On February 13th, the English short play “The Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountains (Yugong Yishan)” was performed by students from Beisitu Middle School and Xingbieying No.2 Middle School in the auditorium of the Xingbeiying Township Government in Hejian City. During the performance, the students portrayed “the foolish old man (Yugong)” and “the wise man (Zhisou)” with fluent English and exquisite actions and demeanor. This was the first time they used English to tell the traditional Chinese story of “The Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountains.”
To actively support the national rural vitalization strategy and address the gaps in rural oral English education, members of the Foreign Language Drama Troupe from Nankai University formed a social practice team and traveled to the Hejian Rural Workstation to promote the project “Foreign Language Drama in the Countryside.” To successfully execute the project, the students of the Foreign Language Drama Troupe conducted online teaching for two months in advance, explaining drama concepts and scripts, demonstrating and correcting pronunciation, and reaching many primary and secondary schools, including Beisitu Middle School, Beisitu Primary School, and Xingbieying No.2 Middle School.
One at a time, members of the Foreign Language Drama Troupe demonstrated and corrected the pronunciation of the students and adjusted the scripts according to their language level. Subsequently, 13 students from Beisitu Middle School and 12 students from Xingbeiying No.2 Middle School participated in a four-day in-person acting class led by two groups of six students from the Foreign Language Drama Troupe. The teaching content involves vocabulary, grammar and performance skills in the English script “The Foolish Old Man Who Moved the Mountains”.
Prof. Zhang Wenzhong, a doctoral supervisor of the English Department at the School of Foreign Studies (SFS) at Nankai University, was very pleased with the progress of the students from these two schools. Since the establishment of the Hejian Rural Workstation of Nankai University in 2023, Prof. Zhang Wenzhong has visited primary and secondary schools in Hejian City numerous times to assess the local foreign language education level and needs, as well as to conduct teaching and research activities. Consequently, he facilitated the initial introduction of the Ministry of Education’s Virtual Teaching and Research Office of Foreign Language in a rural secondary school, guided the formation of English interest clubs, and effectively advanced the enhancement of local foreign language education pedagogy. “English drama, as an important English teaching method, plays an unparalleled role in enhancing children’s interest in English learning, English skills, expression and cooperation, emotion and communication. In the future, our team will further explore the stories and spirits in classic Chinese idioms and write English scripts suitable for primary and secondary school students, so as to enhance students’ cultural self-confidence and help them tell the story of China well,” said Prof. Zhang Wenzhong.
The students of the social practice team of the Foreign Language Drama Troupe of SFS said that it is a joy to be able to serve the society with what they have learned, and in this process, they have found the direction of their future study and research, and a new goal to strive for in life as well.
SFS of Nankai University has established several rural workstations by the name of the Chinese path to modernization in locations such as Hejian City, Hebei Province; Bazhong City, Sichuan Province; and Duolun County, Nei Mongol Autonomous Region. These workstations provide educational and teaching assistance, oral English support, red culture publicity, and various other services to many local primary and secondary schools. The national curriculum teaching team, led by Professor Zhang Wenzhong, has trained over 500 rural English teachers in Hejian City, impacting more than 1,000 local teachers and students so that the “Golden Class” can illuminate the growth path of rural youth. In the future, SFS will implement the activity of “Foreign Language Drama in the Countryside” in additional primary and secondary schools to summarize experiences and identify guidelines for future promotion to rural primary and secondary schools nationwide.
