Seminars promote development of second language teaching and scientific research

The seminar is held over the weekend at Xi’an Jiaotong University in Xi’an, Shaanxi province in Northwest China.

The meeting was co-sponsored by the Foreign Language College of Xi'an Jiaotong University and the North American Association of Chinese Education Research and Planning. More than 70 experts from related research fields from all over the world participated in and exchanged with teachers and students from domestic universities.

Chen Xiangjing, dean of the Foreign Language College of Xi'an Jiaotong University, gave an opening speech, saying that the university has a long history and has made a lot of efforts in second language teaching and research. She hoped that the seminar would deepen the exchange of achievements in the field of second language learning and help her college advance in teaching and research.

Professors and experts from the University of Minnesota, the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shanghai Jiaotong University, and Nanjing Normal University gave special lectures on research results.

Professor Miranda Lin, professor of Illinois State University, was invited to give a speech entitled "Teaching English Language Learning: Inspiring from Cooperative Approaches". She introduced a tripartite collaborative teacher training model beneficial to teachers.

And Martha Thurlow, professor at the University of Minnesota, mentioned a set of data from the American College Survey. Forty-three percent of the students involved had learning disabilities as did 12 percent of the native-born American students. She pointed out that cultural backgrounds influence the public's views on such problems.

Professor Martha Thurlow gives a lecture at the seminar on her research of second language teaching.

She proposes a conventional solution: designing teaching according to students' needs. The purpose of teaching is to make students benefit, to help them gain knowledge, and to provide direction for teaching. Teachers should start with examples and evidence, analysis and statistics, give full play to team effects, and design teaching models to meet needs.

Professor Wang Min, vice-dean of the Foreign Language College of Xi'an Jiaotong University, delivered a speech at the closing ceremony saying that it was a unique academic exchange seminar with great benefits.

"We will continue to study rigorously, devote ourselves to scientific research, and strive to publish new high-level papers and research results," Wang said.