


































Global Research in Higher Education 
ISSN 2576-196X (Print) ISSN 2576-1951 (Online) 

Vol. 7, No. 3, 2024 

www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/grhe 

62 

 

Original Paper 

Study on Case-based Bilingual Teaching Model of International 

Engineering Contracting Course—Take Qingdao City 

University as an Example 

Kefei Zhang
1
, Qixiang Miao

1
, Chunxiao Wang

1
 & Qiaohui Zhang

1
 

1
 Qingdao City University, Qingdao, China  

*
 Kefei Zhang, E-mail: zh_kefei@163.com 

 

Received: October 20, 2024    Accepted: October 31, 2024    Online Published: November 8, 2024 

doi:10.22158/grhe.v7n3p62                 URL:http://dx.doi.org/10.22158/grhe.v7n3p62 

 

Abstract 

Under the background of the “Belt and Road” initiative, China’s international status in the field of 

international engineering is also increasing, and the industry’s demand for international engineering 

professionals and their professional requirements are gradually increasing. As a key professional 

course related to international engineering, international project contracting should keep pace with 

The Times in teaching content and teaching methods under such a background. Taking Qingdao City 

University as an example, based on the analysis of the problems existing in the traditional international 

engineering contract teaching, this paper proposes a new model of case-based bilingual teaching for 

international engineering contract teaching through the investigation of students’ professional 

foundation and English level, combined with the current development needs of the industry. This course 

is reformed from three aspects: the setting of case base, the optimization of bilingual teaching mode 

and the flexible assessment method. Finally, through the investigation of the students, the practical 

effect of the reform plan is tested. 

Keywords 

International Project Contracting, Bilingual Teaching, Case-based Teaching, Teaching reform 

 

1. Introduction 

With the continuous promotion of high-quality Belt and Road cooperation strategy, remarkable 

progress has been made in infrastructure connectivity in various fields such as railways, highways, 

shipping and energy. The 14th Five-Year Plan clearly states that we should rely on the advantages of 

China’s ultra-large market to promote international cooperation through which mutual benefit and 



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win-win results can be obtained. Besides, with the steady development of the Belt and Road 

cooperation, a community with a shared future for mankind is being built. In this context, China’s 

construction enterprises, energy enterprises and enterprises from other industries actively go abroad to 

participate in the construction of international engineering projects, and carry out new multilateral 

cooperation. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, in 2022, Chinese enterprises in 

the countries along the “Belt and Road” signed 5,514 new contracts for foreign contracted projects, the 

new contract value of 871.84-billion-yuan, accounting for 51.2% of the new contract value of China’s 

foreign contracted projects in the same period; The turnover was 571.31-billion-yuan, accounting for 

54.8% of the total in the same period (Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China, 2023; 

Li & Yang, 2021, p. 4). 

Due to the rapid increase of international project contracting business, the demand for international 

project management talents in China is also increasingly strong, which puts forward higher 

requirements for the quality of training engineering management professionals in colleges and 

universities. Students should not only have a broad international vision, but also have the ability of 

cross-regional site management and a stronger awareness of international cooperation and exchange. 

As an important specialized course for engineering management, International Project Contracting 

basically covers the knowledge that need to be applied in the process of international project 

contracting. Through the study of this course, the purpose is to enable students to master solid basic 

knowledge and theory, cultivate students’ international vision and competitiveness, solve practical 

problems in international project contracting, and improve the ability of international project 

management. 

 

2. Introduction of the International Engineering Contracting Course and the Relationship of the 

Relevant Course System 

2.1 Introduction of the International Engineering Contracting Course 

International Engineering Contracting is an elective course in the first semester of the junior year of the 

undergraduate major of Engineering Management and Engineering Cost in the College of Civil 

Engineering, Qingdao City University. This course integrates the content of several professional 

courses such as introduction to engineering management, engineering project management, engineering 

project bidding, engineering cost, civil engineering construction, construction laws and regulations, etc. 

It is a comprehensive course with the international engineering market and international engineering 

projects as the main research object. It puts forward higher requirements for students’ knowledge 

integration ability, international vision, problem analysis ability and English level. Therefore, the 

traditional single Chinese teaching method is not suitable for this course. 

 

 



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2.2 Relationship of the Relevant Course System 

As a comprehensive course in the field of engineering management, taking the training program of 

Engineering management major of Qingdao City University as an example, the content of international 

engineering contracting course (with the book International Engineering Management published by 

Southeast University Press as the main reference textbook) and its relationship with the curriculum 

system of other professional courses are shown in Figure 1 (Yuan, Deng, Li et al., 2022, pp. 221-224; 

Li, 2019). The wide range of course content and complex course structure make it more important to 

change and innovate the teaching form of this course. 

