Opportunities, Challenges and Policies: Foreign Literature Teaching and Distance Education in China

To have a study of the role of distance education in foreign literature teaching in China, this paper initially refers to its definition and the related background knowledge, then focuses on the relationship between foreign literature teaching and distance education in China. Next, the paper concentrates on the opportunities, challenges and policies of fulfilling distance education in foreign literature teaching in China. Specifically, lifelong education in China invites distance education to offer Chinese people diverse opportunities to make a difference, which involves those opportunities for Chinese students, teachers, institutions and society. Besides, unexpected challenges, particularly those between students and teachers, will happen, compared with the traditional campus-based teaching environment, which relate to the teaching thoughts, ways, resources and assessments. As for the policies to guarantee the effects of distance education upon foreign literature teaching in China, the paper holds that openness, fairness, democracy and love are worth observing. In summary, distance education provides a wonderful platform for foreign language teaching in China to develop on line. However, to make distance education a great channel to develop foreign language teaching, we still have a long way to go.