For most students, the summer vacation is not only a golden holiday for self-relax, but also a good opportunity for knowledge accumulation, career exploration, and knowing and doing. The students from the College of Foreign Languages have had a colorful summer vacation by building a self-learning platform, exploring their careers, and participating in social practice.
Promoting Learning through Various Platforms
Language learning focuses on more reading, listening and application. In order to maintain the language sense of language learners and increase their interest in language, the professional tutors and teachers have arranged various forms of “summer assignments” to help students do listening practice”. For example, the tutors and foreign teachers for the 2017 Russian language project class asked the students tp watch a complete Russian TV series with more than 20 episodes, allowing students to learn the native expressions in authentic foreign TV series. And according to the final exam results and their mistakes, the students were assigned a word review plan and a listening recording material review plan. The tutors for the 2017 Italian major recommend a list professional books to students and they could finish them and complete the relevant exercises according to the book list voluntarily.
Students also answered questions on their professional learning for each other and make exchanges by setting up dormitory study groups and class study groups. Luo Yi, a student from the 2017 Italian major had set up a group with her roommates for learning and communication where they listed the study plans, supervised each other to follow up and discussed their puzzles and problems together. Luo Yi said that she spent an hour each day during the summer vacation practicing and correcting her pronunciation of the Alveolar trill according to the video. She also reviewed and previewed the vocabulary in the two books of Progetto Italiano and by marking annotating and reciting them. After a summer vacation, she found that her pronunciation was becoming more standard, and also had more interest in language learning.
Students of the College of Foreign Languages also made international exchanges through various platforms established by the College and the University. They went to the countries where the langauages they learn were spoken to make acadamic visits and practice so that they could improve their learning ability and intercultural communication ability. Taking 2017 undergraduate students as an example. A total of 45 students used the summer vacation to go to many well-known overseas institutions to conduct academic visits and cultural practices such as Boston University, Oxford University, Munich University, Northeastern University of Japan, University of Geneva, Switzerland, Nantes High School of Business, Russian National Pushkin Russian College, etc. The students all said that after a year of professional language study at the College of Foreign Languages of Nankai University, they had the opportunity to live and study in the target language country for a period of time where they had greatly improved their language skills and intercultural communication skills and their learning and understanding of the target language culture had also been qualitatively improved.
Exploring Their Career in Various Ways.
Career development planning is the key work of the College of Foreign Languages since the freshmen entered the university. The College advocates students to use their vacations to conduct in-depth exploration of their career development through internship practice. During the summer's short semester, the full-time teachers responsible for employment led students to Beijing, Shanghai and other places to conduct research on enterprises, and led students to explore the industry in depth. The College also encourages students to carry out the activity of Experience of Various Jobs and other activities.
Ma Rui, a student of 2017 English major, took an internship at her hometown-the Baiyanghe Township Government in Mulei Township, Changji Prefecture, Xinjiang during the summer vacation. She said that her mainly worked as an office secretary, assisting with secretarial work such as material preparation and archives arrangement. She concluded that although it seemed simple and trivial, it was really not easy to do everything well and she have had a close contact with civil servants and felt the workplace atmosphere in advance. Zhang Yihan, a student of 2017 translation major, used the summer vacation to conduct an internship at the Xiamen Daily newspaper where her main work was interviews and writings. She said that she had an in-depth understanding of the work as a journalist and an editor through the internship and she had gained a lot through the exploration of the newspaper industry, which has provided an effective reference for her future career choices.
In addition to visits on enterprises and internships, some students also explore careers by starting a business. Zeng Xinxin, a 2017 student, have dreamt to be a teacher since she was a child. She used her summer vacation to open a holiday tutoring class in Shien, Hubei, where she enrolled and counseled junior high school students. She recruited more than 30 students for the first time. After a month of teaching, Huang Xinxin felt a lot of emotions. She said that she used to feel that the teaching was very simple as long as she had gained enough knowledge. However, after she had experienced it, she knew that what she needed was not only knowledge but also the proper ways of letting different students learn well. It was also not easy to prepare and give lessons. This also allowed her to know what she needed to be a teacher. In the next three years of university life, she would have the direction to improve herself and try her best to be a qualified teacher after graduation.
Promoting the Unity of Knowing and Doing in Various Ways
Since the founding of Nankai University, it has the purpose of “knowing China to serve China”, and the summer vacation provides students with sufficient time to truly step into the grassroots, rural areas and even abroad to feel and touch the pulse of the real society. Students from the College of Foreign Languages actively participated in social practice activities. This summer, a total of 23 teams and 175 people went to various places to carry out social practice through the University and the College. Some of them went to the poverty-stricken mountainous areas in the west to carry out educational activities to contribute to education and poverty alleviation; some went to the prosperous areas with well-developed education to study and research excellent experience; some went to the revolutionary places to learn and experience the spirit of the martyrs, and some went abroad to learn how to play the subjective initiative of language learners under the context of speaking of the Chinese story. All teams had full-time teachers to guide students, so that students could increase their knowledge, exercise ability, and feel and resonate the pulse of the times in the process of practice.
At the same time, students from the College of Foreign Languages actively participate in various volunteer activities, from the university's “99 Nankai and You Are Waited” welcome service to the Tianjin Davos Forum, from the National Internet Literature Conference to international volunteers, and they had contributed to the building of a better society. Liu Zixuan from the 2017 Spanish major took the initiative to sign up for a volunteer service program run by Greenwell International Volunteer, and went to the Taiping Town Mentally Handicapped School in Malaysia to take charge of the English teaching for special children. He said that although he could change little during just one week, it satisfied him that he could give these intellectually impaired children a warm companionship and simple English knowledge and he would pay more attention to social issues in the future, helping more people in need through knowledge.
The new semester is approaching, the students of the College of Foreign Languages students will welcome the arrival of the new semester with high spirits. The College will also continue to build platforms in all respects according to the needs of students' development, such as academic guidance, career planning, party building, peer exchange, international exchange and competition guidance according to the development needs of students, which will help students develop in an all-round way.