 

 

Figure 1. International Engineering Contracting Curriculum Architecture Diagram 

 

3. Traditional Teaching Mode and Problems of International Engineering Contracting Course 

3.1 Traditional Teaching and Examination Forms 

Before the reform and innovation of the international engineering contracting course, the traditional 

teaching form was mainly lecture-oriented, and the teaching of theoretical knowledge was mainly. The 

assessment takes the form of attendance and final test, and less involves classroom performance, group 

discussion and homework. 

3.2 Problems in the Traditional Teaching and Examination Forms 

(1) Students are not motivated to learn. With teachers as the main body in traditional teaching methods, 

students passively accept knowledge and lack opportunities to interact with teachers. At the same time, 

there are many professional contents related to international project contracting, which involve a wide 

range of subjects and are rather boring, and students’ thirst for knowledge is difficult to be stimulated. 

At the same time, the assessment is mainly based on the final test, which cannot mobilize the 



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enthusiasm of students to participate in class learning. 

(2) The teaching quality is low. Traditional teaching methods teach a lot of professional content in a 

short time, which cannot take into account the quality, but will reduce the teaching effect, making it 

difficult for students to absorb and understand in a limited time. The form of assessment also rarely 

involves the content such as the usual performance, resulting in students only focusing on the final 

exam and results, but ignoring the daily learning harvest. 

(3) It cannot effectively broaden students’ international vision. Students lack the background 

knowledge of relevant international engineering projects, and traditional teaching methods often lack 

the introduction and analysis of actual cases. As a result, students cannot deeply understand the 

practical problems of international engineering contracting, and it is difficult to cultivate their ability to 

independently analyze issues related to international engineering management. 

(4) There are obstacles to bilingual teaching. Bilingual teaching is one of the best teaching methods to 

understand the frontier of the subject, especially the international engineering contracting course, which 

helps to keep up with the latest developments of international engineering and cultivate students’ 

international consciousness (Liu, Sheng, Zhang et al., 2023, pp. 438-440). 

However, there are some difficulties in bilingual teaching at present. Firstly, the international 

engineering contracting course requires a lot of professional terms and background knowledge, and the 

bilingual teaching materials and teaching resources in China are relatively few, which brings certain 

difficulties to the teaching. Secondly, students are afraid of bilingual courses, psychologically exclude 

English communication, and are more unfamiliar with international engineering contracting 

professional English, so they are more reluctant to communicate in English. Finally, it is a challenge 

for teachers to balance the use of two languages in the classroom. Teachers need to choose appropriate 

teaching methods according to the language level and learning needs of students. At the same time, the 

arrangement of course content may be limited, and the difficulty of in-depth explanation of some 

content will increase. 

 

4. Implementation of Case-Based Bilingual Teaching Model in International Project Contracting 

Course 

4.1 Reset of Teaching Objectives 

The premise of teaching mode reform is to determine what kind of learning goal to achieve through the 

study of this course. The traditional goal setting of “mastering, getting familiar with and 

understanding” is too abstract and fails to accurately measure the achievement of learning goals. 

Therefore, in combination with the needs of professionals in the development of the industry, this 

course restructures the teaching goals (detailed goals are shown in Table 1), which are divided into 

knowledge goals, ability goals and emotional goals. On the basis of completing the basic knowledge 

goals, students’ ability to engage in international engineering-related work, problem solving ability, 



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dialectical thinking ability and English communication ability, and strengthen students’ sense of 

responsibility, globalization awareness, law-abiding awareness and environmental protection awareness 

can all be improved so as to lay a solid professional foundation on the premise of correct thinking. 

In addition, in order to better measure the achievement of teaching goals, especially knowledge goals 

(ability goals and emotional goals need to be measured through practice), the goal-setting mode of 

“phrasal verb + knowledge point” is adopted. Taking K1 knowledge goal as an example, the traditional 

teaching goal setting will describe it as “familiar with the basic forms of the international engineering 

market”, while the reset teaching goal will describe it as “able to describe the basic forms of the 

international engineering market in my own words combined with the current development situation 

and my own understanding”. This template is used to rewrite all knowledge objectives during the 

development of the syllabus and the teaching process.  

