The seminar on "Internationalization of World Citizenship and Higher Education" co-organized by the International Business College (IBC) of South China Normal University (SCNU) and the School of Education of San Francisco State University of US was held at Nanhai Campus on November 26, 2013. It was convened on the basis of a three-year educational internationalization research project jointly conducted by our school with San Francisco State University, Canadian University of Sherbrooke, University of Ottawa, and University of Tours in France. The seminar brought together more than a dozen Chinese and foreign scholars from eight universities to discuss the following topics: the internationalization of higher education, the cultivation of world citizen consciousness, curriculum internationalization, bilingual teaching and internationally cooperative school-running strategy. Leaders of more than ten universities abroad who were participating in a teacher training session hosted by Agence universitaire de la Francophonie (AUF), as well as some experts, the teacher and graduate students of IBC joining in the conference "Theory and Practice of Language Education Teaching" on 27th attended the seminar.

At the seminar, researchers made different views on concerned topics. On one hand, Olivier Garro, Regional Director of AUF explained the organization’s role in developing relations among its members and promoting the internationalization of higher education. Professor Li Mingye of San Francisco State University expounded the strategy of internationalization of university curriculum in transnational teaching with specific research cases. Sherbrooke University professor Maori Laforest then pointed out the status quo and trend of worldwide internationalization of higher education. On the other hand, Li Shengbing, the professor of SCNU School of Education along with Félicia Loghin, Vice-Chancellor of Luznapoka Medical University in Romania respectively introduced the bilingual and trilingual teaching situation in schools. Professor Mu Su from the School of Information Technology in Education interpreted the design and implementation of international courses from the perspective of educational informatization. Taking Nanhai Campus’ experience in running international cooperative schools over past ten years as an example, Professor Wu Jianli, and also the Dean of IBC, presented both the theory and practice of curriculum internationalization. She pointed out that our future universities can make more use of high-quality network resources like MOOC to promote curriculum internationalized. Chai Shaoming, Vice Dean of IBC presided over the seminar.

This seminar is of great significance to promote the internationalization of IBC’s educational level, the research as well as the practice of curriculum internationalization. In the future, IBC would continue to conduct in-depth cooperation and research with the foregoing universities to provide a platform for communication and practice for the further implementation of educational internationalization.

Date: 2013-11-26