I. Historical Development of the Discipline
The discipline of English Language and Literature was initially established in 2001, with pilot enrollment in 2000 and formal enrollment in 2001 after approval. Currently, there are 600 full-time undergraduates, and 27 teachers, including three professors, 10 associate professors, six PhDs and a Ph.D. student, among whom the teachers with master’s degree and above account for 92.6% of the entire echelon. In 2013, two independent second-level Master’s Degrees of “Business English in Agriculture” and “Comprising of Chinese Art and Foreign Art” were successfully declared, achieving a major breakthrough in the construction of this discipline.
II. Discipline Mission
Based on the schooling philosophy of “setting up college with teaching, strengthening the college through science and education, and reinvigorating the college through internationalization” and the education concept of “cultivation of morality and study, and mastering Chinese and English”, we are striving to complete the functional change from orientation by transmission of knowledge to orientation by knowledge development and application as soon as possible; actively looking for an integration port with this discipline research and fraternal disciplines and the “1030” project of the college, to explore interdisciplinary incubation and interface research approaches, and expand the development space and cultivation platform of inter-disciplinary English talents and outstanding innovative talents, to better adapt to the requirements of economic and social development; vigorously enhance the quality of talent cultivation, improve the level of scientific research and social services, significantly improve the discipline level, and actively promote the school to become a well-known ecological entrepreneurial university in China.
III. Discipline Orientation
There are three research orientations of Applied Linguistics, Translation Theory and Practice, British and American Literature, and Ecological Culture for the discipline of English Language and Literature. In terms of discipline construction, two people have been recruited since 2011. The discipline echelon gradually becomes diverse in educational background, learning origin, title and age structure. As of now, the orientation of Applied Linguistics consists of 10 people, including one professor, four associate professors, and five lecturers; the orientation of Translation Theory and Practice consists of 10 people, including five associate professors and five lecturers; the orientation of British and American Literature and Ecological Culture consists of six people, including one professor, one associate professor and four lecturers. In the future, it will continue to adhere to the policy of “walking on two legs” for talent cultivation and inducting new members; it will continue to strengthen the talent support for this discipline’s construction.
IV. Talent Cultivation
In teaching, the discipline implements the teaching reform model of “multimedia-based classroom learning + extra-curricular self-learning under the guidance of teachers”. Relying on the Internet and a spoken language cooperation group, the independent study on the Internet and the spoken language cooperation group activity are closely tied to our classroom teaching in order to improve students’ language application abilities.
The employment of graduates of English majors has reached 96% for five consecutive years, 98% and 100% in 2010 and 2011, respectively, and ranking among the best compared with all majors of colleges and universities in Zhejiang Province. In the past three years, the college broadened its practical teaching channels; during the “12thFive-Year” period, the college continues to organize many discipline competitions, such as NECCS, English Speech Contest for College Students, English Debate Contest for College Students, Newspaper and Magazine Reading Competition, Interpreting and Translation Contest, English Corner and various course competition activities, receiving many awards, mainly including two first prizes and two second prizes in Zhejiang Competition Area of National English Speech Contest for College Students; three special awards, 12 first prizes and 34 second prizes in NECCS; one first prize and three second prizes in the “21stCentury Cup” National English Speaking Competition; one second prize in 2014 National “FLTRP Cup” English Public Speaking Contest; two second prizes in East China “English Debate Contest for College Students”; three second prizes in Zhejiang Competition Area of “Star of Outlook English Talent Competition”; and a second group prize in the “Zhejiang Provincial English Newspaper and Magazine Information Collection and Decoding Invitation Tournament”.
V. Scientific Research
The college strives to create good conditions for scientific research and create a good academic atmosphere. There has been a bigger breakthrough in the quantity and quality of projects declared. The success rate of setting up the projects at ministerial and provincial levels by young teachers has significantly improved, strengthening the team building and improving the quality of scientific research achievements. We have consolidated the research direction, and built a scientific research team. Taking the introduction of high-level talents as an opportunity, integrating the scientific research power of this discipline, playing to the advantages of the group, focusing on the development of three research orientations of Applied Linguistics, Translation and Culture and Literature and Ecological Culture through the team leader system, and increasing scientific research output through the team strength. Regularly hold the academic salon and enhance the scientific research level of teachers.
