Dr.Vincent T. Greenier,a seniorLecturer in Linguistics & TESOL at the University of Aberdeen, U.K., delivered his first lecture to the teachers and students of School of Foreign Languages via Tencent Meeting between March 29 and May 17, 2022.He is scheduled to give ten lectures aboutNew Competencies for English Language Teachers: Innovative Skills for Changing Times. Dr.Vincent T. Greenierearned hisB.A.atEastern MichiganUniversity(U.S.A)in2003andhisPh.D.atUniversity ofAuckland (New Zealand)in2018.He has been an ESL/EFL teacher and teacher educator for nearly two decades and has lived and taught in several countries across four continents. His main research interests include creative approaches to language teaching and learning, leadership and professionalism in ELT, language teacher education, language teacher identity, and innovative approaches to qualitative research. His articles can be found in journals such asTESOL Quarterly,System,RELC,The Iranian Journal of Language Teaching Research, and others.
The contents of these ten distinguished lectures can be summarized as follows,over 200 postgraduates and faculty membersattendedthe lecture with interest and excitement.Dr. Greenierdiscussedsome of the lessons he had learned about publishing in the field of Applied Linguistics/TESOL and shared insights he had gathered from various international SSCI journal. And then Dr. Greenier systematically exploredand discussed the teachers’ perceptions of the benefits and enduring challenges with translanguaging in the EFL classroom in China, teacher leadership in classroom practice, creating creative learning environments in language education, becoming adaptive and flexible in times of flux, intercultural awareness of the “cultural worker”, engaging learners through public speaking, fostering growth mindsets for language teachers through autonomy and empowerment, curriculum development for innovative teaching. Last but not least, Dr. Greenier advocated the pedagogical love that they prepared for or continued to their teaching careers and to more personally value and fully appreciated their relationship with and obligations to their students.
At the end of the lecture, all the audience expressed their acknowledgement for this seminar (IALS-4), and took agroupphoto together withDr.Greenieron Tencent Meeting.Dr.Greenier’s series of these ten lectures help the audiencegraspthe general meaning of “New Competencies for English Language Teachers: Innovative Skills for Changing Times”.Thesignificance of international academic exchanges is always strengthened by School of Foreign Languages (HENU), and dozens of international academic lectures are held each year in various disciplines of IALS, which will be updated by many other distinguished academic lectures in the near future.