 

Table 1. Detailed Objectives of International Engineering Contracting Courses 

International project contracting curriculum target system 

 K-Knowledge Goals A-Ability Goals E-Emotion Goals 

K1 The basic situation of the 

international engineering 

market 
A1 The ability to analyze 

the international 

engineering market, the 

development mode and 

strategy of international 

engineering contracting 

enterprises 

E1 China’s engineering should take the 

globalization consciousness of 

international development 
K2 Different regional 

engineering market access 

system 

K3 International project 

bidding mode and process 
E2 Sense of a community of shared 

future for mankind featuring fair 

competition and win-win cooperation 
K4 International Project 

Contract management 

K5 International Engineering 

project risk and management 

program 

A2 Entering the target 

market according to the 

actual situation, choosing 

the right bidding 

strategy, and carrying out 

the project contract 

management, risk 

management, site 

management, 

cooperation and conflict 

management capabilities 

E3 strives to enhance its awareness of 

learning advanced engineering 

technology and management methods 

worldwide and contributing to the 

development of China’s international 

engineering 

K6 International engineering 

insurance and guarantee 

system in different regions 

K7 How to carry out on-site 

management of international 

engineering projects 

E4 Awareness of abiding by laws and 

regulations and implementing projects 

according to law 



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K8 Methods to carry out 

international engineering 

cooperation and conflict 

management 

A3 Ability of 

professional English 

communication and 

dialectical thinking 

E5 Awareness of environmental 

protection, low-carbon and sustainable 

development of the engineering industry 

 

4.2 Construction of Case Base and Reform of Case Teaching Mode 

Combined with the characteristics of “practicality + comprehensiveness” of this course and the 

previous teaching experience of our school and other schools, the teaching mode of “theoretical 

knowledge learning + case analysis” is more conducive to improving students’ low interest in learning 

and boring class. In addition, case analysis can help students deepen their understanding of theoretical 

knowledge while training their ability of independent thinking and problem analysis. However, the 

problem of traditional case learning is that the knowledge points involved in cases are too simple and 

scattered, and only when the teaching content is carried out in a specific content, the teacher will give 

examples, which is not conducive to the formation of students’ knowledge system, and it is not possible 

to form a complete cognition of practical projects through the combination of case learning and 

theoretical knowledge. Therefore, through the form of “classic cases throughout + key issues with key 

examples”, this course reconstructed the course case teaching method and case base based on the 

development strategy of the “Belt and Road” and the key international engineering projects that China 

participates in along the route. The backbone cases are mainly successful cases (such as the project 

case of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor), while the cases corresponding to the key problems are 

mainly failure cases, so as to strengthen students’ cognition of the problems and improve their attention 

and emphasis on the key problems, as shown in Figure 2. 

 

 

Figure 2. International Engineering Contracting Course Case Base Structure 



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4.3 The Transformation of Bilingual Teaching Mode  

Take Southeast University, which offers the course of international engineering management, for 

example. Since the course was set up in the 1990s, the course of international Engineering management 

in Southeast University has developed into a deliberative course taught in pure English (Li, 2019). 

However, based on the professional foundation and English level of our students, the teaching mode 

and experience of Southeast University can only be used as a reference. The reform of bilingual 

teaching mode of this course should be mainly based on learning situation. 

4.3.1 International Engineering Contract Teaching Students English Foundation Survey 

Taking the class taught in the first semester of 2023-2024 academic year (junior college students) as an 

example, it is found through the questionnaire issued (as shown in Figure 3) that 72% of the students 

failed to pass the English proficiency test before learning this course, 17% of the students passed the 

English level 4 and 4% passed the English level 6. 7% of students have taken the IELTS or TOEFL test 

(but scores are not counted). According to the survey results, it can be judged that the students do not 

have the English level to participate in the professional courses taught in English, so the bilingual 

teaching mode should be selected according to the basic situation of the students. 

 

 

Figure 3. Survey on English Basis of Students Taught in International Engineering Contracting 

Course 

 

 

 

 

 



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4.3.2 Bilingual Teaching Method and Mode Selection 

(1) The proportion of teaching in English 

The commonly used bilingual teaching modes mainly include ① transitional mode, ② maintenance 

mode and ③ immersion mode (Yuan, Li, Deng et al., 2013, pp. 102-108). The transitional teaching 

mode is mainly in Chinese, the maintenance teaching mode has a similar proportion of English and 

Chinese, and the immersion teaching mode is most mainly in English. According to the survey of 

students’ English level and opinions on the proportion of English in teaching (see Figure 4), this course 

chooses the mode of bilingual teaching for simple knowledge points and familiar knowledge points, 

and transitional bilingual teaching for difficult knowledge points. 

 

 

Figure 4. Survey on Students’ Acceptance of the Percentage of Teaching in English 

 

(2) English teaching content selection 

According to the survey of students’ demand for content taught in English, the top four items are: ① 

Proper nouns (68%); ② Classic international engineering cases (51%); ③ Foreign market access 

rules (45%); ④ Content related to international engineering measurement and valuation (43%). At the 

same time, combined with the teaching content (see 2.2) and course characteristics, in addition to the 

above four parts, engineering business negotiation etiquette is also used as the English teaching content 

of this course. 

