News

2020 Spring Semester started in an online teaching mode unexpectedly due to the COVID-19 outbreak. It makes the semester very challenging for the CLE foreign language courses, known for their strong interactive nature and feature. Teachers at SUSTech Center for Language Education take the initiative and switch the challange into an opportunity for a more reflective and creative teaching.

With 1648 students and over 130 classes, every teacher in the CLE demonstrates their intelligence, creativity and excellence in teaching and makes foreign language learning a fun and rewarding experience for SUSTech students.

CLE would love to share the effective teaching practices identified with SUSTech members and teachers beyond.

 

1. IDENTIFYING EFFECTIVE ONLINE TEACHING PRACTICES

Online teaching is different from classroom teaching. It requires lots of flexibility, patience, and the willingness to take risks. During the process, CLE teachers keep adjusting and identifying effective online teaching practices, and have been active in sharing great ideas and techniques with colleagues in the CLE work groups, peer observation exchange, course group discussions, and course coordinator meetings.

A survey on online teaching experience was conducted to collect good online teaching practices and the positive aspects of online teaching that CLE teachers will continue to use when getting back to normal classroom teaching. These could be of great value for CLE and SUSTech. Based on the survey results and CLE teachers' sharing sessions, a series of reports of “CLE Online Teaching During COVID-19 Outbreak” will be posted, featuring CLE teachers’ experiences and stories. This time, let's start from “SUSTech English 3” teaching group.

 

2. SUSTECH ENGLISH 3

SUSTech English 3 is the third and advanced course of the SUSTech English series in the CLE core curriculum, which equips students with fluent English communications, critical thinking, and intercultural communication skills for their study of English for academic purposes and subject courses instructed in English.

In 2020 Spring Semester, 643 students are currently enrolled in this course, making it the largest group among all CLE courses. A total of 35 classes are offered to ensure the small class size and to facilitate effective language learning. 10 experienced CLE teachers work in the SE3 teaching team.

Teaching such a big group of students is not an easy job, especially in the online teaching mode. We'll share SE3 teachers' experiences, practices, difficulties, and stories about the online English teaching during the COVID-19 outbreak.

3. MOVING FORWARD

Despite all the difficulties, CLE teachers have successfully and creatively converted the difficult self-isolation time during the pandemic into an active learning arena via planning ahead, adjusting teaching plans and designs, working in teams, experimenting with various online tools and platforms, guiding students to have an effective learning pace and progress, and encouraging them to be the owner of their learning.

Stay calm and keep learning to be great in the time of pandemic!