About This Course
Land is the mother of mankind, and agriculture is the cradle of civilization. In China, agriculture has carried the dreams of millions of people and remained prosperous and blooming in the nation’s five-thousand-year history. Its achievements in farm tools, production methods, water engineering, agriculture policies, and international communication have contributed a splendid chapter to the book of world civilizations.
An Insight into Chinese Agricultural Civilization is an online video course which will start a tour into the past, talking with legendary figures, walking through the farm fields, marveling at those splendid water engineering projects and seeing how the East and the West were connected by agricultural exchanges in ancient times. Through this online English course, learners will increase their knowledge about China’s agricultural civilization and moreover about the long history of Chinese civilization.
Requirements
Your English proficiency should be at or above the intermediate level.
Course Staff
Youqun Xiao, a professor of English language and literature in Jiangxi Agricultural University, Jiangxi, China, is the lead teacher of the National Teaching Team “An Insight into Chinese Agricultural Civilization” credited by the Ministry of Education of China, and Director of the English Discipline, a provincial featured major in Jiangxi Agricultural University. In recent years, she is mainly engaged in the research of improving the teaching ability of young teachers and creating online “Golden Courses”. Till now, she has presided over the construction and management of the two online courses, An Insight into Chinese Agricultural Civilization and An Insight into Chinese Agricultural Civilization — Chinese Idioms. Among them, the first has been credited as one of the first batch of national first-class online courses since Nov. 2021; the latter as one of Provincial High-quality Open Online Courses in Jiangxi, China since June, 2019. With the two established courses, the teaching faculty was acknowledged as one of the National Teaching Teams in the year of 2021.
Weiping Wu, a professor of English language and literature, currently serves as dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Jiangxi Agricultural University. Her research expertise is in translation theory and practice and TEFL. She has published articles in CSSCI academic journals, translated five books from English into Chinese including Beyond Codependency and Stella by the Sea and compiled five sets of textbooks on College English and Graduate English. She has received a number of awards in teaching, such as Prominent Teacher of the Year, The Most Popular Teacher Among Students, Outstanding Supervisor in JXAU, etc.
Xiaorong Zeng is an associate professor of English language and literature and also deputy dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Jiangxi Agricultural University. He has long been engaged in English teaching and discourse analysis research. So far, he has presided over and completed 4 provincial and ministerial-level projects, published more than 10 papers in SSCI and CSSCI journals, one monograph and one translation, and edited one textbook. In 2013, he was awarded the third prize for Outstanding Achievements in Social Sciences in Jiangxi Province.
Xiaohua Song is a lecturer at Jiangxi Agricultural University, mainly engaging in English teaching and research. She has taught several courses including English Reading and Writing and Integrated English for Postgraduates. Recently, she has joined the construction and management of “Golden Courses” like An Insight into Chinese Agricultural Civilization, a national first-class online class. She also leads or participates language research projects, including 2 national studies and 5 provincial ones, and has won more than 10 language teaching awards at national or provincial levels.
Yonglan Pang is a lecturer of English language and literature in the School of Foreign Languages at Jiangxi Agricultural University. She used to be a visiting scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Central Washington University in the U.S. from Mar. 2013 to Mar. 2014. In addition to teaching her own courses like Advanced Business English and A Brief Introduction to Second Language Acquisition, she actively develops and adjusts curriculum to accommodate individual needs and has won a string of awards and recognition in various teaching contests：the Second Prize in the National Teaching Contest in 2012, the Second Prize in the National College English Teaching Contest Jiangxi Division in 2010, the First Prize in National Teaching Innovation Contest for College Teachers Jiangxi Division: the 6th Micro-course Contest of Foreign Languages in 2020, and the Teacher of the Year in Jiangxi Agricultural University in 2010.
Bo Liu is a lecturer at Jiangxi Agricultural University. She has taught courses including Business English: An Integrated Course, Business English Translation, Cross-cultural communication, etc. She participates in 2 national research projects and 2 provincial research projects and she leads 2 research projects funded by Jiangxi Agricultural University and 1 Graduate Student Innovation Special Project funded by Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics. In 2017, she won the second place in the Third National Mini-course Contest of Foreign Language; in 2018, she won the reward of Outstanding Individual of the Year at Jiangxi Agricultural University.
