Practical Research of Ideological and Political Education in College English Course under the Background of New Liberal Arts ()
1. Introduction
Establishing moral integrity in education has been placed in an important position in our country since ancient China. In December 2016, at the National College Ideological and Political Work Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that it was necessary to do a good job of ideological and political education in colleges and universities with classroom teaching as the main channel. “All other courses should play their roles well and fulfill their responsibilities”, so various types of professional courses give full play to the ideological and political education(IAPE for short) function of the curriculum and achieve the goal of “All kinds of professional courses and ideological and political theory courses are in the same direction, forming a synergistic effect” [1] . “Curriculum politics” is to extend the ideological and political education in colleges and universities from the main channel of ideological and political curriculum to all majors [2] . In May 2019, the Ministry of Education department officially launched the “six excellence and one top-notch” plan 2.0, proposing the construction of New Engineering, New Medicine, New Agriculture and New Liberal Arts must be comprehensively promoted [3] . The connotative development of higher education in China should also be promoted so as to enhance the service ability and elevate the contribution level of higher education to society. What makes the New Liberal Arts different from the traditional liberal arts is that they promote the innovative development of liberal arts education through interdisciplinary integration and cultivate applied compound all-round talents to satisfy the needs of national development.
Foreign language teaching plays a crucial role in connecting China with the world. Language is the carrier of human civilization, so foreign language learning is not only language learning but a medium for students to contact the world, and students are exposed to the value and ideologies of the west during the process of language learning [4] . Thus, the core of the ideological and political construction of foreign language courses is how to correctly guide the students to realize the differences in cultural ideologies between China and foreign countries with the application of Marxist philosophy and how to successfully help students establish national and cultural self-confidence. Students with strong political quality and international vision can serve as the bridge connecting China with foreign countries and tell the Chinese stories well. Meanwhile, the ideological and political curriculum of foreign language courses puts forward higher requirements for teachers. Foreign language teachers must know western ideologies and cultures well. They themselves should also have strong beliefs and firm ideals so as to guide the value of the students in a way to moisten things silently.
2. The Feasibility and Necessity of Integrating IAPE into College English Course
2.1. The Feasibility
College English is considered as a compulsory course in most colleges and universities. It usually lasts for 4 semesters with the features of large span, long class hours and extensive coverage, which are beneficial for teachers to carry out specific and systematic ideological and political teaching. At present, the following problems do exist in college English teaching: students pay too much attention to the instrumentality of college English while neglecting its humanity; teachers focus on the “culture input” while neglecting “culture output”; Some teachers lack the ability to integrate IAPE into college English teaching. At the same time, college English textbooks encompass such topics as technology, culture, politics, economy, social development, humanistic spirit and so on. All these are conducive to integrating IAPE into college English and making it become an important channel to conduct moral education, forming a synergistic effect.
College English teaching and learning has the characteristics of instrumentality, cross culture, subjectivity and humanity, which makes it different from primary and secondary English teaching and learning. Instrumentality refers to making use of the language carrier to impart knowledge, develop abilities and integrate moral education into classroom teaching. Humanity means that college English shoulders the responsibility of upgrading students’ humanistic quality. Therefore, college English does not only focus on conveying knowledge and skills but also on spreading the hidden values, spiritual and philosophical components of Chinese culture. Thus students will be cultivated into talents with firm patriotism and correct social values.
College English course and ideological and political course are intertwined. Both of them are public elementary courses. The characteristic of humanity corresponds to ideological and political course with a high degree. Integrating moral education into language teaching can effectively achieve morality cultivation in a less didactic way and develop students’ critical thinking ability spontaneously.
2.2. The Necessity
The 21st century is an era of global cultural diversity and economic integration. Language functions as a communicative tool and also the carrier of cultural exchange. College English course, with the characteristics of large span, long class hours and extensive coverage, is the main channel for college students to know the western ideologies. Hence, college English course sustains such responsibilities as knowledge transmission and moral cultivation.
