Postgraduate English Teaching Department-江苏大学外国语学院

Dean: Chen Xin

Office: Z202

Tel: 0086-511-88797766

Founded in 2001, the Postgraduate English Teaching Department offers stimulating and intellectually rigorous graduate English courses of academic and professional development, which are annually taken by more than 4000 first-year graduate students in Jiangsu University. The students range from full-time doctoral and postgraduate students (Academic and professional modules) to those from MPACC, MBA and MPA programs, Master of Engineering program, and Cranfield Sino British Graduate School. The department boasts a team of highly experienced teachers with strong expertise in EAP and ESP instruction, including one professor, four associate professors, four lecturers and five foreign teachers. One teacher is honored among the list of “Top Ten Teachers in Zhenjiang City” and “University Distinguished Professors”. The courses aim to equip students with a thorough grounding in scientific writing and English language use in areas of specialization, highlighting an inquiry-based teaching orientation to help students address established and cutting-edge issues in their research fields. To cultivate top innovative talents with national identity consciousness and international perspective, our department makes persistent efforts in curriculum reform and has won series of teaching awards, both at provincial and national levels, with good reputation in graduate English teaching in Jiangsu province and beyond.

Objectives and Vision:

With firm adherence to the guidance of moral education and innovation claimed by our government, we integrate critical thinking and virtue fostering in the teaching process to facilitate the growth of students in international academic communication context. We utilize diverse platforms and organize various activities to bridge the gap between academic studies and practice to equip students with expected language proficiency, academic thinking skills, scientific literacy, cross-cultural awareness, and competence.

We aid students:

To improve proficiency in understanding English academic lectures.

To acquire strategies in literature reading and translation in their academic fields.

To develop critical thinking and innovative mindset in spoken and written academic context.

To enhance awareness of intercultural communication.

(Notes: Individual difference and diversity among students will be highly respected in the teaching practice. Three approaches of instruction (EAP advanced, EAP Basic and ESP) are applied respectively for students with different language proficiency levels and career goals.

Teaching and Research Reform:

The postgraduate English Teaching Department is devoted to the curriculum innovation all through the years. We apply a range of educational reform measures to upgrade teaching philosophy, teaching system and teaching mode. An internationalized teaching mode has been created successfully, featuring critical discussion-based academic interaction assisted by quality TA resources home and abroad. In 2016, the Department won the second prize in National Postgraduate Teaching Achievements Award; in 2015, the first prize in Provincial Postgraduate Teaching Reform Award; in 2021, Provincial Postgraduate Teaching Material Award; In 2019, the "13th Five Year plan" Key Teaching Material Award for Colleges and Universities in Jiangsu Province. In 2023, Ph.D. English course won a Provincial Award of Teaching Distinction, which had also been rated as Distinguished Course, A-level Graduate Course, and Model Course for Political and Moral Education in Jiangsu University. Several teachers have won prizes in various English Teaching contests in China.

Learning Resources:

Our teaching group published an English textbook for academic English writing, prepared handouts for courses on international academic conference communication, literature reading and translation. The faculties also carried out online and offline hybrid teaching practice and developed CANVAS teaching resources for the Cranfield Sino-British Graduate School, which has promoted the application of modern educational technology and tools in academic English teaching setting.