NYUSH Students Team Up With Nanjing University Counterparts in EAP Class

During the past semester, students at NYU Shanghai collaborated with students at Nanjing University, using network technology to span the 300 kilometers separating the two campuses.

The collaboration resulted from a joint effort by NYU Shanghai Dr. Anjuli Pandavar and Nanjing University Dr. XI Jie. The two faculty members teach English for Academic Purposes (“EAP”) at their respective schools.  

Students in Dr. Pandavar’s “EAP: Cities and Urban Consciousness” were placed along with students in Dr. Xi’s “EAP Writing” into twelve teams of three or four students. Each team worked to produce a video about ancient city walls, as the students’ final projects in their respective courses.

Dr. Pandavar pioneered the use of such video projects at NYU Shanghai in 2014, which was then adapted for her first EAP collaboration with Masaryk University in the Czech Republic a year later. Dr. Xi has adapted such projects for use at Nanjing University, which is frequently recognized as home to the most ambitious EAP program among Chinese universities. Now Drs. Xi and Pandavar are extending their collaboration as the natural next step.

The collaboration will continue in the upcoming semester and will include an even more substantial research component. They will present their work at conferences in Nanjing and Tokyo this summer, and Dr. Pandavar is working on a book about her approach to EAP teaching.

Professor Chen Hua, Director of the Department of Applied Foreign Language Studies at Nanjing University, accompanied Dr. Xi on a visit to NYU Shanghai last week, and Dr. Pandavar introduced them to Vice Chancellor Lehman.  Professor Chen described the education reform program currently underway at Nanjing University and expressed her hope that more educators might work on intercultural communication. Vice Chancellor Lehman expressed his admiration for the spirit of innovation and collaboration reflected in the partnership between the two lecturers.