(East-West Question) Liu Hong: What kind of international talents should Chinese foreign language education cultivate?
China News Agency, Dalian, April 29th: Liu Hong: What kind of international talents should Chinese foreign language education cultivate?
China News Agency reporter Yang Yi
At present, the world is undergoing profound changes unseen in a century, and China is getting closer to the center of the world stage.
Telling Chinese stories well and spreading Chinese voices have put forward new and higher requirements for foreign language education reform and talent training in the new era.
What kind of international talents should Chinese foreign language education cultivate?
What opportunities and challenges do you face?
How should foreign language universities participate in global education governance?
Liu Hong, President of Dalian University of Foreign Studies, recently accepted an exclusive interview with China News Agency "Dongxi Wen", explaining the importance of China's foreign language education reform and the cultivation of international talents in the new era from multiple perspectives.
The following is a summary of the interview transcript:
China News Service reporter: Under the great changes unseen in a century, why should China's foreign language education cultivate international talents, and what kind of international talents should be cultivated?
Liu Hong:
The world is facing major changes unseen in a century.
To realize the dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, this enables us to walk China's own path in the face of a more complicated international situation and the spread of the epidemic.
To walk your own path, talents are the key, higher education is the key, and foreign language education is the key.
The new round of reform and opening up, the "Belt and Road" construction and other undertakings require high-quality international talents to provide guarantee and support.
The goals of reform and opening up in the new era are different: 40 years ago, China urgently needed to learn from the world; today, the world needs to know more about China, the common values of all mankind in Chinese values, and the Chinese solutions and Chinese strengths in the cause of global governance. Learn about China's efforts and contributions to world poverty reduction and climate change.
Therefore, today's Chinese foreign language education undertakes the mission and responsibility of cultivating high-quality compound international foreign language talents.
To sum up, I think that high-quality interdisciplinary international talents mainly include the following four types of talents: First, strengthen the cultivation of polylingual and multilingual talents.
In the future international environment and international work, there is an urgent need for talents with one specialty and multiple skills. Foreign language colleges and universities should take advantage of multilingualism, strive to cultivate talents with common languages combined with non-universal languages for the country, and open up more strategic languages to adapt to the needs of the “Belt and Road” construction. need.
The second is to strengthen the cultivation of "foreign language + professional" talents.
It mainly includes talent training modes such as foreign language + law, foreign language + finance, foreign language + communication, foreign language + international relations, etc.
The third is to strengthen the cultivation of regional talents.
While teaching a certain language, strengthen the training of research talents in the target country, involving the political, economic, cultural, technological, religious, historical and other fields of the target country, expand the breadth of knowledge and the depth of thinking of students, from an international perspective Interpret regional and country-specific issues and adapt to the needs of China's participation in global governance.
The fourth is to strengthen the cultivation of international Chinese education talents, that is, to cultivate compound talents of "foreign language + Chinese international education + communication", so as to prepare corresponding talent reserves for overseas Confucius Institutes and study in China.
Peking University Undergraduate Graduation Ceremony and Degree Awarding Ceremony.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Jiang Qiming
China News Service reporter: Foreign language education occupies an important position in higher education. How can Chinese foreign language universities participate in global education governance?
Liu Hong:
Chinese foreign language institutions have disciplinary advantages in participating in global education governance, and should make good use of their advantages to drive Chinese higher education to participate in global education governance.
At present, China's participation in global education governance has two basic tasks: one is to promote the construction of China's foreign language education system and to form interactive exchanges with foreign language education in other countries.
Including in universities, middle and primary schools, opening up, opening Qi, and strengthening the foreign languages that China needs to go to the world, and do a good job in the construction of national strategic foreign languages and personnel training; the second is to promote Chinese to the world, foreign language colleges should actively play foreign language disciplines Advantages, cross-integration with Chinese subjects, promote the development of international Chinese education and global Confucius Institutes, help improve the quality of Chinese education, and promote more countries to incorporate Chinese into their national education systems.
China News Service: What are the characteristics of China compared with the West in terms of higher education, especially foreign language education?
Liu Hong:
The development of China's modern higher education system has gone through two stages: learning from the Soviet Union and learning from the West.
In the early days of the founding of New China, the types of universities, the classification of disciplines and majors, and the teaching content were more imitated from the Soviet Union.
