Hosted by Shanghai International Studies University (SISU), organized by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press (SFLEP) and supported by SISU Intercultural Institute under the guidance of the Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, the 5rd SFLEP Shanghai Intercultural Competence Contest concluded at SFLEP on November 29. A total of 84 participants from 28 teams stood out among thousands of students from more than 30 universities in Shanghai and made it to the one-and-a-half-day semi-final and final. Chen Tianhao and Zhou Hongyang from College of Foreign Languages (CFL) and Xie Luyi from Sino-British College (SBC), representatives of USST, were promoted with excellent performance in the semi-final and won the second prize in the final after a fierce competition among 10 groups.
This intercultural competence competition is designed to develop college students' multi-cultural communication ability, providing students with not only patriotic feelings and cultural confidence, but also an international perspective and good intercultural communication skills. The topic (multicultural life, public diplomacy or business communication) was decided by drawing lots, each team developed an original cross-cultural communication case related to the theme in a combination of their own experience, observations or reading. After the on-campus selection, pre-competition training and heated discussion was done, our three students finally decided on the theme of public diplomacy. In the form of sitcoms, they vividly reproduced the different perspectives of a husband and wife from different cultural backgrounds on epidemic prevention measures and different attitudes towards governmental decision-making under the background of the COVID-19 pandemic situation, which highlighted the strong cohesion in Chinese culture. In the final, the students cooperated sincerely and tacitly in three parts—quick question and answer, video case review and Chinese story telling. They showed a deep understanding of cross-cultural communication theory, the creative ability in the process of developing cases and a spirit of teamwork, which left a deep impression on other teams and particularly in the case presentation received high praise from a number of the judges.
The Public English Teaching and Research Center holds firmly the spirit of the Guidelines for College English Teaching and experiences from leading the academic English teaching pilot reform of college English teaching in Shanghai exploring cross-cultural competence teaching. Our public English teaching continues to innovate talent training modes, making full use of the platform at all levels for foreign language competition and engage in the selection, training and guidance for our outstanding students who participate in the competition for honors. The great achievement in this cross-cultural competence contest will help to train first-class talent with both family and national feelings in an international vision. In September this year, the Shanghai Institute of Public Diplomacy, jointly established by the the Shanghai Public Diplomacy Association and USST, was officially signed and listed at USST. Our students discussed the topic of public diplomacy with other students in the competition, which demonstrated our language style and strengthened our cultural confidence, and added new highlights to our public diplomacy research.
