DKU welcomed 20 local families for children to take part in student-led English language classes.
Last Saturday, May 26th, 2025, on a sunny day with crystal clear skies, Duke Kunshan University became a vibrant hub of learning and collaboration as it opened its doors to nearly 100 enthusiastic children, parents, doctors, and security staff from the local Kunshan community. This event marked the thrilling culmination of the Community-Based Teaching program for Spring 2025, blending education with community spirit in an unforgettable experience for all involved. At the heart of this captivating event was WOC208: An Introduction to Language Teaching, an innovative course from DKU’s Language and Culture Center that empowers DKU undergraduate students with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills in language teaching theory and pedagogy.
WOC208 was designed by Professor Joseph Davies, Assistant Director for Graduate English for Academic Purposes and Senior Lecturer of English language, to support DKU students involved or interested in community language teaching projects. The WOC208 course draws inspiration from Prof. Davies’s work over the past six years supporting DKU’s student-led and award-winning Medical English Program that has enhanced the Medical English communication proficiency of over 200 local Kunshan doctors and nurses. Generously backed by DKU’s Office of Student Experience community-based learning grant, and the amazing support of Jiawen Cai, the WOC208 course acts as a flagship model for embedding community engagement within the curriculum while supporting language-teaching initiatives in the local community. To date, through this project, students have developed authentic community partnerships, through language teaching, with local kindergartens, local children and families, local doctors and nurses, local nursing homes, local university security guard workers, and local NGOs. To demonstrate its positive impact, the project was recently awarded the best community project at the DKU Empower Festival and is continually growing in popularity and scale.
Community-based teaching is a dynamic approach that merges educational experiences with community involvement, benefiting students, educators, and the community. Such an approach directly aligns with DKU’s innovative interdisciplinary liberal arts educational model. For example, students gain real-world experience, develop essential skills like problem-solving and teamwork, increase social awareness, and network for future career opportunities. Furthermore, educators enhance teaching methods, experience professional growth, and witness heightened student engagement and motivation to engage with class content and theories. Finally, communities benefit from increased access to academic resources and strengthen relationships with educational institutions, fostering mutual support. This reciprocal relationship bridges academia and real-world contexts, enriching educational outcomes while contributing positively to community development.
This is the fourth time that DKU students through the WOC208 course have welcomed local community members to DKU’s campus to participate in a campus tour and 1 hour English language lesson (which also acts as students’ final course assessment). Not only does this provide an exciting opportunity for community members to visit DKU and benefit from our world-leading facilities, it also makes WOC208 students’ final teaching assignment much more authentic which then positively washes back on the course in terms of students’ active engagement with class content and preparation to apply the skills and theories taught.
Local children and parents enjoy a campus tour led by WOC208 students and their professor.
Students shared their passion and motivations behind choosing this exciting course and getting involved in the community-based teaching project. For example, Tianyu and Zu collaborated to teach English to a group of DKU security guards. They commented how they “really enjoyed the class, as we learnt both theoretical and practical knowledge about teaching. Professor Davies’ modelling of good teaching helped us translate the theoretical to the practical. The community engagement project where we taught the security guards was also very refreshing for us because it allowed us to not only apply what we learnt but also produce some real-world positive impact for our community.”
Furthermore, Anni and Erqi taught local Kunshan children about animals and habitats through the theme of Zootopia characters. The children were selected to attend the event through Amity charity, a local NGO and one of DKU’s long-term collaborators. Anni and Erqi reflected how “through the WOC208 course, we gained a deep understanding of the importance of balancing input and output activities, which not only enriched the teaching content but also improved students’ learning efficiency. Teaching the local children was incredibly enriching, it allowed us to bring theories we learned in WOC208 to the community-based course design, making our lessons more dynamic and effective.”
Finally, Jingyang and Cuiziyi taught a group of local doctors about English communication strategies for dealing with international hospital patients. Jingyang reported “I initially thought that teaching is like simply doing presentations, and I didn’t really believe my teaching philosophy would be a great deal when designing the class plan. But when actually writing the rationale of the class plan, surprisingly, I found out that a lot of the philosophy fitted into the plan without intentionally thinking about it. Also, I learnt a lot of details about teaching that I haven’t considered before, there are so many theories and details which were rooted already in our learning experience that I haven’t noticed before.” Cuiziyi commented “through WOC208 and the teaching demonstration, I realized that language teaching requires not only strong mastery of the target language, but also a reasonable and firm teaching philosophy to frame the whole class. Thank you very much for your excellent teaching this semester! We learned a lot and really enjoyed and appreciated your classes”
Jingyang and Cuiziyi with local doctors after their Medical English lesson.
Jiawen Cai, Senior Coordinator of Undergraduate Academic Activities at DKU, who has been instrumental in supporting and organizing the WOC208 community-based teaching events over the past two years reflected positively on this year’s event:
“As a flagship course of the Community-Based Learning Program, An Introduction to Language Teaching has delivered tremendous value — not only to DKU’s students and the broader campus community, but also to Kunshan at large. We’ve partnered with the campus security team, local hospitals, local NGOs, and several residential communities. The growing interest from other groups signals even more collaboration opportunities ahead. I’m truly excited to see this Community-based Learning course expand its reach and impact in the future.”
-Jiawen Cai,
Senior Coordinator of Undergraduate Academic Activites, Duke Kunshan University
Members of the local community who took part in the event also provided extremely supportive feedback on both the experience and the long-term impact such university-community relationships can have.
“A huge thank you to Jiawen and the An Introduction to Language Teaching course team for guiding the children through campus tours, teaching local kids English through fun role-playing activities and games — making English class incredibly exciting! Seeing all 20 families fully engaged throughout the event filled us with a deep sense of accomplishment. Moving forward, the Amity Charity Social Work Office will continue serving as a bridge, to bring high-quality education resources to our community’s doorstep.”
-Mrs. Si Zhou,
Amity Charity
“The security staff showed great enthusiasm for English skill development and they responded very positively to the English classes. We hope to continue this English training initiative and establish it as a regular, long-term educational program.”
-Mr. Wei Chen,
DKU Security Team Manager
“We learned how to describe animals and different places. It is such an interesting lesson. I will never forget this lesson 😊.”
-Local child who took part in a Zootopia-themed English lesson.
