To deepen inter-university teaching exchanges, expand paths for talent cultivation cooperation, solve difficulties in the development of foreign language disciplines in local universities, and comprehensively improve the quality of talent training and discipline construction, an 8-member delegation led by Li Li, Dean of the School of Foreign Languages of Heze University, and Liu Jing, Vice Dean, including directors of the English Department and Business English Department, visited our school for research and exchange on June 8. Song Xiukui, Dean of our School, Xie Shijin and Zou Deping, Vice Deans, Chi Yingjuan, Deputy Party Secretary, as well as directors of all teaching and research offices and key faculty representatives attended the forum, which was presided over by Song Xiukui.

At the beginning of the forum, Song Xiukui extended a warm welcome to the visiting delegation. She gave a detailed introduction to our school’s overall school-running conditions, including discipline and major settings, faculty team development, achievements in discipline construction, and training support for students’ discipline competitions. She pointed out that the two schools share highly similar school-running scales and major layouts, and confront many common challenges in discipline development and talent cultivation. There exists a solid foundation and broad prospects for bilateral exchanges and cooperation. She hoped that both sides could conduct in-depth candid exchanges and learn from each other’s strengths. Afterwards, Li Li elaborated on the school-running orientation, current major construction progress and innovative teaching reform measures of the School of Foreign Languages of Heze University. Meanwhile, she frankly shared the bottlenecks, difficulties and development demands encountered in discipline construction and talent cultivation combined with the actual development of her school.

During the exchange session, Shi Lei, Director of the Business English Teaching and Research Office, and Lin Dejiang, Person-in-charge of the English Major, delivered speeches successively. They systematically introduced the school-running characteristics, curriculum systems, talent cultivation modes and current development status of our undergraduate program of Cross-border E-commerce, junior college program of Business English, and English Teacher Education program respectively. Subsequently, both sides held heated discussions on routine work including the optimization of talent training programs, curriculum system construction, faculty team cultivation and student competition training. In-depth targeted communication was also carried out focusing on characteristic talent cultivation work such as the Normal Students’ Vocational Skills Competition and micro-major construction, where both parties shared practical experience, operational methods and improvement approaches.

Furthermore, targeting common problems facing foreign language discipline development among local universities, the two sides launched comprehensive and in-depth discussions on core topics, including the innovation of talent cultivation modes for teacher-oriented and application-oriented foreign language majors, the full integration of curriculum-based ideological and political education into classroom teaching, the improvement of students’ postgraduate entrance examination and employment quality, the cultivation of young teachers’ scientific research capacity, and the creation of brand activities for cross-cultural communication. Both sides analyzed key and difficult issues in current discipline development, exchanged new ideas for talent cultivation, explored new paths for disciplinary development, and realized mutual learning and complementary advantages.

Featuring rich content and strong pertinence, this research and exchange activity precisely focused on the core difficulties of local foreign language education and key talent cultivation work. It effectively strengthened communication and friendship between the two schools of foreign languages, laying a solid foundation for regularized exchanges and in-depth cooperation in the future. Going forward, our school will adhere to the philosophy of open school running, continuously strengthen communication and docking with brother universities inside and outside Shandong Province, and carry out regular activities including teaching seminars, experience sharing and resource exchange. By drawing on advanced school-running concepts and mature talent cultivation models, our school will further deepen education and teaching reforms, consolidate the foundation of discipline construction, promote the high-quality development of foreign language education, and cultivate more high-quality, interdisciplinary and application-oriented foreign language talents.