2020-02-22 [Online Classes in Progress] A Midnight Lamp — Teacher Zhang Hong Volunteering Day and Night to Manage 14 Foreign Teacher Class Groups. 

In accordance with the graduate online teaching arrangements during the epidemic prevention and control period, foreign teachers Steve Russell and Steve Erkens actively responded, overcoming geographical barriers to diligently prepare for teaching. However, when faced with organizing the WeChat group lists for 14 classes with a total enrollment of 435 students, they encountered significant challenges. The first challenge lay in the fact that the enrolled students were master’s and doctoral students from non-English majors at our university. The second challenge was that while the majority of enrolled students were from the class of 2019, a substantial number were from the classes of 2016 to 2018. The third challenge arose because course enrollment was not organized by college or class. The fourth and perhaps most daunting challenge was that both foreign teachers had almost no foundation in Chinese. With these difficulties combined, what initially sounded like a straightforward task became increasingly complex and tedious to execute. To ensure that all enrolled students could understand the course content and format in advance and make appropriate preparations, WeChat class groups served as the fundamental support. After the QR codes for the 14 class WeChat groups were released, students, seemingly disoriented, scanned the codes as soon as they saw the teachers’ names without carefully reading the instructions or joining the groups according to their designated class numbers. As a result, some class groups exceeded 70 members, while others remained unattended. With time pressing and the task urgent, it was imperative to fully organize the 14 class groups before February 22, allowing the foreign teachers sufficient time to issue notifications, conduct pre-class communication, and ensure students “enter the right virtual classroom and find their proper place”. Teacher Zhang Hong courageously took on this heavy responsibility, accepting the urgent task on the afternoon of the February 20 and immediately beginning the work. (This is a photo of Teacher Zhang working late at night, secretly taken by her family member.) Drawing on her extensive experience, Teacher Zhang Hong first posted the class enrollment list in the Class 1 WeChat group, asking students to check their information independently. After this step, she mentioned each student who had not used their real name as required, requesting them to update their display names. She then asked students to invite any classmates they knew who had not yet joined the group to enter... Completing such a round of organization for just one class took over an hour. After working through all 14 classes, Teacher Zhang had already continued her efforts until after 2 a.m. After checking the lists, it was found that there were still 3-4 students in each class who had not joined the groups. Strangely, there were also several students in the groups who were not even on the lists. Upon inquiry, it was discovered that most of those who had not joined were graduate students from the 2016–2018 cohorts, while the students in the groups but not on the lists were those waiting to add the course after the semester began. By this point, Teacher Zhang was exhausted and at a loss, so she immediately sought help from Wang Xiaoyi, the teaching secretary. Early the next morning, Teacher Wang forwarded the lists organized by Teacher Zhang to the teaching secretaries of the relevant colleges. After an anxious wait and re-verification of names and student IDs, Teacher Zhang was finally able to sit down and have a proper dinner at 10:00 p.m. on the February 21. Fourteen classes, fourteen lists, and fourteen class groups—these may appear as ordinary and straightforward terms, yet they reflect Teacher Zhang Hong’s professional dedication, meticulousness, and passionate commitment to teaching. And there are many such teachers around us! Although they are not on the front lines of the fight against the epidemic, they represent the broad community of language and communication educators, standing in solidarity with the nation’s anti-epidemic efforts through their devotion. With this spirit, we believe a splendid spring is within reach! (Provided by: Graduate English Teaching Department)