COVID19 may have interrupted the ties between ELS and our former international students, but our ELS alumni have been constantly on our minds.
From September 6th to 12th, an ELS team consisting of Ajs Navinda Sujinpram and Issra Pramoolsook and Miss Nittiya Chotibut, led by Dr Jitpanat Suwanthep, Head of School of Foreign Languages, paid a visit to three universities in Guizhou, China to refresh and strengthen the ties which were very much close-knit and fruitful in the past.
The first stop is Guizhou University (GZU) where the ESL team was greeted and supported by Professor Dr Shen Lin, an illustrious alumnus of the ELS PhD Programme. The SUT team had an opportunity to visit an ELT virtual lab and participated as guest speakers in a class on intercultural awareness. It was absolutely a fun session with plenty of games and sharing on food cultures between China and Thailand.
The formal part of the visit was the discussion on future collaborations with Dean and Vice Dean of College of Foreign Languages. Initial agreements were made around 1) potential student and staff exchanges, especially Chinese language teachers coming to SUT, 2) research collaborations in the areas of mutual interests such as technology and AI in language teaching and learning, and 3) recruitment of interested GZU students and lecturers for our ELS MA and PhD Programmes, respectively.
Academic service is also what the ELS team offered to GZU too in order to show our thanks for their hospitality and to promote our MA and PhD programmes. To an audience of around 50 MA students and academic staff, Aj Jitpanat presented one of her studies on mobile language learning applications and the effects on the student users with different learning styles. Aj Issra also shared potential research issues in the areas of academic discourse and writing, and discourse and genre analysis. Both presentations were well received and there is a high possibility that we will welcome GZU staff and students to contribute to our programme and to SUT soon. This GZU trip ended with a promising prospect of more fruitful collaborations with our two universities in a near future. Â