As an integral part of college liberal education, constructing IAPE in college English course is an irresistible trend in the era of New Liberal Arts. On the one hand, integrating IAPE into college English teaching can form a synergistic effect and help students judge cultural differences dialectically in the context of language and culture collision. On the other hand, the process of integration is also a process of integrating our excellent traditional culture. College English textbooks focus more on foreign cultures than Chinese culture. Due to the great differences in culture, history and region, foreign cultures differ from Chinese culture in language, culture and social values. Lack of the ability to tell right from wrong, many college students admire foreign cultures blindly and pay little attention to our Chinese culture. They cannot tell Chinese stories to the world or promote the effective communication between China and foreign countries.
Under the background of New Liberal Arts, integrating IAPE into college English effectively can help students cultivate social values. During the process of personal development, only those who have scientific outlook on life and values will establish ambitious ideals so as to devote themselves to study and work. College English is a humanistic course holding abundant and diverse contents and knowledge. Combining ideological and political elements with different English contents can further promote students’ healthy development and help them set up positive world outlook, outlook on life and values. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen and construct IAPE in college English course to cultivate students into application talents with cultural confidence, international vision and excellent intercultural communication competence who can tell Chinese stories well and become the link between Chinese culture and foreign cultures.
3. The Connotation, Goal and Implementation Framework of IAPE in College English Course
In 2020, the Ministry of Education issued the Guidelines for the Construction of Ideological and Political Education in Colleges and Universities, proposing to “make all kinds of courses and ideological and political courses go in the same direction, unify explicit and implicit education, form a synergistic effect, construct ‘all-stuff, whole-process and all-round’ ideological and political education.” [5] The Guidelines on College English Teaching (2020 version) emphasizes that “College English teaching should integrate language teaching with ideological and political education so as to play an important role in implementing the fundamental task of establishing moral integrity in cultivation.” [6] In other words, College English teaching should combine values guidance with knowledge transmission and ability development. Under the background of the Party and the promotion of New Liberal Arts education, Wu Yan, the director of Higher Education Department of the Ministry of Education, put forward a brand new path for foreign language education in 2019. He points out that more attention should be paid to the important part foreign language education has played in constructing socialist cultural power in the new age, enhancing national cultural soft power and disseminating Chinese culture. In March, 2021, director Wu’s comprehensive elaboration of the cultivation of high-quality foreign language talents in Beijing has infused the ideological and political education in foreign language courses with new connotation and goals in the era of New Liberal Arts.
3.1. Connotation: Sinicization, Integration, Internationalization
IAPE does not mean opening a new course or just carrying out some activities in class. It is the integration of IAPE into different courses. Through the integration, the IAPE in colleges and universities can be extended from the main channel of ideological and political curriculum to all courses. College English course, a compulsory course to all the students, has developed its own “Trinity” of “cultural carrier”, “binding force”, “influence” in IAPE. As is shown in Figure 1, the three forces are intertwined and interact with each other.
“Cultural carrier” means the “sinicization” of college English teaching. It is the first key element of ideological-political connotation of college English course. Not only should college English teaching go under the leadership of the Party, it also takes root in fulfilling the shared aspiration of building socialism with Chinese characteristics. Meanwhile, it is necessary to pay more attention to the universal law of language teaching and special law due to cultural differences. Combined with the characteristics of college English and the national context of college English teaching, college English teachers can selectively and correctly apply western teaching theories to teach students with different levels, making the course carry the essence of Chinese culture.
Binding force, namely “integration” of college English teaching. It is the second key element of ideological-political connotation of college English course. Language is the cultural carrier. It can connect with almost every discipline. Under the background of New Liberal Arts, the goal of higher education has shifted from cultivating graduates with solely professional skills to talents with a combination of language ability and professional knowledge. Thus higher education should break discipline barrier and integrate college English into social disciplines and humanities, constructing “English + major” or “English + other language” teaching mode to meet the needs of national development.
