More than just words

Li Ying, principal of Changchun Foreign Language School

Our school was established with the goal of teaching excellence in foreign languages and diplomacy.

However, as China is becoming more open and international exchanges are becoming more frequent, language skills on their own are no longer a unique strength of students in foreign language schools.

Under such circumstances, just training our students to be interpreters or diplomats is not enough. We should also consider how to combine basic education with the characteristics of foreign language schools.

So we have set up more than 10 laboratories or special classrooms for different subjects, allowing students to learn through experience. We hope students can achieve many things in the process, including knowledge, skills and the ability to cope with the unexpected.

For example, we have a classroom for dramatic performances, in which students can adapt the scripts from textbooks and act out certain situations.

In this way, students can experience the feelings and values of the roles. It's good for students to understand the meaning behind the roles and nurture their own values.

We have also started offering school-based curricula this semester. There are tens of such curricula, such as simultaneous interpretation, a model United Nations, and international etiquette.