In March, at Taiyuan University of Technology, during a meeting with the College of Humanities and Law, Natalya Shchurik, Head of the Department of Translation and Translation Studies at the Institute of Philology, Foreign Languages, and Media Communication of ISU, and Professor Chen Shaoping, Dean of the College of International Education Exchange, signed an agreement on cooperation between Irkutsk State University and Taiyuan University of Technology.

The participants of the meeting agreed on the curriculum for the joint Master’s degree programme “Foreign Languages and International Communication”. The first year of study on the programme will take place at Taiyuan University of Technology, and the second year of study will take place at Irkutsk State University. Thanks to grant support from the PRC, the cost of education in China for Russian students will be 10 000 yuan per year.

In addition, preparations were made for the seminar “The Russian Cultural Code in the International Educational Space of China”, which brought together specialists in the field of international communication, translation studies, and foreign language teaching from Russian and Chinese universities: Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Irkutsk State University, Taiyuan University of Technology (Taiyuan, China), Jiangsu Normal University (Xuzhou, China). The seminar was supported by the Vladimir Potanin Foundation and was dedicated to the search for new formats of international cooperation in the sphere of education, ensuring the training of qualified specialists and the development of new approaches to teaching foreign languages in China and Russia.

The seminar included reports by:

• Yulia Elokhina, Head of the International Office of Irkutsk State University, “Russia and China: Implementation of Joint Projects in the Field of Science and Education”;
• Feng Lei, Director of the Confucius Institute at the University of the West Indies (Mona, Jamaica), “Using AI to Bridge the Gap Between Comprehension and Expression in Foreign Language Learning”;
• Olga Kazmina, Associate Professor at the Southwest University (Chongqing, China), “Russian Literature as a Key to Language and Culture: Interactive Methods and Pedagogical Strategies for Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language in China”;
• Gao Xingzhen, Professor at Taiyuan University of Technology, “University Teachers’ Cognition about Sources of EFL Listening Anxiety: A Qualitative Study”;
• Alexander Bochkarev, Lecturer at the Department of Russian Studies of Dalian University of Foreign Languages (Dalian, China), “Linguistic Foundations of Teaching Russian as a Foreign Language to Chinese Students”;
• Natalia Shchurik, Head of the Department of Translation and Translation Studies of the Institute of Philology, Foreign Languages, and Media Communication, Irkutsk State University, “Translation – the Art of Hearing the Voices of Other Cultures: Technologies, Trends, Competencies”;
• Tatyana Gorbunova, Associate Professor at Irkutsk National Research Technical University, Associate Professor of the Department of Linguistics and Linguodidactics, International Institute of Economics and Linguistics, Irkutsk State University, workshop “How to Write Scientific Papers on Linguistics with Foreign Students: from Subject Selection to Defense”.