Since the 1980s, with the deepening of reform and opening up and the development of international exchanges in education, China's disciplines and majors, curriculum and talent training models have absorbed many beneficial Western practices, such as general education curriculum construction, tutor system and academies. system, etc.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the fundamental purpose of higher foreign language education is to cultivate morality and cultivate people, cultivate socialist builders and successors who can take root in China and integrate China and foreign countries, strengthen the study of Chinese culture, and strengthen students' cross-cultural communication skills and thinking Ability development.
College students participated in the 11th China Model United Nations Conference.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Yang Bo
Compared with the West, China's foreign language education has two characteristics: First, it emphasizes national consciousness and national feelings, and requires students to closely combine the ideal of life with the needs of the people of the motherland.
This is closely related to the literati ideal of our traditional culture of "cultivating one's own body, aligning the family, governing the country and the world", and also closely related to the important mission of foreign language education to carry the fundamental task of cultivating morality and cultivating people in the new era and cultivating newcomers who are responsible for the great cause of national rejuvenation.
Emphasizing the value of collectivism is an important manifestation of distinguishing the "individual value" of the West.
The second is to highlight the concept of "harmony".
"Each of the world has its own beauty, and the United States and the United States share", co-construction, common, communion, and sharing, derived from the idea of "harmony" in Chinese culture, modern foreign language education upholds the concept of openness and inclusiveness, and the "Silk Road Spirit" proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping and The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind goes in the same direction, surpassing the Western "zero-sum game" thinking.
Of course, China's foreign language education should also learn from the advanced educational concepts from all over the world, better combine the acquisition of language skills with the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of critical thinking ability, and integrate Eastern and Western educational concepts, so that more Chinese students can master 1-2 Foreign languages, serving China's new era of reform and opening up.
China News Service reporter: China's higher education development stage, pattern, and capabilities have undergone profound changes. What opportunities and challenges are faced by foreign language education international talent training?
Liu Hong:
The rapid development of Chinese higher education has made a leap in scale and quality. At the same time, in the face of great changes unseen in a century and the historical stage of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, the development stage, driving force and pattern of Chinese higher education have all undergone profound changes. With changes, higher foreign language education must seize opportunities and meet challenges.
Higher foreign language education carries the important mission of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. It has never been needed by the country and the nation as it is today. The importance of foreign language education has been raised to the most important height in history.
Second, the new technology revolution brings opportunities and challenges.
The development of new technologies such as machine translation poses challenges to the training of traditional international talents. It is necessary to cultivate international talents in the new era who can coexist and work with robots.
The cultivation of big data thinking and artificial intelligence talents is imperative.
Therefore, it is necessary to update the educational concept, promote the integration of liberal arts and sciences, promote teachers to update their concepts, learn new technologies, integrate and adapt to the new requirements of the high-tech era, and update educational content.
The translation terminal displayed at the iFLYTEK booth can translate 8 languages at the same time.
Photo by China News Agency reporter Zhang Hengwei
Thirdly, foreign language education should expand its opening up, realize the integration of production and education internally, and carry out student-teacher interaction and exchanges with foreign universities. In particular, it is necessary to overcome the impact of the new crown epidemic, update communication methods, continue to strengthen the digital construction of educational resources, and enhance the level of international cooperation in foreign language education. frequency and level.
(Finish)
Interviewee Profile:
Liu Hong, President of Dalian University of Foreign Studies, Deputy to the 13th National People's Congress, Deputy Director of the Teaching Steering Committee for Foreign Languages and Literature in Higher Education Institutions of the Ministry of Education, Chairman of the Russian Teaching Guidance Sub-Committee, Member of the Expert Committee of the State Textbook Committee, and Member of the State Language Commission Director of China Northeast Asian Language Research Center, Vice President of the 8th Council of Translators Association of China, President of Dalian European and American Students Association.
His main research areas are Russian language and culture, international political linguistics, Russian pedagogy and intercultural communication, and foreign language education.
He is the editor-in-chief of the international academic journal "Contrastive Pragmatics" and the director of the editorial board of "Foreign Language and Foreign Language Teaching".
He is the author of "Russian Language and Culture Theoretical Research and Practical Exploration", "Russian Language and Culture and Intercultural Communication", etc.