“Influence” is the “internationalization” of college English teaching. It is the third key element of ideological-political connotation of college English course and the strategic height that college English education should reach based on the
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Figure 1. The trinity of “three forces”.
first two key elements. Language does not only have a strong ideological and political influence, more importantly, it is the carrier of human culture and civilization. College English course is the compulsory course to all students, thus developing college English education has become the consensus of the colleges and universities. In the stage of higher education, college English education is the medium through which Chinese culture, wisdom, ideology and programs can be promoted internationally. Conducting college English course enables us to tell Chinese stories better to the world by cultivating excellent domestic innovative and compound students and attracting more foreign students become interested in learning Chinese culture and stories.
3.2. Goal: Moral Education, Intercultural Education, Integrated Education
Higher education should focus on the following three issues: “what kind of talents to cultivate”, “how to cultivate them” and “for whom to cultivate them” [7] . It should also attach importance to both professional knowledge teaching and ideology and morality cultivation. Under the background of New Liberal Arts, the ideological and political goals of college English course can be achieved from the following three aspects.
Firstly, the ultimate goal of education and the fundamental goal of IAPE in college English course is “moral education”. College English teachers need to be aware of how to educate people and meanwhile constantly improve their own ability to educate students. It is crucial to explore the ideological and political element such as cultural confidence, patriotism and socialist core values, organically integrate them into college English classroom and help students set up positive world outlook, outlook on life and values, so as to achieve the ideological and political education’s goal of educating people morally.
Secondly, college English course can make full use of its discipline advantages. College English teachers lay emphasis on the cultivation of students’ intercultural communication ability and international vision, which can guide students to be cultural communication bonds that can spread Chinese culture and Chinese stories to the world. Moreover, the excellent talents can help China strengthen the cooperation and exchanges among countries, facilitate the external dissemination of Chinese stories, culture, thoughts and ideology, and effectively construct a community with a shared future.
Thirdly, the goal of IAPE in college English course is also to promote the integration of college English with other disciplines. In the era of New Liberal Arts, higher education should focus on the promotion of integrated education in cross disciplines. English, with the largest spoken population, can be a tool for different majors, so the construction of integrated education of cross disciplines such as “English + major” and “English + foreign language” is conducive to cultivating compound talents with all-round development of specialized knowledge, professional skills and literacy.
3.3. Implementation Framework
Professor Wen Qiufang interprets IAPE in foreign language teaching as “Foreign language teachers, playing the central role, organically integrate the concept of establishing moral integrity in cultivation into every step in classroom teaching through the teaching context, classroom management, evaluation system and teachers’ speech and behavior, so as to play a role in establishing the correct world outlook, outlook on life and values.” [8] That means IAPE should cover the whole process of college English teaching, which requires college English teachers not only to deeply explore the moral elements in teaching materials, but also to perceive all-round education as the ultimate goal of college English teaching and to create a well-organized and productive college English teaching system. Learning from Professor Wen Qiufang’s ideological and political framework for foreign language teaching, the researcher combined her own teaching experience and put forward specific ideological and political implementation framework for college English course.
According to Table 1, the implementation framework for IAPE in college English course has horizontal and vertical dimensions. Horizontal dimension combines the five important stages in teaching in time sequence: preparation, classroom teaching, homework evaluation and reflection. Vertical dimension makes major task, key strategy in every chain clear, helping teachers be aware of the responsibilities and approaches in every stage. The five chains are intertwined and indispensable. Only when the goals and tasks in every chain are fulfilled can we break through “The Last Mile” in the close combination of college English language teaching and moral education.
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Table 1. Specific implementation framework for IAPE in college English course.
4. Innovative Paths and Strategies of Integrating IAPE in College English Course
College English is a compulsory course in Zhejiang Yuexiu University. It covers all the non-English majors and lasts for 4 semesters. There are 4 periods for each class each week. New Target College English Integrated Course volumes 1 - 4 are used as the textbooks, one volume one semester. Based on the implementation framework illustrated in the third part, this part takes New Target College English Integrated Course volume 1 as an example and presents specific innovative paths and relevant strategies to integrate the IAPE into college English course in the era of New Liberal Arts.
