when study molecular biology courses, thus killing two birds with one stone. We need a teaching
method adapt to students, and with which, we can mobilize the enthusiasm of students. This approach is necessary to
be reflected in the bilingual teaching plans because teaching planning is not only writing teaching plans, but to
record the process of teaching in advance, which is the key to the teaching plans. The compilations of molecular
biology bilingual teaching plans reflect the features from the teaching methods that the students should be the subject
of bilingual teaching plans. What we need is not just speaking, practicing is more important in class, and we should
pay more attention to student acceptance. Therefore, in the teaching methods of our bilingual teaching plans, we
focus on description of class questions and exercises.
Enable students to identify problems and find the answers, and giving them opportunity to explain the questions are
the embodiments of the student-centered heuristic teaching in our molecular biology bilingual teaching plans.
Some of the questions involved in the next class are simply written in the Teaching aid section in our teaching plans.
These questions are raised by the students themselves under the guidance of teachers and implied in this class. These
questions are also students' homework, thus enable students access to relevant books and papers to address the issues
raised by their own. This part is the key to the completely teaching plans, it will not only extend limited class
teaching to a broader extra-curricular learning, but also diverge students' thinking, so that students can really take the
initiative to master the knowledge.
4 THOUGHTS ON THE COMPOSING OF BILINGUAL TEACHING PLANS ACCORDING
TO THE REQUIREMENTS OF HIGH EDUCATION CLASS
4.1 Highlight the Merits to Write the Bilingual Teaching Plans
There was a certain misunderstanding in efficient bilingual education. Many teachers think that bilingual education is
just to choose English teaching materials, translate the Chinese version of teaching plans into the English version
directly, and use two languages to teach. However, in fact, the compilation of bilingual teaching plans needs to be
more systematic and overall significant. This demands teachers to inherit the advantages of the Chinese language
teaching plans, and supplement the necessary part of bilingual education during the preparation of teaching plans. If
bilingual education were only for the purpose of translating Chinese into English, students with poor English
background would confront with the hard situation to understand the course content, causing their scores decline.
Therefore, the purpose of bilingual education is not only to make students automatically accept school-teaching in
English and English teaching material (Associated with the part of the Chinese resolve), but also to expand the
student's English vocabulary, to make it easier for students to read and understand the English literature, and lay a
good foundation for future professional and research work.
4.2 Encouraging Students to Think and Practice were I ndispensable
The class is an organic entity, which emphasizes the guiding function of the teacher and the subject position of the
students. As the soul of the class, the teaching plans should reflect the meaning of guidance of teachers. We must
alternate the emphasis according to each part during the preparation of the bilingual teaching plans. It should be
pointed out that the educational goal and the learning goal are two completely different concepts. The educational
goal is to describe what the teachers want to do in this lesson from the perspective of teacher input, and the learning
goal is to describe the hope what the students can get from the perspective of student output. It will completely lost
the meaning of the teaching plans if it works as lesson preparation notes and records only what and where the
teachers need to talk about. Therefore, how to complete the learning goal in the instructional plan is the key to
compilation of the teaching plans. The role of teachers is reflected in the guidance of teaching. As mentioned earlier,
molecular biology bilingual teaching plans needs to list the questions which are raised by the students, but need the
guidance of teachers. Specific guide method should also be written in teaching plans, for example, to divide students
into several groups to discuss a question, to make pre-operating arrangement, and so on. Encourage students to think
is an important idea of the compilation of bilingual teaching plans.

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4.3 Promote Ourselves, Enrich the Teaching Plans, and Sublimate the Class
Molecular biology is a vigorous science. The teacher is the writer and executor of the teaching plans, the purpose of
us is not only to write teaching plans, but also to sublimate the class. As molecular biology is full of new knowledge,
new concepts, new technologies and new applications, teachers should be concerned about the latest developments in
the field of molecular biology, constantly enrich them to ensure the new vitality in the class of molecular biology. We
always hope that students are always energetic and greatly interested in the class, so teachers need to upgrade
ourselves and provide students with such conditions. Therefore, teachers should be able to rationally organize their
own languages in the teaching plans with a simple structure, try to be full of emotion, teach in nonprofessionals
language, provide a relaxed and pleasant learning environment to students, and lead them to think and memorize.
This will not only ensure the learning efficiency but also develop relationships between teachers and students, and
enrich the class. We can also provide some foreign literatures, which are new, moderately difficult and hardly get by
students themselves, and this can broaden their horizons, deepen their understanding and mastering of textbook
knowledge. At the same time, teachers can also improve their teaching skills and professionalism by means of
special training, thus sublimate the class.
5 CONCLUSIONS
Bilingual education reform is a landmark initiative proposed by the country to adapt to the trend of globalization and
cultivate compound talents with international vision. The implementation of this initiative, making the specialized
courses teaching in the major colleges and universities achieve great results. Molecular biology bilingual teaching
reform of Resources Processing and Bioengineering Academy of Central South University shows higher superiority,
but how to write bilingual teaching plans is a problem that many young teachers must pay attention to. The
preparation of teaching plans should be more problem-based and learner-centered, and teachers need to summarize
and conclude in teaching, improve themselves in teaching practice, and enrich the teaching plans in order to
sublimate the class.
Bilingual teaching reform is to adapt to the globalization trend in China, developing an international perspective of
compound talents and putting forward epoch-making act. This move is to carry out to make our country universities
of the relevant professional courses teaching, has made great achievements. Nevertheless, the main mode in
education that improving the class should be the focus of university education. In addition, we should know that
teaching plans have great importance, need to meet the requirements of the modern high education class. Teachers in
the class-teaching summary and the induction, teaching plan writing should take the class as the foundation, take the
student as the main body, at the same time in the teaching practice to enhance them, to enrich and improve the
teaching plan, and give the class certain sublimation.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The present research was carried out under the Program of New Century Excellent Talents in Ministry of Education
of China (NCET-07-0869).
REFERENCES
[1] Zhixin Zeng, Wangyu Liu and Ying Lin. Journal of Higher Education Management, 2007, 1(5): 85-88.
[2] Xia Cao, Limin Yao and Shuzhen Huang. University Education Science, 2012, 1: 25-31.
[3] Yu Li. Journal of Chongqing University of Science & Technology (Social Science Edition), 2010, 22: 201-204.
[4] Yuxia Guan, Xin Jiang and Jialing Ding. Journal of Higher Education Management, 2007, 1(5): 89-92.
[5] Weiling Wang and Yongyan Qin. Forum on Contemporary Education, 2008, 11: 99-100.
[6] Yajie Lu and Yu Hu. ScienceTechnology Information. 2011, 35: 402.



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AUTHORS
Yu Yang (1972- ), born in Liling, Hunan province, College of Resources Processing and Bioengineering,
Department of Bioengineering, Associate professor
In September 2011, publication of Proceedings of IBS2011 named Biohydrometallurgy: Biotech Key to Unlock
Mineral Resources Value, as the fifth author (Changsha, China).
He had previous researched about coal biodesulfurization, bioleaching and so on, now he is still working on them.
Dr. Yang had taken part in the Hunan Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Chinese Society of
Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, making a great contribution and receiving many awards there.