At the beginning of the new semester, Hainan International College of Northeast Forestry University launched a distinctive shared course entitled "Survival English". Adopting a relaxed and interactive teaching approach, foreign teacher Michael Butler delivered a two-week practical English course tailored to real-life scenarios for both international students from Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Venezuela, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, as well as Chinese students. In class, students conducted simulated dialogues covering high-frequency daily scenarios including food ordering, medical treatment, bank account opening and campus enrollment registration. The interactive classroom atmosphere fully demonstrated the vitality and inclusiveness of the college’s internationalized teaching environment.
This miniature curriculum embodies the broader development pattern of "resource sharing and integrated development". The Survival English course serves not only as a platform for language skill training, but also a vivid practice of the college’s international education philosophy featuring "sharing and integration". To address the practical difficulties of international students adapting to the new campus environment, the college has leveraged the cross-campus resource sharing mechanism to integrate high-quality teaching resources and invite Michael Butler, an experienced teacher with extensive overseas teaching experience from Aulin College of Northeast Forestry University, to deliver the course. Closely oriented to students’ daily life needs, the curriculum adopts interactive teaching methods such as role-playing and scenario simulation to integrate language learning into real-life situations. It enables students to break through communication barriers in a short period and effectively enhance their cross-cultural adaptability.
The international classroom has become a window for cultural exchange and mutual learning. International students account for 95 percent of all course participants, and their diverse cultural backgrounds turn the classroom into a miniature "global village". A student from Hainan International College, Beijing Language and Culture University shared, "The food-ordering dialogues taught in class are highly practical. I used to be hesitant to dine alone on campus, yet I have gained great confidence after taking the course." A student from Queen Mary School of Hainan, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications was deeply impressed by the medical service module, stating that "learning to describe physical symptoms during simulated registration practices is extremely useful for international students." This demand-driven curriculum design not only improves students’ practical language proficiency, but also fosters mutual understanding among young people from various countries through collaborative learning, quietly building a bridge for civilizational exchange and mutual learning.
The shared curriculum system strongly supports the cultivation of internationalized talents. The Survival English course serves as a key component of the college’s cross-domain empowering shared curriculum system. Centering on the core principles of "resource sharing, interdisciplinary integration and cultural communication", the system continuously optimizes talent cultivation by introducing international faculty and developing cross-cultural curriculum modules. Adhering to the operational mechanism of "universal sharing and featured differentiation", the college has gradually built a multi-dimensional curriculum cluster covering academic English, cross-cultural communication and regional studies. It aims to provide full-chain support for students’ language improvement and academic development, enabling more students to benefit from the high-quality educational resources of the pilot zone. (Written and Photographed by Xue Yuhang)
