【Stories about GDUFS】Pioneers of the English Major Who Experienced Two Big Changes in GDUFS

On a shining day in late summer, under the guidance of Professor CHEN Jianhua, we journalists travelled to a little tranquil villa at the Yunxi Road, where Professor DU Yuanting greeted us and treated us with tea. Professor CHEN first showed us an old precious photo, which was a black and white photo of the Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages when it was founded in 1965. As pioneering teachers who came to GDUFS for the English major in 1964, they gazed at the photo cautiously, telling their stories about GDUFS.

Initiation of GDUFS

In 1964, RAO Zhangfeng, appointed by the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, established Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages (the predecessor of GDUFS) and served as its Secretary of the CPC Committee and Dean. At that time, the school was at Shougouling Hill in the northeast suburbs of Guangzhou, where the original Petroleum University was located. What did it look like? There is a funny saying that it was ecological: not only filled with weeds and hollowed surfaces, but also having rice crops and a water buffalo nearby. Apart from several simple buildings that could be used as teaching buildings, everything needed to be reclaimed. The person who led us to open up and walk in front of was Dean RAO, who wore a hat and had rolled up his sleeves, starting to map out the school on the ridges with a group of teachers. Every Wednesday, he would lead all of the teachers and students to weed the fields. Within two months, the land was turned into a campus.

DU Yuanting

With the pioneering spirit, Dean RAO also invited a group of graduates from some prestigious universities, such as Sun Yat-Sen University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International University and East China Normal University. He also encouraged them to study assiduously and pursue excellence, with which some young teachers, such as CAI Xingqi, GONG Yuxiu and XU Guolie, soon became the backbone of the teaching staff. At that time, without so many schools and departments as now, there were only two departments: the First Department (English) and the Second Department (minority languages, including French, German and Spanish). Although there were only two departments, teachers paid great attention to teaching and students’ daily lives. In addition, some veteran cadres and demobilized soldiers came from the military to assume the administrative work.

CHEN Chengjian

At that time, either teaching equipment or academic materials were in extreme shortage. Dean RAO set the example by providing his Philips radio for teaching, which was a gift from others. Afterwards, teachers followed suit to contribute their books and lend their materials, determining to lay a solid foundation for the school.

The first big change

In the 1970s, with changes in international situations and the breakdown of relationships between China and the Soviet Union, China turned from pursuing consistently the one-side diplomatic policy into following an independent foreign policy of peace. Under such circumstances, with the urgent need of different talents of foreign languages, many foreign language colleges and universities were established, while Guangdong Province made a major readjustment in institutions of higher learning. One of these was to integrate the departments of foreign languages of Sun Yat-Sen University and Jinan University into Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages. With scholars’ participation, our school prepared to take its first big step.

At that time, advocated by the concept that it is better to learn foreign languages from childhood, our school made a pioneering decision – recruiting directly from junior high school and integrating three years’ courses of high school with courses of university to establish a five-year education. Only GDUFS dared to do this at that time. Over 300 students were recruited in that year, who became the well-known “junior college students” throughout the country and who we were extremely proud of. The trial was very successful. After graduation, most of them were arranged to take important positions in the society, such as in Bank of China and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the PRC. Some outstanding leaders and teachers, such as CHEN Jianping, WANG Guizhen and LI Haili, were members of those “junior college students”. Such a great achievement could not only be attributed to their own diligence, but also be owed to their dedicated teachers, one of whom was Professor GUI Shichun.

Professor GUI came to GDUFS due to the integration of departments in the early 1970s. He contributed a lot to GDUFS. On the one hand, he took the lead role in researching and promoting the method to test English in the Senior High School Entrance Examination and the College Entrance Examination. On the other hand, he established the first major of Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics in China. In the 1980s, when investigating and exchanging in England, he was exposed to Applied Linguistics for the first time, which was a new research project even in the outside world, not to mention that in China. With an acute instinct for academic research, Professor GUI paid great attention to the research according to the development characteristics of our school, promoting our school to be in the leading position in Linguistics in China, and to cultivate a lot of masters and doctors in Linguistics. After retiring, he still contributed his materials and gave suggestions to the library. Professor XU Guozhang, one of the representatives of the third generation of Chinese English teachers, has said that, “People knew Professor GUI first and then GDUFS”. Therefore, we should never forget Professor GUI, who is one of “the Two Outstanding Scholars in English in GDUFS”.

The second big change

In November, 1994, the then Vice-Governor of Guangdong Province, LU Zhonghe, declared the integration of Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Languages and Guangzhou Institute of Foreign Trade. In the next June, these two institutes were integrated officially and was established as Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, which started to cultivate inter-disciplinary talents from foreign language talents. At the founding conference, LU said, aiming at cultivating more talents majored in foreign languages and enhancing the social benefits, the integration could enable different majors to interact with each other and complement each other’s advantages, thus promoting the development of new-rising subjects and interdisciplinary subjects - guaranteeing talent supply for Guangdong’s economic development.

Following the integration, GDUFS has more disciplines, ranging from Foreign Languages to Economics, from Law to Chinese. The young GDUFS has scaled up fast once more, enjoying a comparable reputation to Beijing Foreign Studies University and Shanghai International Studies University.

(CHEN Chengjian, Associate Professor of International College, who retired in 2002; DU Yuanting, Party Secretary of School of Legal Studies, who retired in 2001.)