4.1. College English Teachers Should Get Well Prepared for Teaching Materials
As for lesson preparation stage, the most important part is that teachers need to fully explore the moral resources in the teaching materials. Teaching materials are the main carrier of teaching content, the basic guarantee for achieving the teaching goals and also the important media for college students to receive positive guidance in terms of ideals, beliefs, values and ethics [9] . Ideological and political elements should be organically integrated into the teaching content but not mechanically applied. Firstly, teachers use the theme of each unit as the breakthrough point, explore the moral elements on our own and then discuss with colleagues to obtain more resources. The exploration of moral elements must be matched with the needs of the country development. Secondly, we take the students as the guide of the course, make sure the teaching content is correlated with their ideologies. Thirdly, moral education in college English should be combined with different characteristics of students majors to construct “English + major” or “English + other foreign language” teaching mode. Finally, teaching materials should give priority to moral education [10] . Teachers must select the elements scientifically, highlight the key points and pay more attention to the deep integration so as to avoid the phenomenon of “two skins” between ideological and political teaching and the teaching content.
4.1.1. Correct Teaching Theories
Teachers should perceive learning as a lifelong pursuit. College English teachers can learn the latest domestic and foreign teaching theories and investigate the actual situation of every college English class. Then we discuss in seminars and carry out academic forums to fully explore the teaching theories and selectively integrate the feasible approaches and practical solutions into our teaching. Combining the characteristics of our school with the requirements of talents in China’s new era and students’ needs, we can apply the new teaching theories to our classroom teaching.
While preparing for Unit 8 “Growing Pains”, we can search teaching theories related with encouragement and sharing. A lot of pains might appear in the process of growing up, for fear of being considered as “abnormal”, many students dare not talk about their pains and sufferings openly. We can help students realize that growing pains are an essential part and a great opportunity for our growth by sharing life experience stories of Li Jiacheng and Einstein. Meanwhile we also encourage students to talk about their pains openly so that they can learn to recognize their own value, express gratitude to family members and friends, let go of the anger, stress and pain and build a positive attitude towards life. Therefore, they can develop into stronger, more grateful and optimistic talents of the new era.
4.1.2. Advanced Technology
With the rapid development of technology and the shift of people’s opinions on blended-learning, the combination of technology and classroom teaching is a must. Modern college students were born in the digital age, their study and lifestyles have been greatly influenced by intelligence tools. Thus they adapt quickly to information-based teaching. Most of the teaching materials of college English are in the form of word, which is quite different from their normal ways of acquiring information. Information age can not only offer help in cultivating students’ outlook on values but also be a carrier of IAPE in college English teaching. With the help of on-line teaching platforms such as “Treenity”, “Rain Classroom”, “UClass”, “THEOL”, college English teachers prepare and upload videos and pictures related with IAPE such as patriotism, Chinese culture, socialist core values before class. Using problem-based teaching method, teachers raise questions about online materials and guide students to reflect and discuss with each other to draw a conclusion. This helps teachers carry out IAPE in language teaching and cultivate students into talents with correct ideology and outlooks.
Take Unit 1 “College Life” as an example, teachers upload two video clips before class, one is about Beijing University and the other is about Qian Xuesen’s story of returning to China after finishing his study abroad. Guide students to discuss and answer the questions: What inspirations can you draw from watching the two video clips? What differences in higher education school system between China and USA do you know? By watching and discussing, students will know more about higher education system in China and the spirit of patriotism of celebrities so as to strengthen their sense of patriotism and confidence in system.
Meanwhile, it is also important to construct ideological and political related English resource online library. For example, an English database of “curriculum politics” system can be constructed, and it can be further divided into four different resource modules of “Chinese story”, “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”, “Chinese culture” and “Chines diplomacy”. The contents include English literature on Chinese culture, history, economy, agriculture, diplomacy, ideology, English texts from textbooks as well as video and audio clips from authoritative domestic periodicals and newspapers. Teachers use the materials in class and students learn autonomously at any time. The advanced technology integrates Chinese elements into classroom teaching skillfully, meets the diverse needs of students and promotes the effect of ideological and political teaching in college English course.
