On November 24, 2022, from 13:00 to 14:30, we invited Ms. Wen Ting, an associate professor from Beijing Language and Culture University, to give an interesting and profound online lecture on “Second Language Acquisition” to the students of the Department of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages, hosted by Ms. Wang Hailing. The lecture focused on how to use second language acquisition theory in teaching practice, how to plan academic research topics and research methods, and how to link students’ language learning, language teaching and thesis writing through the course “Second Language Acquisition”. The lecture was divided into three sessions: Ms. Wang Hailing’s speech, Ms. Wen Ting’s lecture on “Second Language Acquisition” and free Q&A.

The lecturer of “Second Language Acquisition”, Associate Professor Wen Ting, is the subject leader of the School of Chinese Language at Beijing Language and Culture University and the head of the Curriculum Development Team of the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages Wisdom Education Project. She is mainly engaged in second language acquisition research and has taught at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Columbia University in New York. She has received many awards, including the First Prize of Beijing Higher Education Teaching Achievement Award and the First Prize of Beijing Young Teachers’ Basic Teaching Skills Competition.

In the lecture, Associate Professor Wen Ting, with her profound disciplinary knowledge and broad research vision, focused on “Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language” from “Acquisition Factors in Classroom Teaching”, “Bias Analysis”, “Hypothesis of Acquisition Sequence”, “Language Input and Interaction”, and “Individual Factors of Learners”, “Insights of Second Language Acquisition as an Interdisciplinarity”. She used the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages Teaching at Beijing Language and Culture University as an example, the lectures vividly showed the frontier of teaching and research in the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages Education for the students of the Department of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages.

In the section of “Acquisition Factors in Classroom Teaching”, Associate Professor Wen Ting explained in detail how to integrate acquisition factors into classroom teaching, such as teaching grammar, other elements of language teaching (phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, etc.), and teaching language skills. She also took the Chinese language classroom in BLCU as an example and made the students realize that they should combine the international students’ own experiences, integrate realistic, typical and communicative situations into the course teaching, present the contents that the students like and combine activities inside and outside the classroom. The mode of “going out” and “inviting in” can make the “acquisition” teaching work better.

In the sections of “Bias Analysis”, “Hypothesis of Acquisition Sequence”, “Language Input and Interaction”, and “Individual Factors of Learners”, Associate Professor Wenting not only explained some of the knowledge points of second language acquisition. For example, teachers should identify sources of bias and correct them, design materials and arrange teaching methods according to students’ acquisition sequence, recognize that learners’ “cognitive processing” (whether learners notice the “input”) is an important part of the transformation of comprehensible input into second language learners’ acquisition results, focus on interaction, and pay attention to the differences in individual factors among learners to adjust students’ motivation and attitude, etc. She also shared with us the contributions that BLCU has made to the community of second language acquisition- the Learner Bias Corpus, the Chinese Phonetic Point Query System, the Chinese Pinyin Knowledge Point Query System, and the and 62 mini-Lessons on Elementary Chinese Grammar Points, etc. These valuable resources will be of great benefit to our research in second language acquisition.

At the same time, Associate Professor Wenting’s teaching method of combining in-class and out-of-class, teacher-student co-construction, and patient and professional one-on-one counseling teaching attitude to students after class have greatly inspired the students.

During the lecture, students actively interacted with Associate Professor Wenting in a relaxed and pleasant atmosphere. In the Q&A session, students raised their own confusion in their professional learning with the lecture content and their own learning experience, and received detailed and profound answers from Associate Professor Wenting. The students had a deeper understanding of the field of second language acquisition.

The lecture was very informative and exciting, which inspired the students in their academic research and teaching practice. Through this lecture, the students were able to dialogue and communicate with the academic frontiers of second language acquisition and the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages Education, and keep pace with the times. The lecture also enriched the students’ knowledge of second language acquisition and expanded their academic horizons. It is believed that through this lecture, the students of the Department of Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages will be able to make continuous progress in their future studies and researches, and improve themselves to contribute to the Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages Education.