By LI Siyu

On Friday afternoon, December 6th, the School of Foreign Language held a significant teaching discussion session between foreign and Chinese teachers in Liyun A101. The attendees were Mr. Sean McHugh, Mr. Christopher Dockstader, Ms. Li Lei, Ms. Wu Wenxia, Ms. Dai Jia, Ms. Li Hui and Ms. Liao Linfang.

At first, Mr. Sean McHugh introduced himself, showing a lot of pictures of traveling all over the world and taking part in various teaching activities. He was terested in culture differences, and he spent his spare time in writing and reading English. Second, the teachers had a heated discussion on English writing. Mr. Sean McHugh said, writing itself was a difficult task for language learners, not to say for students who studied English as a second language. He pointed out many particular writing errors including the handwriting errors of letters and vocabulary as well as misuse of punctuation. What’s more, instead of fixed sentence structure, using coherent and logically connected sentences was very important in writing. And he suggested that teachers should encourage students to read more after class to improve writing skills.

Thirdly, when discussing oral English skills, Mr. Christopher Dockstader pointed out many errors of students in terms of pronunciation and intonation. For example, Chinese students would either omit or strengthen the last vowel or consonant, and they put more efforts on intonation rather than pronunciation, which the Chinese teachers also found common among the students.

Also, Mr. Sean McHugh showed many mistakes in bilingual public signs, and Ms. Li Lei also shared a relevant video clip, which made the teachers laugh and realize many translation problems in our daily life.

It was not just a discussion of teaching methods and common errors in English learning as a second language, but also a sharing session of different cultures which provided a stage for foreign and Chinese teachers to communicate with and learn from each other.