The award ceremony for the 7th National Foreign Language Teaching Contest (NFLTC), which was co-hosted by the Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, was held in Shanghai on Nov 7.

The organization and implementation of the contest have been supported by the Ministry of Education,the National Foreign Language Teaching Advisory Board and provincial education departments.

In his written remarks, Wu Qidi, former vice minister of education and honorary director of the organizing committee of NFLTC, said: "Since its establishment seven years ago, NFLTC has had a tremendous impact on the reforms of China’s foreign language teaching, the training of teachers, the improvement of higher educationquality in China and the cultivation of teacher morals.”

Since March,the regional semi-finals and finals have been held in 29 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions across the country, making the contest the one with the largest number of participating provinces.

To further implement the principles of “NavigatingCollege English Teaching”, which wereformulated by the Ministry of Education, the contest included for the first time side competitionsin microlecture, an online and mobile learning methodfeaturing a constructivist approach, to encouragecollege English teachers to utilizemultimedia teaching resources and innovative teaching philosophy and methods.

According to officials, the NFLTC hasconstantly been adhering to the principles of impartiality, authority, rigorousness and pragmatism. In addition, as China’s largest, highest-level and most influential foreign language teaching competition, the NFLTC has played a vital role in supporting efforts in English teaching in higher education, from college English to professional English as well as vocational English teaching.

Industry experts have said that the NFLTC has developed over the years to become more than just a contest – the initiative has now become a major platform to cultivate quality foreign language teachers and an important way of exploring a foreign language teaching system with Chinese characteristics.

“It’s a huge encouragement and honor for me,” said Liu Wenbo, one of the grand-prize winners.“I learned a lot from the judges and other contestants. I’m very grateful for this opportunity.”

Wen Wenyi contributed to this story.