4.2. College English Teachers Should Pay More Attention to Classroom Teaching
In classroom teaching stage, teaching objectives, classroom activities and innovative teaching methods all go with IAPE to guarantee the ultimate coordination of “teaching” and “educating”. IAPE is not a mere formalism. College English teachers reexamine the curriculum and focus on the original goal of teaching and educating. Meanwhile, we should also reflect on the objectives, teaching content and orientation of the curriculum.
4.2.1. Teaching Objectives
College English teaching objectives can be divided into explicit and implicit objectives. Explicit objectives are mainly about expanding students’ language knowledge, improving their listening, reading, speaking, translating and writing skills and cultivating their language comprehensive application ability. Implicit objectives focus on all-round education, including artistic appreciation, critical thinking ability, correct world outlook, outlooks on life and values and so on. College English teaching objective is not the simple superposition of the two objectives, they should integrate with each other. Implicit objectives should be based on the deep exploration and extraction of language teaching materials and organically cohere with language teaching objectives [11] .
While giving lessons in Unit 2 “Love and Friendship”, the teaching objectives are as follows: 1) Apply word formation strategy of prefix of position (vocabulary). 2) Understand the nuances in the polysemous expression “leave behind” in different contexts (reading). 3) Write a problem-solution paragraph (writing). 4) Understand the profound love they get and think about what they can return the community and country (speaking). The ideological and political teaching objective in this unit is to help students appreciate the help and love they receive and learn to reciprocate with gratitude through the understanding of different meanings of the phrase “leave behind”. Meanwhile we can cultivate students into loving, caring and grateful youngsters.
4.2.2. Classroom Activities
In college English classes, teachers need to be aware that students are the master of the classroom teaching. All that is taught in class should meet their needs. The main body of the class changes from teachers to the students and the focus of teaching changes from single language learning to the combination of knowledge acquisition and moral education. The integration of language learning and moral education into classroom activities makes English teaching more interesting and moral education more acceptable to students. Students dominate the class through participating in activities such as role-playing, debate, presentation and so on. In this way, we can innovate the traditional teacher-oriented classroom into student-oriented and develop students’ listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation skills as well as critical thinking ability, cooperation and self-confidence.
In the warm-up part of Unit 7 “Effective Communication”, teachers can conduct a role-playing activity to motivate students to think about another form of communication―nonverbal communication. Two students use gestures, facial expressions, postures and other body movements to act out a scene, the other students guess the meaning according to their body language. Through this activity, students get to know that effective communication is the foundation of daily interpersonal relationship and nonverbal communication plays a crucial part in intercultural relationship. They can also better understand the cultural differences that the same gesture or movement may have different meanings in different cultures.
After learning Unit 6 “Pleasure of Reading”, teachers can organize a debate on the topic of “Will E-books replace Paper books?” Students illustrate the merits and demerits of both electronic books and paper books. Teachers guide them to realize that no matter what kind of books to choose, picking up a book is the best way to nurture ambition, understand history and cultivate intellect. They can also obtain humanistic knowledge and scientific literacy through reading.
In the reading part of Unit 5 “To Be Creative”, teachers assign students to prepare for a presentation on “Ways to Encourage Students’ Creativity”. Group members collect information, finish the PPT and choose a representative to present their ideas. In the preparation process, students comprehend the true meaning of creativity, put forward ways to encourage creativity and know how to become well-prepared students to join the society. Group discussion and cooperation will also develop their cooperative spirit.
4.2.3. Language Teaching
Language teaching is still the most important part of the class. If we compare classroom teaching to a dish, the main ingredient of the dish is language teaching and IAPE is the salt. Too much salt, the dish will be too salty, too little salt, the dish might be too light. Thus we should integrate IAPE into different parts of language teaching in a way to moisten things silently.
