The history of the College English Department is as long as that of Shenzhen University. It is the university’s oldest teaching department and the school’s largest team of instructors for general compulsory courses. Among the 63 faculty members there are 1 professor, 23 associate professors, and 9 Ph.D. holders. Our faculty were professionally trained and dedicated to teaching duties. According to feedback from the Teaching Affairs Office, the teaching evaluation data of our faculty has topped the university for years. We boast many instructors who are loved by students and have made many excellent pedagogical achievements. Many of them are prize-winners in teaching competitions at provincial and national levels, and two have been awarded the “President Teaching Excellence Award”. The department has been granted the “Top Teaching Achievements Team” in years 2017 and 2019.
The department holds the responsibility of offering general compulsory college English classes and English electives for students of various levels, including all undergraduate students and more than 3000 graduate students at the Master’s and Doctorate’s level. Aiming to serve the reform and opening up and economic/social development of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in the new era, we strive to meet the students’ needs for advancing their professional endeavors, scaffold their aptitude for international exchange, and aid their further studies or employment. In the face of the challenging needs of students at different levels, together with the demanding development of English education in China in general, we, an important part of general education in Shenzhen University, are making great efforts to cultivate students’ overall English skills, together with their ability to think critically and communicate cross-culturally, and on improving the comprehensive cultural literacy, helping them to become innovative and entrepreneurial talents with a broad vision, excellent leadership and personality, and outstanding ability. At the same time, they are trained to become international talents with cultural self-confidence, a global vision and a spirit of cooperation, being able to use English proficiently, think interculturally, and compete internationally. In recent years, the average CET (the national standardized English test for college students) scores of our students have been consistently higher than the average of 211 and 985 project (nation-wide key) universities.
We are committed to constructing and implementing a multi-level, “One-Body, Two-Wing” teaching system. Starting from 2011, all freshmen are required to take an entry-test of English proficiency. The top 15% enter the A-level classes; the other 85% the B-level classes. On top of that, arts- and sports-specialized students directly enter the C-level classes. The original intention of such layered teaching and learning is to arrange courses in accordance with each student body’s training requirements for listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating skills, so as to attain targeted and individualized teaching. For example, A-level classes, which aim to cultivate top-notch talents university-wide, adopt a SPOC-based blended model of teaching: we attempt an open English communication group through both online discussion platforms and face-to-face classrooms, so as to foster a student-centered teaching and learning experience.
In addition to a “platform” of college English classes at three different levels, we also create many “dots” as features of special courses, making it possible to present a comprehensive picture of English teaching and learning. According to the specific needs of each school and department university-wide, we have tailor-made various special courses for them separately. For example, IELTS courses were opened for the School of Computer and Software for their students’ needs for professional accreditation. For the Institue of Advanced Study(IAS), we offer core comprehensive English courses for science and technology purposes. This is our exploration of a new teaching practice integrating academic English and general English. We have formed a dynamic three-level (A, B, and C levels) layered teaching, and joined common English teaching with elective, experimental, and elite courses catering to various student bodies at different levels.
In order to cultivate students' cultural knowledge and critical thinking skills, we steadily promote the construction of our curriculum “of Two Wings”. One is to offer elective courses aimed at mutual cultural understanding, such as Chinese culture, Australian culture, American society and culture, etc., so as to strengthen the humanistic literacy of students, broaden the scope of their knowledge and innovation, and cultivate students' cross-cultural awareness and ability. The other is to offer a series of “skill-based” elective courses such as English debating, English public speaking and communicative English writing, aiming to enhance students' ability of critical thinking and aptitude for professional and academic communication in English.
Considering the practical nature of language learning, the College English Department carries out after-class activities through after-school tutoring and organizing competitions to create a comprehensive and multi-dimensional language learning atmosphere. In the FLTRP Cup, a series of top-level, most popularly participated English contest nationwide, we have received frequent reports of success in its speaking (shortlisted as a national key competition), writing and reading contests. In 2017 and 2019, our students have won the first prize of the national speech contest and the top prize of the provincial contest. In 2018, we broke the record in winning one first prize and three second prizes in the semi-finals of the reading contests. It is the first time for us to be the top in institutional rankings provincially, and the first time to win the national first prize.
In recent years, the college English teaching team has produced a series of high-quality research output, including research articles, monographs, teaching materials, translated works, and high-level research schorlarship. Research output covers areas of foreign language education and teaching, linguistics and applied linguistics, and cross-cultural research. Our faculty members have published multiple papers, monographs, translated works, etc., and won 2 grants from the National Social Science Fund, and a number of provincial and ministerial scientific research, teaching and research schorlarship.
Implementing intelligent teaching and learning, the College English Department carries out the exploration and innovative practice of teaching models empowered by artificial intelligence. We have gradually applied an intelligent evaluation system (iTest) and various training systems (UNIPUS intelligent teaching system, lindge.com cloud teaching system, and pigai.org automated assessment system) in teaching, integrating intelligent teaching, learning, management, evaluation and testing.
The courses offered by College English audio-visual laboratory combine "TA-assisted learning" with "semi-autonomous learning", putting forward an effective and practical plan for computer-assisted language learning. In October 2018, we signed a framework agreement with the the Higher Education Center and Information Center of FLTRP, launching the "University Foreign Language Smart Teaching Demonstration Base". We hope to cooperate with, explore and utilize high-quality foreign language education resources, enrich our teaching methods, integrate information technology and higher education, and promote the continuous improvement of the quality of foreign language education.
In sum: the department fosters virtue through education, integrates research and teaching, and is actively being empowered by AI, harvesting outstanding achievements. We will, as always, implement the "Shenzhen University Outstanding Undergraduate Education Action Plan", adapting to the needs of future talents for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and the Shenzhen Pilot Demonstration Zone of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. We will help students become interdisciplinary talents and attend to their individual needs for development. The Three-In-One talent training system (general education, professional training, and characteristic development) will support autonomous learning, and finally improves students' knowledge, skills and quality.
