On the evening of March 23rd, when the English debate contest (the invitational tournament of Tianjin and Beijing) started, the opening ceremony of the 27th Foreign Languages Festival of Nankai University was hold in Oriental Arts Building, Zou Yujie, secretary of the Party Committee of the CFL, Yan Guodong, president of the CFL, He Zhihui, deputy secretary of Youth League and teacher representatives of all departments attended the activity. Representing as a“Double Excellent Project” and the weekend entertainment, the festival aimed to create distinguished extracurricular activities by providing multidimensional visions and academic exchanges.
The festival was started with the school song in ten languages. Afterwards, interviewed by the host on the background of making such program, Wang Yuan, counselor of the CFL in Nankai University, said that it took almost half an year to render the Chinese version of the school song into 10 foreign languages and record the different versions. She also responded that the final translated version, by being revised by teachers from different foreign languages, the alumni and students, presented a gift (the discipline of foreign languages with about 100 years) to the centennial anniversary of Nankai University.
He Zhihui spoke highly of the festival during the opening remarks and believed it an opportunity to attract more students to participate in the campus cultural activities. At last, she wish the festival a success.
Yan Guodong gave a brief review of the history of the 27-year-old festival and a report on the changes happening in the CFL in recent years. The achievements expressed the people with a picture that the CFL remained committed to the teaching and scientific research, international exchanges and education with vigor and vitality.
In the opening ceremony, the two teams composed of distinguished debaters from Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, and Nankai University, gave a heated debate on the topic “Whether the valuable cultural relics should be returned to the original owner”.
It was reported that the festival of foreign languages represents one Nankai Brand with a history of 27 years old and “Carnival of foreign languages”. Having been a grand student activity which had an influence on the areas of Beijing and Tianjin, the festival made a breakthrough to develop into a large brand campus activity featuring academic, informative, entertaining and artistry activities by combining indoor and outdoor activities and keep in touch with the times.
The festival focused on the academic research and international vision. The various activities insisted of those having strong academic atmosphere, such as Happy English Corner, “Speak out the Words in Your Mind”, Morning Reading, New Starting Point (Japan, France and Germany), English debate contest (the invitational tournament of Tianjin and Beijing); those interesting activities themed with “Share Glory with One-Century-Old NKU, such as Challenges of the Cool Learning of Foreign Languages, Hybrid Food in the World, Interesting Linguistic Teaching, Film Dubbing Competition, The Lyric Top Man; and those activities targeting at inspire students to improve their academic achievements, such as Translation Competition themed with “Translation Arena”and Interpreting Competition. While aiming to create the system of aesthetic education centering on“Responsibility, Capability and Creativity”, the festival mad great effort to create a platform where taking advantage of their majors, students could share their academic ideas and compete with others in an international vision. By doing that, the festival would become an annual feast where knowledge and vigor.
