Speaker: Wang Wenbin 

Abstract

Diverse challenges including the rise of AI, inadequate teacher professionalism, underperforming graduate competencies, impractical academic research, mechanistic education practices, widespread social pessimism, and the downsizing of foreign language programs worldwide, are placing foreign language disciplines at risk of becoming endangered. To cope with the changing landscape, we must reform current foreign language education and reshape its paradigm. As growth lies in change and decline in stagnation, the discipline should pursue innovation, build resilience, and uphold intellectual depth. This lecture holds that intellectual cultivation acts as the essential ballast for the sustainable development of foreign language disciplines. Only intellectually insightful teachers can nurture thoughtful students, who will in turn shape a thoughtful future.

 Speaker Biography

Wang Wenbin, Ph.D., Senior Professor of Humanities and Doctoral Supervisor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. He is a recipient of the State Council Special Government Allowance, Honorary Director of China Foreign Language and Education Research Center, and former Vice President of Ningbo University. He is a panel expert for the National Social Science Fund of China, Vice President of China Association for Comparative Studies of English and Chinese, and Chief Expert of the high-end discipline *Foreign Language Education* in Beijing. His research focuses on foreign language education, contrastive linguistics, and cognitive linguistics. He has led 3 completed National Social Science Fund projects (all rated Excellent), authored 262 journal articles, 12 monographs and 5 translated works.