Implications
of Thompson Rivers University’s global competence model on Chinese vocational
colleges
Liu Yang (刘洋), visiting scholar at Thompson Rivers
University, Canada
Many vocational college
students are expected to work with individuals from all over the world.
However, it is a challenge for them to know how to effectively interact and
cooperate with people from multiple cultures in a professional context. Thus,
it is crucial to provide college students with global competence education.
Thompson Rivers
University (TRU), Canada, sets a good example of global competence education
for Chinese vocational colleges. Lui’s project aims to 1) discover how
competent Chinese vocational college students are and whether they have a
strong motivation to gain global competence development; 2) determine the key
features of the TRU model and how they might be transferred to Chinese college
students. These goals were achieved by utilizing questionnaires on global
competence with 316 college students in Beijing and interviews with 6 TRU
faculty involved in the Global Competence Certificate program.
Liu Yang is a visiting scholar from Thompson Rivers University, Canada.
Global
understanding and cultural intelligence development in high school English
students
Wang Lingbin
(王灵滨), Hangzhou Entel Foreign Language
School, Zhejiang
The Global
Understanding Program of the Hangzhou Entel Foreign Language School has been
running for over seven years. It is a virtual exchange class with high-schools
in the USA, the UK, Poland, Finland, and Australia. The program aims to develop
their intercultural and socio-cultural communication in English and their
understanding of cultural and global issues.
The presentation will
first explain the context of the Global Understanding Program and provide some
short illustrative examples of classroom activities. The pre- and post-course
CQ surveys’ results will be given before the third stage of presenting the five
conclusions drawn from the research. The presentation will detail what other
professionals need to consider when building and measuring intercultural
communication competences with their students.
Wang Lingbin is the director of international affairs at the Hangzhou Entel Foreign
Language School (HEFLS), Zhejiang province. As the Global Understanding
Program’s administrator, she brings international experience directly to her
students through virtual communication links with students in five countries,
including the USA, Poland, and Finland.
Investigating
the impacts of integrating critical thinking through the EFL flipped classroom
Jiang Jing (蒋静), Newcastle University, UK
In Chinese EFL
university classrooms, there are considerable difficulties and challenges for
integrated CT in teachers’ instructions and students’ speaking practice. These
problems vary from unbalanced time management and minimal practice
opportunities to a lack of CT understanding. To overcome these hurdles, the
flipped classroom, as an innovative pedagogy in technology-enhanced language
learning, is a potential pedagogical approach because it brings active learning
into the classroom.
This mixed-methods
intervention research is one of the very first studies exploring the impacts of
integrated CT instructions in EFL speaking skills through the flipped classrooms.
Sixty participants will be involved in this research. A pretest-posttest design
comprised of comparing-experimental design with video observation and
interviews will be adopted to investigate how the integration of critical
thinking instruction and activity in the flipped classroom impacts Chinese
university EFL learners’ critical thinking and speaking skills.
Jiang Jing is a Ph.D. Candidate at Newcastle University, UK. She previously
completed her MA in education at Newcastle University, where she focused on
using the flipped classroom in English language teaching. Her research
interests lie primarily in thinking skills in ELT, technology-enhanced language
learning, and both quantitative and qualitative methods in educational
research.
