On the morning of August 27th, the "Dean's First Lesson" for the 2022 undergraduate freshmen of the School of Foreign Languages successfully took place in the Lecture Hall No. 300 of Yang Yongman Building. Professor Chang Hui, the dean of School of Foreign Languages, brought a wonderful and vivid lesson to the freshmen dressed in military training uniforms. The event was hosted by Chen Jiayi, a political teacher for the 2022 undergraduate freshman.

Chang Hui approached the topic of "Language Learning and Language Research" from three aspects: why to study foreign languages, why to study languages, and foreign language discipline in Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He explained that foreign language learning not only had the obvious advantages of learning from the world's excellent culture, but also had the hidden advantages of helping promote human health, cultivate a "broader vision", "more inclusive attitude" and "healthier body". He pointed out that since language was the mirror of human psychology, language research can not only help communicate with each other, enhance understanding, promote globalization, but can also help delve into the human nature, explore the unknown and deepen the understanding of ourselves as human beings. The new liberal arts advocated the integration of interdisciplinary expertise to solve increasingly complex social problems, and also provided new opportunities and new missions for today's language studies.

Chang Hui also gave a detailed introduction to the development of SJTU’s foreign language discipline. The foreign language discipline of Shanghai Jiao Tong University originated from the Translation Academy of Nanyang Public School. In 1979, the Foreign Language Department of Science and Technology was established, and in 1997, the School of Foreign Languages was formally established. From the beginning of applied linguistics, the foreign language discipline of Shanghai Jiao Tong University had been born with the gene of science and technology. In the past 40 years, it had made great progress and developed rapidly, and built the first corpus in China: English for Science and Technology Corpus (JDEST), and had led the formulation of the country's first college English syllabus and developed the national College English Test Band 4 and Band 6, making continuous contributions to foreign language teaching research and textbook construction in colleges and universities. With a growing number of outstanding teachers in linguistics, literature and translation, and thriving academic research, the university had formed a new interdisciplinary discipline group, which supported the cultivation of first-class talents with high-quality foreign language teaching, and supported the development of the country and society with outstanding scientific research achievements. In the fourth round of subject evaluation by the Ministry of Education, foreign language discipline was awarded A, ranking among the top 2%-5% in the country.

In the end, Chang Hui expressed his ardent expectation to the freshmen, hoping that the they can set lofty goals in life, shoulder the mission of the times, and carry on the SJTU spirit of "seeking truth and being pragmatic, working hard, daring to be the first, and advancing with the day", uphold the SFL motto of "communicate with the past and the present, learn from the Chinese and the West", explore confidently and work tenaciously on the road of academic development, and become an elite foreign language professional with both an international vision and patriotic feelings.