According to the theme of Unit 3 “Power of Music”, teachers guide students know, understand and appreciate Chinese music by integrating various kinds of moral elements into language teaching. In Warm-up section, different pieces of music are played and students volunteer to share the name and category of the music. Meanwhile, a video clip about how music relates to our life is presented, students watch and fill in the blanks. Then, encourage students to discuss the question: why is music a big part of our life and how music can support us and inspire our imagination and creativity. In Reading section, teachers lead students to locate specific information to understand how Einstein’s genius was brought out by his gift for music and the great power of music. After learning the passage, teachers motivate students to be aware of the implied meaning that besides love and music, perseverance is also important for people’s success and to reflect on how music can inspire people so as to build a positive attitude towards study and life. In translation section, with the sentence translation exercise on the book, help students translate sentences like “No classical music could rival Beijing Opera in terms of its popularity in China.” and “Nowhere else in the world can you find a wall as the Great Wall in China.” As to the paragraph translation, use group discussion to organize students to read, discuss and try to figure out the general idea, possible constructions and main structure of each sentence. By translating Confucius’ quote “To educate somebody, you should start with poems, emphasize ceremonies, and finish with music”, students will be aware of the relationship between music civilization and Chinese higher education and strengthen their cultural confidence. In writing section, assign students to write an exemplification paragraph on the topic “My Favourite Piece of Chinese Music/Chinese Composer/Chinese Singer”. Before deciding which topic to choose, present them the sample of “My Favourite Chinese Composer―Xian Xinghai” by introducing his music The Yellow River Cantata, the background of Chinese People’s War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression in World War II, and the influence of encouraging millions of listeners to participate in the war. Teachers suggest students use mind map to brainstorm as many examples as they can to illustrate and support the topic sentence. Decide which example to choose and finish their composition. Through writing such a paragraph, students will know more about Chinese history and civilization.
4.3. College English Teachers Should Focus on Extracurricular Assignments
As to language learning, “assignment” is different from “exercise”, they have different connotations. “Exercise” means rigid training while “assignment” essentially refers to achieving a goal through doing something. It attaches great importance to the learner’s subjective initiative and creativity to accomplish an assignment [12] . That is to say, college English teachers need to focus on the implicit and explicit teaching objectives, make the most of the on-line platform and resources and pay attention to language acquisition and moral education while assigning extracurricular assignment.
4.3.1. On-Line Pre-Class Assignment
With the continuous deepening of information revolution, information technology has brought unprecedented changes to college English teaching. From the traditional teacher-centered teaching mode to multimedia teaching and now the blended-teaching in the post-pandemic era, network has penetrated into every aspect of teaching and learning.
Pre-class assistant resources and assignment can be handled with the help of on-line platform. According to the theme and topic of each unit and each class, teachers prepare some online pre-class assignment, using pictures, video clips, articles related with ideological and political teaching to guide students to think about the topic and discuss in groups to reach a conclusion. Getting well prepared before class can help students understand Chinese elements more easily and acquire more knowledge in class.
4.3.2. Second Class
IAPE is not only integrated with the first class, it also needs to interact and penetrate with the second class to encourage more students to spontaneously spend their after-class time participating actively in second class activities. Teachers explore the ideological and political elements of second class deeply, make full combination of “reading ten thousand books” and “traveling ten thousand miles”, hold different campus and social activities and offer more opportunities for students to receive IAPE.
Based on “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China”, we can hold translation and vocabulary competitions covering topics on Chinese Dream, Moderately Prosperous Society, Beautiful China, Chinese History, Economy, Culture, Politics and so on. After learning Unit 4 “The Power of Music”, we can stage a singing competition, encouraging students to sing different kinds of Chinese music. After learning Unit 6 “Pleasure of Reading”, we can organize students from different classes to have a debate on the topic “Whether E-books will Replace Paper Books or not”. Taking part in all these activities will elevate students’ English comprehensive abilities, deepen their cultural confidence, stand firm in support of socialist core values and lay a solid foundation on spreading Chinese voice, telling Chinese stories and inheriting Chinese traditional cultures.
Take advantage of students’ preference to social networking software. Modern college students are living in the digital era, they grasp every opportunity to immerse themselves online. College English teachers can create QQ chatting group, Wechat tiny programs, Dingtalk group, online English corner to share pictures, videos, articles containing ideological and political elements, for example, the video names “New Wave” on bilibili, the film “Zootopia”, the article titled “Pelosi’s Taiwan Visit Strongly Condemned”, the documentary “The Story of China”. Combining moral education with mobile apps is conducive to extending moral education to after-class programs and making IAPE more fun and more acceptable.
