On May 19th, the “Leader Program” Global Competency Improvement Program of the SEM held a language improvement camp. Teacher Li Yinan served as the judge to evaluate students' oral English and logical thinking ability. This camp enabled students to have a collision of ideas in an open atmosphere by giving English speeches on hot social issues.
At the beginning of the camp, Li Yinan noted that learning English is not only about the improvement of one’s language ability, but more importantly, the smooth expression of individual thinking and insights. Possessing excellent global competence not only imposes requirements on students’ language abilities, but also on their cognition, logical thinking, and critical thinking abilities.
Then, Li Yinan introduced the process of the camp and arranged the students into groups. After 5 minutes of preparation, the first round of oral testing began. The topic was “The punishment should be fixed for each type of crime or circumstances of an individual crime, and the motivation for committing it should always be taken into account when deciding on the punishment?”
The proposition and opposition side went on the stage to present their arguments and evidence. The proposition side focused on “the deterrent function of the law and the prevention of reducing penalties through bribery,” while the opposition side seized on “specific cases of human nature and justifiable defense.” The two sides sparred with each other in fluent English, and the atmosphere was enthusiastic. Finally, Li Yinan commented on the performance of both sides, analyzed the topic, and put forward the argument of the “feasibility of the trial process” that is the “defining difficulty” and guided the students to think deeply.
The topic of the second round of oral testing was “Teacher’s pay should be based on their students’ academic performance.” The proposition side focused on how “study performance is the most obvious and most critical indicator,” while the opposition side pointed out that basing pay on performance might cause problems such as teachers deliberately giving high grades and student training programs limited to improving grades. Teaching methods and student satisfaction should be the most important indicators. Li Yinan then analyzed the topic and summarized the performance of both sides.
The topic of the third round of the oral test was “Women should be discouraged from becoming full-time housewives.” The students were enthusiastic, actively thinking about background knowledge and the social reality and expressing their opinions. The proposition side put forward arguments about “women's dreams and the risks that women without professional skills may face in the future and how the value created by doing housework is not included in GDP,” while the opposition side focused on the “family division of labor, occupational equality, and respect for personal choices.” Then Li Yinan commented on the performance of the two sides and analyzed the topic.
After three rounds of topic discussions, Li Yinan praised the performance of the students, affirmed their teamwork, oral expression, and logical thinking ability, and encouraged the students to think more about the hot social issues. Zheng Shuqi, a participant, said, “We conducted oral training in the form of debate during the camp, which made the whole process tense and interesting. We exercised our oral English and our listening and thinking skills. There were insightful comments from the teacher, and our improvements were not limited to our oral expression. We also got a new understanding of the format and content of writing and speaking.”
The “Leader Program” is the annual key work of the International Office and the School of Economics and Management to cultivate talent. It aims to expand students’ international horizons and enhance global competence through lectures, forums, language communication, cross-cultural exchanges, and international exchange practices. The improvement of language ability is one of the key foci. In the future, the SEM will continue to hold a series of language courses and oral tests to help students improve their English listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills and cultivate their logical and critical thinking in English learning, enabling students to give speeches openly and express their ideas accurately, laying a solid foundation for cultivating economic and management talent with global competency.
Copy editor: Henry Allen
Editor: Li Yinan
