The forum was held in the concert hall of Liuxiandong Campus

On April 14-15, the “Integrity, Innovation, Inheritance and Transcendence: Forum on Foreign Language Teaching Reform and Development of Vocational Education in the New Era”, sponsored by Foreign Language Education Working Committee of Chinese Society for Technical and Vocational Education and organized by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press and SZPT, was held successfully in a parallel way of “online + offline”, attracting the participation of more than ten thousand foreign language teachers from brother colleges across the country, designed to propose new measures and contribute new schemes for the reform, innovation and high-quality development of foreign language teaching. The contents of this forum included keynote reports, themed reports, topics on the integration of industry and education, topics on teaching reform, lecture exchange and open classroom, etc.

Lu Xin, President of Chinese Society for Technical and Vocational Education and former Vice Minister of Education; Zhang Lei, Director of Teaching and Quality Division, Department of Vocational and Adult Education, Ministry of Education; Chang Xiaoling, Deputy Secretary of the Party Committee, Vice Chairman and Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press; Martin Fleischer, Director of Sino-German Higher Vocational Education Innovation Center of Shenzhen Polytechnic and former Consul General of German Consulate in Guangzhou; Xu Jianling, President of SZPT; Zhao Jizheng, Deputy Director of Foreign Language Education Working Committee of Chinese Society for Technical and Vocational Education & Dean of School of Foreign Languages and Business of SZPT, as well as other leaders and guests attended the opening ceremony. On the eve of the opening of the forum, Yang Xinbin, Secretary of the Party Committee of SZPT, had a cordial talk with Lu Xin and his delegation.

Lu Xin delivered a keynote report entitled “Focusing on high-quality development, cultivating talents for modernization”. Guided by the core contents of the spirit of the Party’s 20^th National Congress, and based on the actual requirements of the modern industrial system construction, the report condensed five “new” aspects: new ideas, new fields, new tracks, new drivers and new advantages, made a systematic and forward-looking elaboration on the new historical orientation of vocational education and the deployment of talents in the new era, and pointed out a development direction of high-quality vocational education in the new era. The report indicated that the development and reform of foreign language education in vocational colleges should keep up with the major strategic needs of the country and face the main battlefield of national economic development. The forum called for innovation-driven development and using digital technology to create a new path. The “power of education” should be promoted to realize the “power of manufacturing”. We should coordinate the collaborative innovation of vocational education, higher education and continuing education, advance the integration of secondary vocational education and regular high school education, the integration of industry and education, and the integration of science and education, constantly optimize the positioning of type-based education, give full play to regional advantages and characteristics, enable international development with foreign languages, and build a modern education system to serve the all-round development of people, serve the economic and social development, and support the new development pattern.

Zhang Lei said that the forum was a response to the mission of vocational education in the times and showed the achievements of foreign language teaching. Zhang Lei put forward three suggestions on deepening the reform and innovation of foreign language teaching in the new era: first, grasp the new situation of reform and development; second, strengthen the construction of teaching resources; third, actively fit into digital construction, explore a new model and new path for digitalization to enable foreign language teaching of vocational education, and promote the improvement and development of China’s modern vocational education system.

Chang Xiaoling expressed her congratulations on the opening of this forum. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, as the secretariat unit of the China Research Center for the Development of Vocational Foreign Language Education and the Foreign Language Education Working Committee of Chinese Society for Technical and Vocational Education, has been devoted to vocational education for 20 years, committed to building a new ecology of integration and coordinated development of industry and research, and promoting the cultivation of high-level talents in line with national strategies. In the future, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press will also blaze new trails and serve the high-quality development of foreign language teaching in vocational education in an all-round way.

Xu Jianling said in his speech that the School of Foreign Languages and Business has been actively exploring a new mode of training foreign language talents in higher vocational colleges based on the development needs of modern service industry in the Greater Bay Area, and has made fruitful achievements. This forum was an active response to the high-quality development of foreign language teaching in vocational education, as well as a powerful act of school-enterprise cooperation and win-win growth. He believed that this forum would achieveexcellent results that are forward-looking and instructive and contribute to the cultivation of higher-level foreign language professionals.

With the theme of “Bilingual teaching boosts German dual-system vocational education”, Martin Fleischer showed the German dual-system vocational education model, which combines the alternation of working and learning with both theoretical teaching and practical operation. He also pointed out that vocational education should adjust the language teaching strategies according to the actual needs of society and industry, help the participating teachers broaden their international vision, and build an international bridge to promote educational exchanges and cooperation between China and Germany.

Centering on the theme of “Exploration and practice of digital reform of foreign Language teaching in vocational education”, Zhao Jizheng systematically analyzed the historical background and design conception of digital transformation of higher vocational education. He pointed out that the goal of digital transformation is to build a virtuous circle of digital ecological system, in order to adapt to the change and development of the digital economy era, and through improving the professional quality of learners, feed the development of information technology and industry, so as to achieve two-way empowerment.

The “Teaching Reform” session of this forum invited heads of departments from higher vocational colleges to share their experiences and insights on the professional transformation of higher vocational colleges, foreign language teaching reform and other topics; the “Integration of Industry and Education” session invited representatives from well-known enterprises such as Shenzhen Cloud Translation Technology, Jingdong Technology, Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, Unipus, etc., to share their new achievements and new paradigms with respect to integration of industry and education, and school-enterprise cooperative education, and discuss the opportunities and challenges of building a new ecology of intelligent teaching under the digital transformation of education.

(School of Foreign Languages and Business)