The 6^th Center for Language Education (CLE) Conference on Teaching and Learning successfully concluded on Saturday, December 2.

The conference was held on the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) campus at the School of Finance, and included two keynote speakers, 26 presentations, and a poster session featuring SUSTech students.

The theme of the conference was “Creativity in Teaching and Inspiration for Learning”. The presenters applied the theme to a diverse range of topics. General categories included Creativity in Teaching, Embracing Technology, Motivating Learning, English Medium Education, and Assessment & Feedback for Learning.

Highlights of the morning were the keynote speakers. Dr. Dechao LI delivered a presentation on “Designing Problems for PBL Translator Training: A Corpus-Based Approach”. The project at Hong Kong Polytechnic University used problem-based learning (PBL).

The second keynote speaker was Dr. Katherine Hoi Ying CHEN, who discussed mindfulness. Her presentation, “Creating a Positive Classroom Climate and Inspiring Learning with Mindfulness”, demonstrated the effectiveness of incorporating mindfulness training for both faculty members and learners at the University of Macau.

Following the sessions on PBL and mindfulness, Dr. Lilia Shevyrdaeva moved on to materials design. Having completed the production of a number of workbooks for students at Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, Dr. Shevyrdaeva gave her presentation, “A Series of Thematic Workbooks for Biology Undergraduates: Materials Design Between ESP and CLIL”.

Martina Dorn from Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University delivered a presentation called “With a Little Help from My Friend AI”. Professor Dorn demonstrated faculty use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in materials design.

The CLE at SUSTech featured in the next presentation, “From Freshmen Profile to Adjusting to EMI”. The group presentation was led by Dr. Qing LIU and included Adam Savran, Dr. Conrad Herrera, and Yang LUO. As part of a larger faculty team, they shared a portion of their course design and materials.

The final morning session was delivered by Dr. Zhuxia FU of Shenzhen University. “Promoting L2 Writing Development Via a Concept-based Approach to Teaching Genre” showed the concept-based approach to the audience.

Speakers in the morning session

The break for lunch featured poster sessions from SUSTech students based on the conference theme. For every student in the poster sessions, this conference marked the first time they had ever presented at an academic conference.

Student presentations

The afternoon agenda of the conference held a large number of presentations in four different parallel sessions. Divided into two major time periods, each concluded with a “heads together” discussion to examine the common threads and shared opportunities among the sessions.

Afternoon panels 1 to 4

Group photo of the conference participants

The 6^th Annual Conference on Teaching and Learning brought scholars and students together and connected them through their passion for education.