Course Objectives

A Critical Approach to Media English is an online course designed for first- and second-year university students and intermediate English learners. It trains English listening, speaking, and debating skills, cultivates critical thinking and media literacy, and enhances competence in international communication. Listening, speaking, debating, and critical thinking are key components of college English education and talent development programs today, while media literacy and the ability to communicate internationally are indispensable for young people in the new era. Drawing on years of theoretical research and face-to-face teaching experience, the instructors have distilled their practice into this online course, offering English learners a convenient, friendly, and efficient online “skills hub”—a place to build literacy, sharpen skills, and put them into practice.

Course Features

  Short yet Substantial

Short yet substantial, this course keeps learning pressure low and the sense of reward high. It is organized into 9 modules: five micro-lecture modules delivered by the instructors, three practice modules covering culture, media, and international communication, and one assessment module. The five micro-lecture modules comprise 23 micro-lectures on Listening Skills, Intercultural Communication Competence, Speaking Skills, Debating Skills, and Media Literacy. The three practice modules—Canton Culture Speaks, Gen Z Perspective Matters, and GDUFS Reports—offer 14 practice sessions in a PBL (project-based learning) model, guiding learners to analyze, evaluate, and create short videos, news reports, and other media works. Every lesson is concise and compact, making the course easy to complete.

        An Award-Winning Team

The course has won a series of provincial- and university-level awards for outstanding online course resources, including: the Guangdong Provincial Quality Course “College English Course Series” (2010); the Guangdong Provincial Quality Resource-Sharing Course (2014); the GDUFS Quality Textbook Award (2015); the GDUFS Outstanding Teaching Team Award (2016); the GDUFS Teaching Achievement Award in Higher Education (2019); the First Prize in the First National Foreign Language Teaching Innovation Competition at GDUFS (2020); and the Guangdong Provincial First-Class Online Course (2024).

        Six-Dimensional Development

The course follows a six-dimensional approach to foreign language learning: listening, speaking, debating, omni-media literacy, global communication, and intercultural communication, developed in an integrated way throughout. It builds on listening and note-taking skills, takes diverse forms of spoken output as its vehicle, regards evidence-based critical thinking as its intellectual core, and aims at omni-media communication and intercultural competence.

        Real Learning, Real Gains

The course channels learners’ genuine concern for current affairs into the input and output of language, and grounds critical thinking education and the cultivation of international communication competence in language-learning activities. The contexts are authentic, the concerns are authentic, and the motivation is authentic—and so is the deep, tangible sense of achievement learners take away.

Meet the Team

        Yumei Tao

Yumei Tao is a lecturer at  School of English and Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and the lead instructor of the Guangdong Provincial First-Class Online Course A Critical Approach to  English News. She teaches courses including Advanced Communicative English for Chinese Learners, Interpreting, The Cultures of English-Speaking Countries, and English Writing, and is the chief editor of the companion textbook A Critical Approach to English News (Tao, 2024). Drawing on years of English teaching and research, she is committed to grounding language learning in real-world contexts and empowering learners through evidence-based critical thinking and media literacy to express themselves with confidence on the global stage.

        Hengbi Xiao

Hengbi Xiao is a lecturer at School of English and Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. She is dedicated to helping students express themselves in spoken, written language and various media to create positive impact in the society. Driven by her deep passion for movies, she incorporates classic movie images into many of her courses. Across her teaching career, she taught many courses, including A Critical Approach to Media English, A Survey into Western Culture and Society, British Literature, American Literature, Film Studies, etc. She hopes her work enables and empowers people to connect and communicate with impact and authenticity.

        Lijuan Liang

Lijuan Liang is a full-time research fellow, professor, and doctoral supervisor at the Research Center for Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. She teaches courses including A Critical Approach to Media English, Academic English, Experimental Design and Statistics in Linguistics, and Quantitative Research Methods.

        Rendong Cai

Rendong Cai is an Associate Professor and postgraduate supervisor at the School of English Education, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. His research focuses on psycholinguistics, second language acquisition and emotion, and educational linguistics. For undergraduates he teaches A Critical Approach to Media English, English Language Teaching Pedagogy, Introduction to Linguistics, and Second Language Acquisition. For postgraduates he teaches Educational Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Experimental Methods in Linguistics, and Linguistic Foundations for Second Language Teachers.

        Bei Yang

Bei Yang received her Ph.D. in Literature from the Center for Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. She undertook postdoctoral research in Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, USA; and was a visiting scholar in corpus linguistics at Lancaster University, UK. She is currently a professor and postgraduate supervisor at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies. She teaches undergraduate courses including Linguistics, Second Language Acquisition, Advanced English Writing, English for Academic Purposes, and A Critical Approach to Media English; as well as postgraduate courses such as Corpus Linguistics and Graduate English. Her recent research focuses on psycholinguistics and corpus linguistics. She has published 3 books and more than 20 papers in academic journals at home and abroad. She has served as the principal investigator for five national and provincial/ministerial research projects. She has received numerous honors from Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, including the Excellent Teaching Award, the Outstanding Research Achievement Award, the title of Outstanding Teacher, and Excellent ratings in annual performance assessments.