A virtual-teaching research office for higher education has been established by the Computer Assisted English Language Learning programme in response to the call of the Ministry of Education to implement the educational reforms laid out in the 14th Five-Year Plan, and to accelerate the construction of the office in order to advance teaching reforms at the Open University of China (OUC).
It held its first seminar on 3 September 2022, presided over by team leader Mr. Han Yanhui and focusing on the launch of the Computer Assisted English Language Learning MOOC along with prospects for teaching, research, and research collaborations.
IT-based education was presented as the basis of reforms of English teaching in open education, with the teamwork already existing among teachers establishing a foundation for the new office. Moreover, with the participation of teachers and researchers from regular higher-education institutions, the teaching-research team will become more diverse, boosting the promotion and quality of teaching and the joint building of resources.
A brief introduction of the programme covered its development, circumstances, and cooperation with other higher-education institutions since 2017. The meeting also covered visions of the development of the office in terms of teaching research and curriculum building, and collaboration with external institutions is expected to grow.
Thirty people attended the meeting, including Zheng Jipeng, vice dean of the OUC Faculty of Foreign Languages; Yilimire Yiliyasi and Yang Xinlu, vice deans of the College of Foreign Languages at Xinjiang Normal University; Zeng Jiansong, vice dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Hunan University of Science and Technology; Dr. Yang Nan of the Beijing Academy of Educational Sciences; core members of the Computer Assisted English Language Learning team; and personnel guiding the cooperation with external higher-education institutions, teacher representatives, and outstanding student representatives.
By Han Yanhui, OUC