From July 5 to 18, 2021, “The Belt and Road” national summer and winter training program for non-English foreign languages was successfully held by the Faculty of European Languages and Cultures of GDUFS. The program was approved this year as “10,000 Talents Initiative” by the Office of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan Affairs of the Ministry of Education. There were seven European languages available in this program, including French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Portuguese and Polish, attracting 460 students from 15 universities in the Greater Bay Area.

The Faculty of European Languages and Cultures of GDUFS, the organizer of this program, continued to explore a new model for language learning courses as it combined online teaching with multimedia foreign cultural experience, enabling a more vivid and informative learning content. The teachers of the program meticulously prepared the curriculum and offered basic language courses and cultural experience courses. By learning the alphabet, phonetics, vocabulary, grammar, simulated dialogue, as well as  self-introduction, weather, festivals, supermarket shopping, traffic, asking for directions, ordering food and renting houses, music and movies, students from Hong Kong, Macao and Guangdong will be able to know better about folk culture, customs, historical traditions, literature and art, politics and economies of European countries.

In classes, lecturers and students from Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macao had frequent exchanges and active interactions. After classes, students exchanged their experiences on language learning methods and skills via WeChat class group. The program finally yielded a high degree of satisfaction from students, as they noted that they not only laid a solid foundation for language learning, broadened their international vision, enhanced their ability of cross-cultural communication, but also made the acquaintance of more new friends.

The Faculty of European Languages and Cultures of GDUFS now offers seven national first-tier programs, namely, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Italian, Portuguese and Polish, and has undertaken this training program for two consecutive years.