Organize various kinds of volunteering activities. The ultimate goal of moral education is not theory but practice. Integrating ideological and political elements into practice can not only develop students’ practical operation ability and strengthen their mind, but also conduct IAPE in practice. School should also stimulate students to take part in volunteering activities, encouraging them to walk out of the “ivory tower” and get in touch with the society so as to know more about it. Take “Volunteering in Lu Xun Residence” as an example, students make use of their own advantages, introduce Chinese culture and history to foreigners as volunteers. This activity helps them practice their oral English, improve their expressive ability, increase their life experience, and more importantly, come into real contact with Chinese culture, carry forward Chinese traditional culture and comprehend the eternal and positive Chinese spirit illustrated in Chinese dream.
4.4. College English Teachers Should Evaluate the Students Scientifically
Evaluation is an integral part of teaching and learning, it helps us judge whether all the teaching objectives have been achieved. New Liberal Arts has brought us opportunities as well as challenges. Regarding the present evaluation system, problems such as using single evaluation criterion, neglecting formative assessment, focusing on summative assessment do exist. College English course takes an evaluation system combining formative assessment with summative assessment under the background of New Liberal Arts. It attaches importance to students’ daily behavior, supervises students’ learning process, guides students to establish correct learning attitude and cultivate their autonomous learning ability. To ensure that linguistic competence objective and moral education objective can both be achieved in college English course, teachers need to combine the evaluation of language skills and ideological and political teaching, play the role of ideological and political functions of the evaluation system from the following three aspects: contents, methods and subjects.
4.4.1. Evaluation Contents
College English evaluation system needs to broaden its evaluation contents to realize multiple evaluation. To be specific, the evaluation contents do not just include language teaching of vocabulary, grammar, translation and so on, it also includes moral education elements.
Teachers evaluate students’ learning process in each unit through observation and keeping records. Learning process covers aspects of background information exploration, group work discussion, oral practice, project, personal behavior and so on. Meanwhile, we can also guide students to keep learning portfolio, while learning each unit, write down their study plan, the learning experience, teachers’ evaluation, learning outcomes, especially the changes of their ideologies. All these elements can be used as the main basis for formative assessment. In summative assessment, teachers extract the major moral education elements from each unit and set more open questions in the exam. In evaluating their outcomes, teachers focus on their language expression and ability as well as their value orientation, correct their extreme and unilateral opinions in time, guide them to strengthen their political consciousness and humanistic quality.
4.4.2. Evaluation Methods
In the first period of each semester, teachers make sure that each student is aware of the structure of the evaluation system. Encourage students to participate in class actively, finish the assignment earnestly and attend the class on time so as to get higher usual performance scores. Correspondingly, teachers take students’ efforts, progress and personal behavior as the evaluation criteria while observing and assessing students. Teachers can also make full use of the online platform to record students’ classroom behavior, praise their progress, give timely feedback on students’ extracurricular assignments and the quizzes, helping them know the problems and corresponding improvement methods. The multiple evaluation methods can reinforce students’ learning motivation, inspire their learning interest so as to improve their learning effects.
4.4.3. Evaluation Subjects
In order to fully play the incentive effect of evaluation, colleges need to combine peer evaluation and self-evaluation with teacher evaluation to broaden the evaluation subjects and establish a multiple evaluation system.
The three evaluation subjects evaluate students from different aspects. Teacher evaluation focuses on students’ linguistic competence and professionalism, self-evaluation is about personal progress and development while peer evaluation emphasizes on students’ behavior and contribution in group work. Teachers offer some standard evaluation criteria for reference while conducting peer evaluation to assure its objectiveness and justice. According to peer evaluation and self-evaluation, students can adjust their learning strategy, enhance the autonomous learning ability and develop the spirit of cooperation and solidarity.
4.5. College English Teachers Should Reflect Constantly
Reflection is an indispensable part of the teaching process. Teachers and students all need to take part in the “reflection-renewal-growth” process. For teachers, reflection is the process of revising and improving their existing knowledge. For students, reflection is the process of rethinking and redesigning their learning strategies.
