Anton Tscherne：What’s your name?

Interviewee: My name is Tracy. My Chinese name is LiangYueQuan (梁月泉)

Anton Tscherne: What is the name of the university you work for?

Interviewee: Shanghai Jian Qiao University (SJQU)

Anton Tscherne: What is your position at the university?

Interviewee: actually, I am the deputy director of foreign exchanges office.

Anton Tscherne: How many people work in the foreign exchanges office?

Interviewee: Right now we have four people including me.

Anton Tscherne: When was JianQiao university set up?

Interviewee: The university was founded in the year 2000 so we have now 17 years of history.

Anton Tscherne: Do you know how many students there are at the university?

Interviewee: We have 15,500 students. There are different schools at the university:

Business School, Art Design College, Journalism and Communication College, Mechanical and Electrical Engineering College, Information Technology College, Foreign Languages School, International Design College.

Anton Tscherne: Why did you decided to get into education field?

Interviewee: My parent, my brother, my sister-in-law and my husband, we are all working in the education area as teachers or officials. So I’m actually influenced by my family.

Anton Tscherne: :Did you start teaching in university? Did you always want to be a teacher or official?

Interviewee: Yes, I became a teacher since 1999 after my graduation. then I came to JianQiao since 2007. So currently, ten years in JianQiao. So I work for foreign exchanges affairs. Also I was taking some teaching load, I am teaching English for non major students.

Anton Tscherne: Could explain why your university has a good foreign department in English? Could you speak about the English department in particular?

Interviewee: Our English department is different from other university because we have a big students numbers and also we have a very strong teaching faculty both full-time and part-time teachers. We also have many foreign teachers. Actually there are two different directions in the English department. one is for college English, that is for non majors students, and one is for English major students. So they are working together to improve the English proficiency of our students.

Anton Tscherne: I saw today your university project called “Eye of JianQiao” which was a student activity done in Chinese and in English. Do you think it’s very beneficial for the students to do projects like this?

Interviewee: Yes, that project is really good for students. It improves their communication in English and also helps them to develop certain skills outside the classroom learning. They will know how to organize an activity, how to work with partners and how to coordinate with different offices and different schools. Actually, they benefit a lot, not only in English but also in extra curriculum skills.

Anton Tscherne: Are you working on any project to expand or do cooperation with other university oversea in America or Europe. Could please speak about it?

Interviewee: We have actually established Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) relationship with sixty four universities and we have about a dozen programs. We have different types of program like double degree programs, student short exchange program, and summer camp exchange program. So our university has developed very fast since 2015 after we moved to the new campus. W also have a lot of foreign students such as our German group and our Danish group. This summer we are going to have the Shanghai Summer School program, sponsored by the Shanghai local action committee. We are inviting 20 students from our partner universities in Europe, like our German partner and British partner to be with us and to learn Chinese culture.

Anton Tscherne: Is there anything else you want say?

Interviewee: Because I got my bachelor degree in English. I think for language learners, the most valuable quality they need to learn a foreign language is passion and self-motivation. They need to trust themselves and they need to really appreciate themselves. And for managers, I think it is very important to carry out projects efficiently. For students, I think that the four years at university is a very good opportunity to focus on study and communication. Students don’t have to worry about anything else other than studying.

Anton Tscherne: If someone overseas wants to study in your university or in China, how would they contact you to get information to enroll in the English department? Should they contact the admissions department or could they contact you by e-mail or should they go to your website?

Interviewee: Our university website is a direct way. Now we have a degree program offer for foreign students only in our international design college. That means students in our university can get a bachelors degree of visual communication after four years. For other international programs, we do it with our partner university. Every four semester, we will have about 25 Danish students coming with us and we have selected about 20 Chinese students to the international class for one semester. They are going to have joint classes together. And we also have our German program whereby German students come together with our Chinese students. We do it in that way. We are working hard to develop more bilingual courses so that more foreign students can join our programs.

Anton Tscherne: Please tell us where the university is on social media?

Interviewee:

Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/SJQUchina

Sina weibo：

http://www.weibo.com/gench

Alumni union website:

http://love.gench.edu.cn/