On the afternoon of April 1, 2015, Paul Kelly, Vice President of London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) accompanied by Nick Byrne, Director of the LSE Language Centre, Catherine Xiang, Asian Languages Coordinator visited Peking University (PKU). They were received by Li Yansong, Vice President of PKU, Zhao Yang, Dean of the PKU School of Chinese as a Second Language, and Zheng Ruqing, Deputy Director of the PKU Office of International Relations. Both sides were engaged in a friendly discussion at Linhuxuan and exchanged their opinions regarding Mandarin language collaboration between the two universities.
First of all, Vice President Li extended a warm welcome to the LSE delegation: “LSE is an old friend of PKU”, he said, “The two universities have maintained a long tradition of cooperation and have developed a number of joint programmes that have attracted many international students every year.” Vice President Kelly expressed his approval for the successful cooperation between LSE and PKU, including double degree programmes and the LSE-PKU Summer School program, and he also expressed his hope to develop further collaboration in Mandarin language programme, which is the main purpose of his visit to China.
Coordinator Xiang described details about the language collaboration plan: “Firstly, we hope the language programme can help students from LSE learn Mandarin for academic purposes.” Xiang noted, “As LSE students need to study academic materials in Chinese, we find learning Mandarin especially useful.” The second point that Xiang mentioned was to provide PKU students with more internship opportunities in the UK, in which they could teach Chinese as a second language.
Deputy Byrne then introduced the LSE Language Centre: “As a multi-lingual institution, the LSE Language Centre offers various language programmes and Mandarin is an essential part of it.” After that, Professor Zhao explained three unique programmes in the PKU School of Chinese as a Second Language. Following the introductions, Vice President Li encouraged wider cooperation between the PKU School of Foreign Languages and the LSE Language Centre, which would help students better utilise resources from the two top universities.
Towards the end of the discussion, both sides agreed to build a stronger relationship and conduct more discussions. Vice President Kelly expressed sincere willingness to broaden their future collaboration into more fields, and his PKU Counterpart, Vice President Li, was hoping to have to have more exchanges with LSE. Li also delivered heartfelt congratulations to LSE for its 120th anniversary.
Reporter: JI Mingzhou