In the last three years, annual college English teaching meetings in Zhejiang Province have been successfully held. Projects at the ministerial, provincial, bureau, and other levels have been declared more than 190 times, and nine ministerial and provincial level projects were successfully set up, including three projects for the Ministry of Education, one “www.qjrc.com” planned project from the Department of Personnel of Zhejiang Province, one Youth Key Project from Major Programs for Humanities and Social Sciences in Provincial Colleges and Universities, two Planned Projects for the Social Sciences, four Provincial Special Research Programs on Foreign Language and four Provincial Projects for the Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences. Thirty-six bureau level projects were successfully set up, including 12 projects of the provincial Education Department, 17 special teacher development projects of Education Department, two key projects for Hangzhou Social Science Planning and three general projects. Funding for scientific research is valued at 1,285,000 Yuan. Efforts are made to help teachers improve the quality of papers through various ways and initiatives. Teachers have published nearly 140 papers in three years, including 10 papers in CSSCI journals and above, and more than 30 papers in core journals. Ten monographs have been published. One third prize was won for Outstanding Achievements of Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences, to achieve the breakthrough zero “Reward for Scientific Research at Ministerial and Provincial Level”; one Outstanding Achievement Award in Youth Social Science of Provincial Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences was won; one second prize and two excellence awards for foreign literature and papers were won; and one second prize for outstanding papers of Forestry Association was won. Great breakthroughs have been made in this discipline’s construction and our scientific research achievements in the last three years.
VI. Discipline Platform
1. Construction of laboratory and reference room
This discipline essentially has an all-digital network and multimedia foreign language teaching facility. At present, the total investment in equipment is worth over 5.45 million Yuan, which includes: 11 laboratories for various languages, two sets of foreign language satellite televisions, one set of audio and video editing systems, one foreign language radio station and one provincial experimental teaching demonstration center. In the reference room, there are more than 15,000 books, more than 1,500 kinds of VCDs and CDs, 75 kinds of newspapers and periodicals and 23 kinds of foreign periodicals,which can better meet the teaching and scientific research of teachers and learning needs of students.
2. Scientific research innovation platform
While broadening the books and reference materials, especially the purchasing and collection of foreign language books, foreign language periodicals, and foreign language databases, great efforts were made to strengthen the construction of the scientific research platform of this discipline. Now, there are six scientific research and teaching teams, including two teaching teams and four scientific research teams, as well as one university-level team and five college-level teams. See Table 3 for details.
3. Practice research base
In order to comprehensively enhance the teaching and scientific research ability of this discipline, handle integration of talent cultivation and economic and social development needs, and improve the employment ability and employment rate of graduating talents, a strong cooperative relationship has been established between this discipline and the Foreign Affairs Office of Zhejiang Province, the Provincial Foreign Exchange Association, Suzhou Pepsons Education, the Center for China Farmers’ Development of Zhejiang A & F University, the Center for China-Africa Agriculture and Forestry Research of Zhejiang A & F University, the Ecological Culture Research Center of Zhejiang A & F University, the Turner Training Center, the New Oriental Foreign Language Training School and many other units and institutions, which also lays a solid foundation for the construction of the practice research base of this discipline.
4. Degree program construction
In order to effectively improve the development level of the discipline, enhance the staying power and strain of discipline development, comprehensively implement the overall objectives of the discipline construction in the “12thFive-Year Plan”, and use the creation of a master’s degree program to drive the discipline construction, alongside its own advantages, after extensive investigation and inviting experts inside and outside the college many times to fully demonstrate, and under the full support of two first-level disciplines of Agriculture and Forest Economics Management and Design, this discipline successfully obtained Master’s Degree programs in two second-level disciplines of “Business English in Agriculture” and “Comprising of Chinese Art and Foreign Art”. They were not included in the catalogue of disciplines from the Ministry of Education in 2013, but the two academic degree programs began official enrollment in 2015. Thus, it achieved a breakthrough by creating a master’s degree program in the college and improving the education level of the college.
The discipline “Business English in Agriculture” is an emerging interdisciplinary discipline involving the theories and methods of linguistics, discourse analysis, intercultural communication, translation, agriculture, management, economics, law, international marketing and other relevant fields. This discipline makes the use and teaching of English in the agriculture-related business field as its primary research focus. It follows the content of business-related knowledge in agriculture, rules of business activities, and other aspects. The discipline of Business English in Agriculture aims to cultivate international, inter-disciplinary foreign language professionals proficient in foreign languages and agriculture-related businesses, who are engaged in information research, agriculture-related business negotiations, agriculture-related business writing and translation, and other work in such fields as transnational investment, transnational litigation, transnational trade and transnational management; who have excellent foreign language research and communication skills, thoroughly understand the relevant agriculture-related business expertise, and are familiar with foreign cultures and national conditions. Graduates mainly go into diplomatic services and the foreign affairs departments of the government at all levels, international business departments and commercial agencies stationed abroad, Commercial Section of overseas embassies and consulates, international bodies and organizations, International Department of Internationalized Enterprises, foreign branches and representative offices, multinational corporations, and institutions of higher learning with a major in Business Language.
