Abstract: Discipline competitions are an effective way to promote teaching reform and cultivate innovative talents, serving as a driving force in the personal development of students and the development of higher education. Under the new situation, building a competition model with efficient and reasonable management and a complete supporting system can maximize the potential of English major talents and guarantee the cultivation of well-rounded English major talents with strong practical ability. This article sheds light on the existing problem of discipline competition’s failure to promote talent cultivation and delves into typical reasons, such as weak connection between competitions and regular teaching, unstable coaching teams and insufficient publicity about discipline competitions. Meanwhile, it also offers promising approaches: facilitating the seamless combination between discipline competitions and daily teaching, professionalism of coaching teams and regularization of publicity about competitions and talent selection in the hope that it can offer insights for talent cultivation in the future.

Key words: Discipline competition, English teaching, Talents cultivation, Teaching reform, Innovation practice, Curriculum reform