Forging a Bridge of Exchange, Breaking Cultural Barriers: A Study on the Application Model and Empirical Evidence of New Media-Mediated Chinese-International Student Interaction in the Cultivation of Talents for TCM English Communication

The in-depth advancement of the internationalization strategy of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has created an urgent demand for interdisciplinary "TCM + English" talents who are proficient in TCM professional knowledge and possess cross-cultural communication competence. In response to the common drawbacks in current TCM English teaching, such as "emphasizing language input while neglecting cultural output" and "emphasizing classroom lecturing while neglecting practical application," this study, based on the development of the TCM English micro-major at Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, constructed an application model that is "new media-based, centered on Chinese–international student interaction, and output-oriented." By organizing Chinese undergraduate students and international students in China to enter each other’s classrooms and jointly operate the WeChat Channels account "TCMsay" to produce English videos on TCM culture, this study explored effective paths to enhance the cross-cultural communication ability of interdisciplinary TCM English talents. The study employed survey research and action research methods, and designed and administered course feedback questionnaires for undergraduate and international students; a total of 46 valid questionnaires were collected (27 from Chinese undergraduates and 19 from international students). The questionnaire results indicate that the respondents’ assessments of the helpfulness of interactive teaching and joint video production were predominantly positive, with overall satisfaction with the course and the new media platform reaching 85.19% among Chinese undergraduates and 100% among international students. The findings suggest that the teaching model combining Chinese–international student interaction with new media communication has certain practical feasibility and warrants further verification; given the limited sample size and the reliance on self-reported perceptions, its actual effect on students’ abilities still needs to be examined with larger samples and objective measures. The study may nonetheless serve as a reference for cultivating interdisciplinary TCM English talents.