Zeyuan Chen is an associate professor of English language and literature and also deputy dean of the School of Foreign Languages at Jiangxi Agricultural University. He was as a visiting scholar in the Department of Communication, Moody College of Communication at Texas University (Austin) from Jan. 2019 to Jan. 2020. He has taught courses including Introduction to English Linguistics, Comprehensive English for Non-English postgraduates, Academic English Writing, etc., for English and Non-English undergraduates and postgraduates of Subject Teaching (English). He has had over 20 papers published in academic journals and been in charge of several provincial- and national-level research projects. In 2016, he completed a Social Science Planning Research Project of the provincial level; in 2021, a Postgraduate Education Reform Research Project and a Basic Education Research Project, both of the provincial level, were successfully done consecutively. At present, he as the program leader is doing a Humanities and Social Science Planning Research Project funded by the Ministry of Education of China, PRC.
Jianchuan Yang, graduating from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies as a MA, is a lecturer of English language and literature, School of Foreign Languages, Jiangxi Agricultural University, PRC. He teaches Business English Translation, Cross-cultural Business Communications, Writing in English, Comparison and Contrast of Chinese and Western Culture. He worked as a government-sponsored Chinese teacher in Pakistan from 2012 to 2013. Stinky Ferret and the JJS (English-to-Chinese translation) was published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in 2011. He was awarded for guidance of a student team who won No 3 in 2017 “FLTRP CUP” National Business English Practice Contest, Central China Region.
Xixi Yang is a lecturer of English language and literature at School of Foreign Languages of Jiangxi Agricultural University. She has, so far, published 5 articles as the first author, 1 electronic literature translation, 3 textbooks as one of the co-authors. She has taught courses in areas of listening, writing and speaking to undergraduates, English majors and non-English majors both. She participated in the provincial high-quality online course An Insight into Chinese Agricultural Civilization. She was awarded several prizes during the past ten years, such as Teacher of Excellence of the University, the Advanced Worker of the University, the Outstanding Supervisor of the Undergraduate Thesis, the first prize winner in the 3rd SFLEP National Foreign Language Teaching Contest (Jiangxi Division), the second prize Winner in teaching Micro-lecture in the 7th SFLEP National Foreign language Teaching Contest (Jiangxi Division), the first prize winner (led by Ms Yonglan Pang) in the 6th Micro-Course Contest of Foreign Languages — National Teaching Innovation Contest for College Teachers (Jiangxi Division).
Dongqing Hu is an associate professor currently teaching in Foreign Languages School of Jiangxi Agricultural University. At Jiangxi Agricultural University, she has offered courses at levels from undergraduates to postgraduates. She has won a number of significant awards in teaching including JXAU Excellent Teaching Award in 2010 and 2020 respectively. She has published journals and accomplished research projects concerning Second Language Acquisition and Translation Theory and Practice. She also spares time as debate coach and Public speaking contest coach for students of JXAU and has won many awards. She was a visiting scholar of SUNY of the United States and Beijing Foreign Studies University.
Xia Liu is a lecturer of English in Jiangxi Agricultural University. She studied for her B.A and M.A. at Wuhan University from 2003 to 2009. Since then, she has been working at the School of Foreign Languages in JXAU, teaching courses such as English Reading and Writing, British Literature and American Literature, etc. She received JXAU Prominent Teacher of the Year award in 2014 and Da Bei Nong Model Teacher of the Year award in 2020. She also won several awards in provincial-level English teaching competitions. From 2018 to 2019, she joined the SINO-US Fulbright FLTA Program and taught Chinese and Chinese culture in Bethany College, WV. Her research interests include foreign language teaching and British and American literature.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. What web browser should I use?
The Open edX platform works best with current versions of Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Internet Explorer, or Safari.
See our list of supported browsers for the most up-to-date information.
2. What reference book Can I use when I am learning this online course?
Xiaorong, Zeng. The History of Agriculture in China: An Introductory Reader. Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. 2015.
