Ester de Jong, TESOL president (2017-2018) and a professor at the University of Florida, said change is the one constant in today’s world, as trends in technology, migration and the global marketplace influence what, where, how and why we teach.

“So as teachers, we need to become lifelong learners ourselves and help our students become lifelong learners too,” she said. “We also need to become facilitators of learning, not just transmitters of knowledge, because our students have access to tools for learning that did not exist before.”

Zong Wa, deputy director general of the China Education Association for International Exchange, Qu Yingpu, deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily, and Christopher Powers, executive director of the TESOL International Association, also attended the assembly’s opening.

Chen Lin, a professor of English teaching with Beijing Foreign Studies University, said that in the new era, foreign language teaching and learning must be combined with other disciplines, such as diplomacy, economics, politics, business, literature and art.

“Students with a good mastery of foreign languages need to accumulate knowledge in other professional aspects so that they can better contribute to national development, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the major initiative of ‘creating a common community with a shared future for mankind’,” Chen said in a video played at the opening.

Jin Tiantian contributed to this story.