The discipline “Comprising of Chinese Art and Foreign Art” is a comprehensive discipline that studies the spiritual elements constituting the classics of various national cultures, cultivates the humanistic spirit and contributes to the creation of an ecological civilization. The research fields include Chinese and Foreign Linguistics, Chinese and Foreign Arts, Chinese and Foreign Medio-translatology, Chinese and Foreign Inter-Cultural Communication and many other aspects. Chinese and Foreign Art Classics is the embodiment of the essence of Chinese and foreign cultures and the national spirit, and plays an important role in the process of improving the wisdom, artistic appreciation, morality construction and sentiment of Chinese nationals by promoting the development of Chinese culture, foreign exchange and dissemination. Based on the research of the generation, evolution and dissemination of Chinese and foreign art classics, this discipline closely analyzes national conditions and pays close attention to the important role of aspects such as the establishment of national cultural identities, the reshaping of national image and the cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries showed in the process of the dissemination and evaluation of Foreign Art Classics in China, and regards the source language recognition and generation of foreign art classics as the cultural wealth that can be used for reference, to serve the cultural and ecological construction in China. At the same time, a feasible target is formulated according to the overall needs of the national development and the original discipline basis, and academic development is regarded as a systematic project that takes into account both macro-study and micro-study, to promote coordinated development between the second-level disciplines and the third-level disciplines, and to promote the construction of “the Chinese Spirit” and “the Chinese Dream” on the road to national rejuvenation.
VII. Academic Entrepreneurship
The college attaches great importance to academic innovation and entrepreneurial activities, actively sets up various foreign language teaching and training service agencies, and provides real-time translation and interpretation services. Turner Education, set up by teacher Li Minghui of the college, is an English teaching and training agency relying on the innovation team projects of the college and has rich human resources; at the same time, the Translation Studio of College of Foreign Languages provides all kinds of translation services for the university and society, and have been for a long time. The students’ entrepreneurship team Lianshi Creative Translation Studio, with students of English and Japanese majors as the entrepreneurial subjects, takes the initiative to meet various English, Japanese and French translation needs inside and outside the university, and provides various types of translation and interpretation services, to successfully open the work situation since its establishment. The Youth Quality Development and Adult English Service Entrepreneurship Team was established to serve the community in combination with disciplines, and applied for admission to the Pioneer Incubator Park of the university at the same time.
VIII. Social Services
While ensuring the normal and orderly conduct of teaching and scientific research, this discipline actively provides social services as well. In the past three years, it has provided translation services for the university many times, as well as for various colleges, local governments, social organizations, and individuals. At the same time, students are organized to go out of the university and use the expertise they have learned to provide volunteer services for various international conferences and expositions, receiving wide acclaim. The college also sets up free English interest classes in the Primary School Affiliated to Zhejiang A & F University, to develop the students’ interest in English. It also provides the translation of supplementary teaching materials for Guangzhou Huayan Foreign Language Service Center, provides interpretation and translation services for Shanghai Chint Group, the University of North Alabama MBA Suzhou Office (Pepsons Education), China Nut City, Lin’an Qixin Hotel and CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets, and provides staff Business English and cross-cultural communication trainings for Hangzhou Lin’an Yunda Packaging Materials Co., Ltd. and Lin’an Caiju Optoelectronics Technology Co., Ltd. The members of various entrepreneurial teams and studios are mainly composed of the teachers and students in the college, who have rich practical experience in teaching and translation and are deeply trusted and favored by customers.
IX. Academic Exchange
In order to create a scientific research atmosphere, the discipline regularly holds various scientific research salon activities, specifically including lectures by experts from outside the college, lectures by college teachers, research team discussions and project declaration discussions. In addition, teachers are encouraged to actively participate in academic activities and exchange the academic achievements. In the past three years, 67 academic salons were held, experts inside and outside the university were invited to hold 24 lectures, and the 2013 annual college English teaching and research meeting in Zhejiang Province was held successfully.
X. International Exchange and Cooperation
In the discipline development process, special attention is also paid to foreign exchange and cooperation, and the process of education internationalization is constantly promoted. Each year,experts from English-speaking countries such as the United States, Britain, and Canada are employed to teach and give lectures at college; meanwhile,teaching and research backbone personnel are sent abroad for further study and exchange each year. Teachers who come back after the completion of further study account for 25% of the teachers in this discipline. The college has set up exchange programs with some colleges and universities in foreign countries. Each year, the college selects outstanding students to study abroad at public expense, to foster the students’ international view. Eighteen students have been studying in the United States, Canada and other countries as exchange students or visiting students.
