2月15日，《中国日报》（China Daily）分别在第一版和第六版刊发了题为Putting in a good word for language skills（为语言技能说话）和Power to shift attitudes lies in language（改变态度的力量在于语言）两篇报道。
        《中国日报》记者采访了主管省部级干部英语强化班工作的党委副书记文君，并根据采访内容刊发了报道Power to shift attitudes lies in language（改变态度的力量在于语言），介绍了学员在我校承办的省部级干部英语强化班学习的相关情况。
        文章提到，通过15周时间的集中学习，学员的英语水平有了显著地提高；学员们在强化班所表现出的巨大学习热情来源于他们的真挚信念，即学好英语能够使他们更好的服务于自己的国家和人民，并提升中国的形象。
        Putting in a good word for language skills一文分析了我国政府日益重视英语学习的趋势，结合对文君副书记的采访描述了我校干部英语强化班成立的背景和意义，指出外语学习将会加深中国与世界各国的理解，极大促进中外经济文化的交流。文中还刊登了北京外国语大学继续教育学院副院长高晓东的采访内容，其中介绍了我校继续教育学院过去一年在英语培训人员数量规模方面所取得的增长，并分析了这种增长背后的动因。

 

Power to shift attitudes lies in language

    Editor's note: Wen Jun is vice-president of Beijing Foreign Studies University, where officials have been receiving English training since 2001.
    Ministers and provincial governors are serious about their English training. For many of them, it's a real challenge. Our morning classes start at 8 am, and students start to practice as early as 6 am by listening to English tapes while taking a walk on campus.
    During the 15-week group program (since it started in 2001), officials lived in dormitories at the Chinese Academy of Governance, and teachers could hear them reading aloud in the evening whenever they passed by. Some even spoke to their wives and children in English when they went home for the weekend.
    Norman Pritchard, a teacher at the university, tested the students' vocabularies at the beginning and at the end of the 15 weeks.
    Some of the students had improved significantly, with their vocabulary growing by 5,000 to 6,000 words.
    Pritchard later wrote an article for China Daily to applaud the attitude of the officials and said they had changed his impression of Chinese politicians. 
    One characteristic they all shared was motivation enormous and intense. They worked for 15 hours a day to learn English, he wrote in the article.
    This motivation was driven by a genuine desire to develop their language skills, not for reasons of personal satisfaction but because they sincerely believed it would make them better able to serve the people of their beloved province and enhance the image of the China, Pritchard added. 
    Wen Jun was talking to Jiang Xueqing

（记者  彭澍）