The School of Foreign Studies, HFUT, organized a workshop to improve the digital literacy of foreign language teachers in the AI era. In order to implement the National Education Digitalization Strategy, to meet the challenges of digital and intelligent technologies for the development of foreign language disciplines in the AI era, and to help teachers and students in our school improve digital technology and teaching skills. The workshop was held in the Smart Classroom of our school, from 17 to 19 July 2024. Nearly 100 teachers and students attended the workshop.
Dr. Ma Hui from the School of Computer Science, and teachers from the School of Foreign Studies, Wang Lijun, Guo Xiaojie, Hua Xiaochen, and Li Kangxi were invited to address on topics such as Python and its applications, principles and applications of Large Language Models (LLM), and linguistic research tools. Dr. Ma Hui explained the basic principles and development of LLM and applications of LLM in linguistic research and foreign language teaching, including text generation, machine translation, speech recognition, sentiment analysis, and other aspects. She helped teachers and students understand how to use LLM to improve teaching and research efficiency through case studies and demonstrations. Wang Lijun introduced corpus linguistics and demonstrated specific operations using the Sketch Engine corpus platform. Guo Xiaojie showed how to use CiteSpace for literature retrieval and analysis, and how to use NoteExpress to improve the efficiency of academic writing. Hua Xiaochen presented the research methodology map for social science with a focus on applied linguistics and the quantitative experimental data analysis software—JASP. Li Kangxi interpreted the technologies and policies of AI-empowered digital transformation in foreign language education. Using specific case studies, he demonstrated how AI and related digital technologies can be effectively integrated into foreign language teaching and research to improve the quality and efficiency of teaching, assessment and management, and to facilitate the production of teaching and research outcomes.
The workshop enabled the teachers and students to understand the applications of large language models and AI large model tools in their teaching, research, curriculum development, and daily applications. It is unanimously recognized that the topics covered by the workshop are novel and practical, and the attendees all expressed their gratitude to the lecturers for their sincere guidance and selfless sharing.