DGUT-CNAM Institute (DCI) students majoring in Mechanical Design, Manufacturing and Automation, Communications Engineering, and Software Engineering have achieved excellent results in the June 2018 National College English Test Band 4 (CET-4). The pass rates for the three majors were 84%, 81%, and 86% respectively, with a DCI overall pass rate of 83%. In total, 120 DCI students (92% of our students) took part in the CET-4 exam, with 41 of these students (34%) achieving a mark of 500 or more. Furthermore, 100% of the students who took part in the CET-4 speaking test (CET4-SET) achieved a passing grade.

As the firstSino-foreign cooperatively-run Institute approved by the Ministry of Education in Dongguan, DCI has always adhered to President Xi’s four educational principles: common sense, teaching and educating the people, training talent, and working to serve and strengthen the country. With these ideas in mind, DCI will continue to focus on the goal of “cultivating high-quality engineers, based on a global vision and following international guidelines, with trilingual competence in English, Chinese and French, and cross-cultural communication skills”; indeed, at DCI, talent cultivation is at the center of everything we do.

Since its establishment, DCI has taken a professional approach to English teaching by ensuring that all students have access to the best classroom facilities and language curriculum. Furthermore, DCI attaches great importance to the quality of their English teaching team. The English language department is led by Dr. Robyn Bray, who holds a PhD in English Language from the University of Glasgow in the UK – the fourth oldest university in the English-speaking world – and all the members of her team hold a Master’s degree or above, as well as having extensive experience in teaching English to international students. Under their instruction, DCI freshmen improved their English rapidly.

Furthermore, the English department enacted a series of reforms to the course materials, teaching methods, and assessment used in DCI, which includes extensive practice for students both during and after class time. The approach followed by the team is always ‘student-centered’, which includes an ‘open-door’ policy that allows students to come to seek further guidance from their teachers whenever it is required. The principles of “division of labor and cooperation” include the authoring of all course materials, setting up English culture workshops, conducting one-to-one tutorials to improve students listening and speaking abilities, examining the students’ language skills using different modules and modes of assessment, and through the development of professional team projects for the students. After the final examination period, the English Language department carefully graded and analyzed the students’ results and submitted a detailed report to help familiarize the other teachers with the students’ individual language strengths and weaknesses.

InDecember 2018, many of the students at DCI will take part in the CET-6 exam, and we are wishing them all every success.