On the afternoon of May 26th, the First Academic Forum for Japanese and German Majors of USST was held in the Lecture Hall of the College of Foreign Languages. Liu Qin, Dean of College of Foreign Languages, Jin Xiaodong, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Committee, Zhang Le, Director of College English Teaching and Research Center, Chen Zheng, Deputy Director of College English Teaching and Research Center, Cao Yun, Deputy Director of the Department of German, Jiang Chunhua, Deputy Director of the Department of Japanese, Gu Dinglan and Zeng Xianghong, Academic English instructors, attended the forum and served as judges. Hu Jingwen and Wu Hanfan, graduate students of the College of Foreign Languages and assistant instructors of the Academic English course, served as moderators. A total of 89 students from Grade 2019 of the Department of German and the Department of Japanese attended the forum.
At the beginning, Zhang Le, Director of College English Teaching and Research Center, delivered an opening message for the forum, in which he introduced the characteristics, rules and learning objectives of academic English with three key expressions, namely “following the world trend”, “carrying forward the cause pioneered by our predecessors and “rising to challenges”, summarized the experience that our university has actively implemented academic English teaching reform and created a first-class academic English course; he then gave confidence and encouragement to the students who would speak at this forum, encouraging them to rise to the challenges.
After that, the forum officially started. All the students were divided into 21 research groups according to their classes and research topics, and each group would select their representatives to present their topics, backgrounds, objectives, results and implications of their research to the teachers and students present. Neatly dressed, natural, poised and confident, the speakers all successfully completed the English presentations of their group topics within the specified time. After a fierce competition, Zhou Hongyang’s group won the Special Prize, Shen Yutong’s group and Zhu Han’s group won the first prize, Ma Qianyi’s group and four other groups the second prize, and Liu Feifei’s group and six other groups the third prize. Meanwhile, Liu Feifei and Yang Wentao from the Department of Japanese and Ma Qianyi and Zhou Hongyang from the Department of German won the Optimum Mien Award with their excellent speeches. All prize winners were given the honorary certificates by the leaders and guests present at the forum.
Finally, Liu Qin, Dean of College of Foreign Languages gave a closing speech for the forum. She first reviewed the history of Sci-tech English teaching in the College of Foreign Languages and emphasized the importance of academic English learning. Then, she fully recognized the excellent performance of the Japanese and German majors at this forum that featured both academically and normatively whether in report topic selection, research contents and PPT production. At the same time, she made suggestions and expectations to the students on the use of body language, paralanguage and other presentation skills. In the end, she also highly appreciated the organization of the forum and hoped to continue to provide a stage for students to present their academic skills in the future.
Based on the “Academic English Reading and Writing” and “Academic English Listening and Speaking”, both key courses of Shanghai Education Commission, the academic English presentation has always been the major part of the second class of academic English in our university. Since 2013, the College of Foreign Languages has built a teaching system that seamlessly integrates classroom learning and extracurricular activities of academic English, hosted the 3rd Shanghai International Academic Forum for Undergraduate Students in 2017 and held academic English competitions within the university for many times in which students were selected and guided to participate in municipal and national competitions and always won many honors. This forum, held for the first time for students not majoring in science and engineering, is both an innovative move to expand college English reform in our university, and another powerful initiative to further deepen the ubiquitous teaching model and cultivate inter-disciplinary talents.
Speech by Liu Qin
Forum Site
A Competitor’ Natural and Graceful Presentation
Group Photo of the Forum
