"South China Normal University & Lancaster University: Expanding TESOL Horizons 2020" was held online on Oct. 24-25. The online conference was co-organized by the School of Foreign Studies, South China Normal University, and the Department of Linguistics, Lancaster University. Graduate students from the two institutions presented their research on TESOL and second language acquisition. More than three hundred other graduate students from both Chinese and international universities participated in the discussion.

The two-day conference consisted of fourteen presentations and seven roundtable discussion sessions. The participants discussed topics covering second language acquisition, task-based language teaching, teacher identity, corpus and English language teaching, language testing and assessment, discourse analysis for foreign language teachers, learning strategies, and research on second language pragmatic competence development. The conference provided a full play to their in-depth thinking, readiness in sharing, and active involvement in studies on language, linguistics, and language teaching.

The conference represented a significant effort of both SCNU and LU in education and teacher training and a new attempt at student exchange, marking a significant step in the educational collaboration between SCNU and LU. The conference was also a remarkable exhibition of the students' strong abilities, involvement, and achievement as it was organized by the students from the two universities.

By Zijie Li, Yafang Zhang, Jinghua Xing

School of Foreign Studies│South China Normal University