Abstract:

The development of new liberal arts has attracted considerable attention for its impact upon foreign language education reform. Against the backdrop of the Double World-class Strategies, this paper first points out five crucial questions related to foreign language talents training. They are reinstilling discourse power and cultural confidence, merging discipline learning with ideological and political learning, promoting discipline development and cross-disciplinary collaboration, combining talents training with innovation programs, and aligning foreign language education with national strategy. Then it attempts to present an integrated and innovative talents-nurturing model with practices for foreign language disciplines in the new liberal arts, that is, a concentration in language and culture with competencies in classic literature, business, and data science along with innovation and entrepreneurship as well. Hopefully, this formation will lead to a new paradigm and mechanism for cultivating foreign language talents to promote successful inter-disciplinary collaboration and integration between extra-disciplinary competencies and specialist education. Finally, the paper proposes six approaches to promoting the sustainability of foreign language education: to synchronize with the national strategy and incorporate the cultivation of morality and ethics in every subject, to steer the international discourse and develop multi-lingual courses, to promote classic readings and liberal education, to bridge cross-disciplinary gaps and upgrade course systems, to introduce multi-dimensional assessment and combine the curricular course and extra-curricular courses, and to strengthen project-based learning and emphasize practical teaching.

Key words: new liberal arts, foreign language and literature discipline, talents fostering, innovation