XI. Discipline Management
This discipline relies on the Institute of Foreign Languages and Cultures to integrate various scientific research resources for the college students and form a large collective of common development. The college leaders take the lead in carrying out scientific research, achieving remarkable results and setting a good example. The college actively completes the release of scientific research information, project application and management, as well as real-time tracking of the progress of various projects. For the teachers who have completed the project and the projects to be completed soon, the host shall be timely notified through a three-level (the college, the school and the department) information platform; for the projects that the closing deadline has expired, they are urged to carry out the research work and required to complete the closing work as soon as possible.
In order to mobilize the scientific research initiative of teachers, create the academic atmosphere and make more achievements to promote the construction of master’s degree programs, various management systems have been improved, such as the “Provisional Regulations on Teachers of College of Foreign Languages Going Out for Academic Conference”, “Annual Research Plan and Specification of Teachers of College of Foreign Languages”, “Interim Measures for Supporting Scientific Research Funds and Awards of College of Foreign Languages” and “Provisions on Establishment of Scientific Research Teaching Team of College of Foreign Languages”.
XII. Introduction of the Discipline and Academic Leader
Profile of Leader in English Language and Literature: Luo Jieying, female, Professor of College of Foreign Languages of Zhejiang A & F University; Fine Arts Ph.D. from China Academy of Art; discipline leader of College of Foreign Languages of Zhejiang A & F University; promoted to Associate Professor in 2001 and Professor in 2007; master supervisor of Comparative Literature in China and Foreign Countries and Comparative Art in China and Foreign Countries. She has served successively as Literature discipline leader from 2001 to now, and director of Postgraduate Education Department, concurrently holding an anonymous expert reviewer position inForeign Literature Studiesand is managing director of Zhejiang Province Comparative Literature Society. She is now also a member of the National British Literature, American Literature and Fine Arts organizations. She has published over 20 papers with respect to the discipline in key core journals such asForeign Literature Studies(A&HCI),Foreign Literatures(CSSCI) and New Arts (CSSCI). She was once selected as the first “young and middle-aged” Academic Backbone and the second “young and middle-aged” Academic Leader of Zhejiang University of Technology. In 2014, she was selected as one entitled to Class C funding to “Qianjiang Talent Plan” in Zhejiang Province.
The Leader of the British and American Literature and Ecological Culture orientation: Han Hui, female, Han nationality, originally from Shaanxi Province; Ph.D. & professor. She graduated from Tianjin Institute of Education as an English undergraduate in 1984 and graduated from Xi’an International Studies University as a postgraduate of English Language and Literature in 1988. She obtained her doctoral degree at the Department of Education of Durham University (UK) in 2009.
Her main research orientations are as follows: Language Education, Teacher Education, and Intercultural Communication; the main courses taught include: Comprehensive English, Intercultural Communication, Teaching Methodology, etc. She has undertaken one planning project in science of education of Ministry of Education, one foreign language teaching and research project for national basic education, one educational planning and research project in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, one college English teaching reform project in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, three university-level projects (including one talent introduction project); in recent years, as a major member, she participated in one general project for the Education Department of Zhejiang Province and one planning project in science education in Zhejiang Province. Since 2005, she has published over 10 papers with respect to language research and inter-cultural research. In addition, she is responsible for one Talent Startup Project of Zhejiang A & F University and for applying for the provincial-level excellent courseIntegrated English Course.
The Leader of Applied Linguistics orientation: Zhu Yi, female, associate professor. In 2004, she got her Master of Arts from the College of Foreign Languages, Guangdong South China University, majoring in Syntax. Since 2004, she has worked in English Language Department, College of Foreign Languages, Guangdong South China University. As a full-time teacher, she gives lessons about Specialty English reading, major courses on advanced English and the second bachelor’s degree of the college. At the same time, she provides guidance on the graduation thesis of students. She has unique teaching characteristics, explores the corresponding course system principles with respect to different settings of the course system, follows the scientific teaching theory and works out the teaching methods in line with the students’ personality characteristics. The scientific teaching theory and flexible methods are effectively used in classroom activities.
The Leader of Translation Theory and Practice orientation: Long Minghui, female, Ph.D. & associate professor. She graduated from Southwest China Normal University in 2005 with a master’s degree in English Language and Literature. In 2008, she graduated from Sun Yat-Sen University with a doctoral degree in English Language and Literature. In recent years, as a responsible person, she has undertaken one provincial-level social science planning project, one project of provincial Department of Education, one university-level talent startup project and one university-level scientific research and innovation team funding project. She has published six papers in linguistics and translation since 2004, including three papers in core journals.