(3) Teaching in English quality assurance 

In order to ensure the quality of English teaching of this course, the methods of “learning theoretical 

knowledge in both Chinese and English + English questioning and dialogue” and “learning English 

discussion in English + English questioning in case study” are adopted to strengthen students’ English 

learning effect and English communication ability. 

 



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4.4 Implementation of Flexible Assessment Mechanism  

The content of the international engineering contracting course (abbreviated as 1-10, the corresponding 

relationship is shown in Figure 1) corresponds to the assessment method, and the realization of the 

course objectives is shown in Figure 5. The five assessment methods mainly assess the realization of 

knowledge goals and ability goals, and ultimately are used to quantify the course learning and teaching 

results. The realization of emotional goals (curriculum ideological and political goals) runs through 

every stage of the whole course and every form of assessment, and the improvement of students’ 

ideological and moral qualities should be taken into account in each stage of the realization of 

knowledge goals and ability goals. 

 

 

Figure 5. International Project Contracting Assessment Mechanism and Curriculum Goal 

Realization System 

 

5. The Implementation Effect Evaluation of Case-Based Bilingual Teaching Model 

The students’ overall satisfaction with this course and the teaching cases are shown in Figure 6 and 7, 

with the satisfaction rate reaching 100%. As for the acceptance of the difficulty of the course (as shown 

in Figure 8), 15% of the students said that the difficulty of the course could be further improved, 83% 

of the students thought that the difficulty was moderate, but 2% of the students said that the course was 

difficult and the difficulty of the course could be appropriately reduced. In addition, the survey results 

of students’ acceptance of English teaching show that 19% of students can only understand a small part 

of the content in English teaching, 68% of students can understand most of the content, but there are 

difficulties in understanding rare words, and 13% of students with a good foundation can fully follow 

the progress of English teaching. 



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In general, the case-based bilingual teaching reform of the course of International Engineering Contract 

has been successful from several aspects, such as the rationality of methods, models and assessment 

methods, students’ acceptance and satisfaction, and the completion of teaching objectives. However, it 

is still necessary to carry out dynamic reform of teaching content and teaching methods according to 

the development and requirements of the industry and the characteristics of each class of students. 

 

   

Figure 6. Survey of Students’ Overall              Figure 7. Investigation on Student’  

Satisfaction with Their Courses               Satisfaction with Case Teaching Method 



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Figure 8. Survey of Students’ Acceptance          Figure 9. Survey of Acceptability of  

of the Difficulty of the Course Content               Teaching in English 

 

6. Summary and Reflection 

This teaching reform has carried out different degrees of innovation from the application of teaching 

methods, the update of teaching mode, the improvement of teaching content and other aspects, and 

evaluated the effect of this teaching reform through the questionnaire survey of students. It can be seen 

that students not only consolidate and integrate professional knowledge, but also have a preliminary 

understanding of the market situation, enterprise situation and project management practice related to 

international engineering. At the same time, their English communication ability has also been 

improved. However, according to the survey results mentioned above, some students still have the 

problem of poor course acceptance and inability to keep up with the bilingual teaching progress. In the 

future teaching, teachers should try their best to take into account every student and ensure the 

professional and English learning effect of every student by improving teaching methods and 

constantly perfecting teaching materials. It lays a good foundation for students to engage in 

international engineering related work in the future.   

 

 

 

 



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References 

Lei, Z. Y., Jiang, L. P., & Chen, W. (2020). Reform of the teaching mode of “International Engineering 

Procurement and Contract Management” based on the training of applied talents. Science and 

Education Guide, 2020(15), 3. 

Li, Q. M. (2019). International Engineering Management. Nanjing: Southeast University Press. 

Li, Y., & Yang, H. Y. (2021). Construction of International Engineering talent training curriculum 

System under the “Belt and Road” Initiative. Education and Teaching Forum, 2021(8), 4. 

Liu, T. T., Sheng, J., Zhang, J. et al. (2023). Research on mixed teaching mode of bilingual curriculum 

for international engineering contracting. Construction Economics, 44(S01), 438-440. 

Ministry of Commerce of the People’s Republic of China. (2023). Investment cooperation with 

countries along the Belt and Road in 2022. 

Yuan, J. F., Deng, X. P., Li, Q. M. et al. (2022). Exploration and practice of discussion-based teaching 

mode of international Engineering Management course. University Education, 2022(08), 221-224. 

Yuan, J. F., Li, Q. M., Deng, X. P. et al. (2013). Bilingual Teaching reform of International 

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22(01), 102-108. 

 


