“I volunteer for a discussion with the School of Foreign Languages and wish to better understand your demands. That is my concern as the president,” said Xufei, President of the University, who headed a team of administrative heads and visited School of Foreign Languages at 13:30 p.m. Sept. 18. At the meeting, he exchanged views with the faculty of SFL and discussed with them on the development and prospect of the discipline of SFL.
Wang Weimin, the Executive Vice Dean of SFL, thanked Xufei for his concern and extended his warm welcome. He then gave an account of the growth of the School and depicted the development direction of the disciplines of SFL and its focus. Mr. Wang further explained the measures SFL has taken and the problems and countermeasures in this respect. He proposed that the School of Foreign Languages attach great importance to the substantial components of the disciplines, strengthen the foundation deeply rooted in the traditional languages and literature, and make efforts to improve the strength of the disciplines. In this way, SFL can render its full support to the internationalization of the rail traffic discipline and develop engineering students in their humanity accomplishment and international perspectives. Moreover, the teacher’s education structure would be optimized to upgrade the overall levels of teaching practice and researches. Mr. Wang also mentioned at the end of his opening speech that SFL has made plans for the establishment of the two academic research platforms -- the one for ‘the promotion of overseas sinology and Chinese’ and the other one for ‘the international rail traffic engineering translation’, aiming at giving full play to the role of the discipline of foreign languages as soft science.
With regard to the dilemma SFL is presently trapped in, Wang Weimin disclosed that SFL had encountered a large of number of difficulties in many aspects, such as those in the development of the faculty and discipline, in teaching and instruction, and in internationalization. Such difficulties were exemplified in the obstacles and barriers resulting from the high evaluation coefficients required for the appraisal of the teachers’ professional qualifications, shortage in computer-aided teaching software, and lack of support from the University for international exchange of teachers and students. Besides, the plans for “the translation center of Southwest Jiaotong University” and “the research center for overseas sinology of Southwest Jiaotong University” were yet to be approved. SFL hoped that the University would provide necessary support and guidance to the foreign language disciplines in policy designs and financial resources.
Tang Yueqin, Vice Dean of SFL, reported the status quo of the different programmes such as English, French, German, Japanese, Translation and Interpreting, and TCSOL (Teaching Chinese to Speakers of Other Languages). She stated that the prospects of these programmes were quite promising and in particular the ones of TCSOL and German were listed in the top ten of their kinds in our country. After Ms Tang’s presentation, teachers from Department of Japanese Studies, German Studies, and Engineering English Studies briefly introduced the current status and prospects for their departments.
Heads of the different administrative departments participated in the discussion and answered the questions put forward. Some of the issues were resolved on the spot.
Xu Fei listened to the reports carefully and spoke highly of the achievements of SFL. He expressed that the University had fully recognized the contribution SFL had made in English teaching and talent development, and thanked the teachers for their efforts invested.
“I volunteered for a discussion with the School of Foreign Languages and wish to better understand your demands. That is my concern as the president,” Xu Fei said. He reassured the faculty of SFL and emphasized that the solutions were always there for the problems. “It is the courage and determination of the SFL’s leadership that really matter,” added Xu Fei.
Xu Fei said, “SFL should have a sense of crisis and see the problem in the light of development and reform. The present situation is quite crucial. Since the reform and opening up, the discipline of foreign languages in China slowly loses its brilliance and privileged position in China with the pass of time. Apart from universities and colleges, many different institutions like the New Oriental participated in competition in the field of foreign language teaching and many new instruction modes such as artificial intelligence and moocs etc are introduced. Therefore, reform should, and must be performed to ensure the survival and development of the foreign language disciplines of the University.”
Xu Fei put forward two keywords, “transformation and nirvana”, to summarize his points on how to further the development of the disciplines of foreign languages. “Transformation” means that the model of foreign languages discipline should be transformed from the teaching-oriental one to that of research and teaching. To be more specific, that is to promote and develop foreign language teaching in the direction of language – literature – culture – civilization, with the support of doctoral program in foreign Language and literature, and to develop interdisciplinary and high-end talents specialized in foreign languages for business, laws and engineering in the present situation. Meanwhile, “transformation” means innovation and reform, implying to start all over again. We had to suffer from the pain of the transformation similar to that of nirvana. But we would be reborn eventually.
“If we venture to do things we are not familiar with, we are to embrace the rebirth after pains, and a completely new page will unfold itself in front of us,” President Xu Fei said. His eloquent remarks were of great significance and indicated clear direction for the future development of SFL. The leadership and teachers felt greatly motivated and vowed to double their efforts in the revitalization of the disciplines of foreign languages.
Directors and heads of the administrative departments at the meeting include Zhao Yanling, Director of the President’s Office, Qiu Yanjun, Director of the International Office, Zhang Xueyong, Director of the Office of the Literal Arts Development, Xu Yunli, Vice Director of Office of Budget and Finance, Zeng Donghong, Vice Director of Human Resources Office, and Meng Jin, Assistant Director of Asset Management. Xu Ge, General Secretary of CCP Committee of SFL hosted the meeting.