Through reflection teachers would be aware of what needs to be adjusted during the process. Reflection can be conducted from the following aspects: firstly, reflect on students’ outstanding performance and deficiency. Teachers need to know the ideological and political elements which can enlighten students in class and stimulate their inspiration. Secondly, reflect on the applicability between the teaching contents and teaching objectives. The teaching contents, the choice of ideological and political elements and the integration paths all matter if the teaching objectives could be achieved. Thirdly, through reflection teachers will understand the reasons why the problems occurred during the teaching process and then redesign teaching ideas, contents and strategies. Lastly, reflect on the teaching effect. Teachers need to hold seminars regularly to reflect whether the ideological and political objectives have been achieved through teaching. Meanwhile teachers can also conduct various forms of reflection, such as conducting action researches, keeping reflective diaries and collective reflection.
Besides teachers’ reflection, students’ reflection and collective reflection should also be encouraged. Students will know better about what they have achieved and lost during the learning process through reflection and find suitable ways to adjust their learning strategies. Teachers and students analyze the problem and find solutions through collective reflection. They can cultivate cooperative spirit and make common progress by sharing and negotiating with each other.
5. Conclusions
Students are the center of the class, their feedback and suggestions can give teachers more information on how to better integrate IAPE into college English teaching. They agree that college English course helps them improve their linguistic competence and master the correct learning methods. It also enhances their humanistic quality, deepens their understanding of the differences of values and thinking modes between Chinese and foreign cultures, and improves their intercultural communication competence as well as critical thinking skills. In addition, some students suggest that teachers introduce British and American culture more systematically and hope they can gain further knowledge about Chinese culture and history. From their feedback and suggestions, we can find out that IAPE in college English course meets most students’ needs. It is an organic combination of linguistic competence, knowledge attainment and moral education, which practices the fundamental task of establishing moral integrity in cultivation and pursues education for all-round development.
Although IAPE in college English course has accomplished some achievements, there is still room for improvement. Firstly, due to the expansion of university enrollment, there are great differences among students’ English levels, especially those whose listening does not need to be tested in College Entrance Examination. Their listening ability and oral English are so poor that they cannot fully participate in group work. Secondly, differences in knowledge structure between students majored in Science and students majored in Liberal Arts do exist. Thus constructing “English + major” and “English + foreign language” teaching modes is necessary. Thirdly, college English teaching should bring into full play the role of college English teachers in IAPE. Teacher’s teaching ability is the vital influencing factor of the teaching effect. Therefore, cultivating teachers’ main role in ideological and political teaching and improving teachers’ ability to teach and educate are the urgent problems that need to be solved. We can hold special seminars to cultivate teachers’ political quality and increase their understanding of ideological and political elements such as Xi Jinping’s theory of socialism with Chinese characteristics, Chinese Dream, Moderately Prosperous Society, Reform and Opening up and so on. Only when we ourselves are well equipped can we play the invisible role of IAPE in college English course.
The 14th five-year plan clearly put forward the new requirements of promoting people’s all-round development and the need to promote high-quality construction of higher education. It has brought new development opportunities for the construction of New Liberal Arts. The construction of New Liberal Arts requires college English course to transform the ideas, change the teaching objective of overemphasizing on linguistic competence. The Guide to College English Teaching (2020 version) emphasizes that college English aims at cultivating students’ linguistic competence, strengthening their intercultural awareness and communication ability, developing their autonomous learning ability and cultivating their humanistic spirit as well as their critical thinking. In order to achieve all these goals, college English teachers need to construct effective ideological and political implementation framework, integrate ideological and political education organically into every aspect of the teaching process, extract moral education elements and combine values guidance with knowledge transmission and ability development.
At present, the IAPE in college English course is still in the early stage of exploration and practice. It asks for continuous exploration and in-depth practice from all the college English teachers to form a complete and concrete system and to construct the educational pattern of “Big Ideological and Political”.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank 2022 Zhejiang Provincial First-class Course (online and offline blended teaching)―Comprehensive English 1 for the support of this research.