China's education authorities are to promote the reform of English teaching in higher vocational colleges amid a wave of education reforms across the country, officials said.

"Compared with undergraduate universities, education in vocational colleges should focus more on improving students' practical ability and professional skills, especially in English language teaching," said Liu Dailin, professor at the Open University of China, who is also the director of the Advisory Committee of Foreign Languages Teaching in Vocational Education under the Ministry of Education.

"However, in many disciplines, there are no bright lines between vocational colleges and undergraduate universities in terms of education method and the use of textbooks," Liu said at a forum on English teaching for vocational college students in Shanghai on Saturday.

According to Liu, a new set of English textbooks will be introduced into the country's higher vocational colleges.

This set of textbooks, called Successful English for Vocational Colleges, was co-published by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press and German Cornelsen Schulverlage GmbH.

"Compared with other books, this textbook series looks a lot more at developing students' practical language competence, especially the oral communication ability in daily life and future work," said Fang Yingzhi, a press staff member.

"In Germany, English was also learned as a second language. A lot of good experiences could be learned from Germany. And that's also the reason why we worked together with Cornelsen Schulverlage GmbH to jointly publish the textbook," she said.