Wang Xiaohong is an associate professor in and director of the Department of Foreign Languages, Culture and Art in the School of Public Administration at Fujian Open University (Fujian OU).
For 30 years she has been committed to teaching, leading the department through all obstacles. Her efforts have been unanimously recognized by her students and peers in Fujian Province, and she has made outstanding contributions to the development of radio and TV education there.
Forging Virtue through Education and Helping Students to Future Success
As a head teacher for nearly ten years, her principles have been to teach through love and to prioritise moral education, conveying to her students the importance of honesty and of concentrated attention.
In the early 1990s, when funding for schools was relatively lacking, and as a head teacher with full-time students, she was always the first to donate money to students in financial difficulties. Once a student had attempted suicide due to the breakdown of a romantic relationship, and she stayed with him in the hospital, helping rebuild his courage and confidence; this student ended up becoming a teacher himself. One of Wang Xiaohong’s classes was named an "Excellent Class” in the Fujian RTVU system. Even after graduation, her students would think of her as a friend with whom they can share their joys and sorrows.
Faced with a shortage of teachers when the School of Public Administration was established, she volunteered to work as counselor for a joint university-enterprise programme of over 120 students. Her work included selecting courses, ordering textbooks, scheduling classes, collecting tuition, ensuring students came to class and finished their homework, and organising and administering final examinations. She worked extra hours, and answered all student questions in a timely manner, making sure none were left out. Her patience and care won their respect and love, as well as the praise of enterprise staff, and registration in her class reached as high as 98%.
In addition, she continued to supervise over ten English-major non-graduates, encouraging them to complete their studies.
Teaching to Help Students Pursue their Dreams
She has remained true to her ideals as a teacher.
She is serious about every aspect of teaching. From March 2019 to January 2020, she led the Department of Foreign Languages of Fujian OU and the Shaowu branch in a pilot multi-modal teaching-reform programme for Public English held by the Open University of China (OUC). She attended every in-person lecture, gained a clear picture of every student's learning situation, and interacted with students online, which they welcomed. During the fight against Covid-19 in 2020, she set up a QQ chat group for degree-conferral English exams for non-English majors throughout the province, and it became a foreign-language-learning platform for all RTVU students there. She answered all student questions and provided counseling services, covering English vocabulary, attendance, and other online services.
She often uses her spare time to help her students. When a Computer Science major sought her help preparing for the New Concept English Competition, she offered him one-on-one instruction, correcting his pronunciation and intonation word by word and sentence by sentence, until he could speak accurately and fluently. She even attended the competition to observe his performance. She has helped many other students participate in English competitions within the Fujian RTVU system and nationally, where they have won several awards.
She is also meticulous in correcting homework and guiding paper-writing. Under her instruction, two students have won awards for their theses in the national RTVU system.
Undertaking Scientific Research and Innovation to Help Students Achieve Greater Success
As an educator, she is well aware of the timeliness of teaching research and education innovation and development.
She continues striving to improve as both a teacher and an academic. She has published over ten academic papers, and two text books of which she was chief editor, with Basic English for Tea Science winning 2nd prize in the "Teaching Achievements of Fujian" competition in 2017.
In order to pool the strengths of English teachers, enhance the capacity for scientific research and enthusiasm of foreign-language teachers, and improve the quality of English teaching in Fujian Province, she set up two teams to implement teaching of Management English 3 and Degree English, and invited English-language experts from the OUC and around the province to conduct academic training of English teachers in the RTVU system. She has also organised seminars on English teaching in the RTVU system, and engaged in research related to ideological and political education in the Foreign Languages Department.
As a member of the Teaching and Research Centre of the Faculty of Foreign Languages of the OUC, she helped compile a text book of medical English, construct teaching resources for Comprehensive English and Advanced English (2), and construct a question bank and the teacher team for Management English 3, which came 1st in the "Online Teaching-activity Competition in Open Education" of Fujian RTVU in 2019.
For 30 years, Wang Xiaohong has been conscientious in her work, caring about each student. She has received many commendations from the Fujian Provincial Department of Education and the Fujian RTVU system, including the "Excellent Teacher of Fujian" medal from the Provincial Department of Education in 1998; the title of "Model of Teacher Ethics in Fujian" from the Education Work Committee of the CPC Fujian Committee and the Provincial Department of Education in 2001; the title of "Advanced Teacher-ethics Model in Fujian Province" from the Fujian Department of Education in 2004; and the title of "Excellent Teacher" of the Fujian RTVU System for the academic years 2017 to 2019.
Over her 30 years of teaching, Wang Xiaohong has maintained a practical orientation and worked hard to upgrade her skills in order to produce socialist workers for the new era.
By Fujian OU