The predecessor of School of Foreign Languages was the Department of Foreign Language and Literature, which was established in 1980. It now consists of Department of English, Department of German and Department of Oriental Languages. The School offers undergraduate programs in English, German, Japanese and Korean, among which English and German are Anhui Provincial First-class Undergraduate Programs.
The School has 56 faculty members, including 13 with senior professional titles and 6 with Doctoral Degree. Over 96% has Master’s Degree or Doctorate, and more than 65% have experience of studying or researching abroad. The School has won 4 provincial and ministerial teaching achievement awards, 1 recipient of “Chen Xiangmei Education Award”, 1 “Provincial Outstanding Teacher”, 1 “Provincial Excellent Teacher”, 1 “Provincial Excellent Moral Worker”, 2 “Teaching Star of Anhui Smart Classroom”, and 5 “Anhui Provincial Outstanding Young Teacher”. In addition, the staff have also won the first prize in China Foreign Language Micro-Class Competition and the first prize in National College Teachers Teaching Innovation Competition.
The School has abundant teaching and research achievements. It has developed 1 provincial high-quality resource sharing course: “Comprehensive English”, 2 provincial high-quality offline open courses: “English Intercultural Communication” and “Advanced English”. It also offers 3 provincial online-offline courses: “Basic English”, “An Introduction to Applied Linguistics”, and “Overview of English-speaking Countries”, 4 provincial teaching demonstration courses: “Comparative Study of German and Chinese Language and Culture”, “English Intercultural Communication”, “Advanced English 2”, and “English Speech”. The teaching faculty have published nearly 200 academic papers, with 19 included into CSSCI. Additionally, 10 textbooks have been edited and co-edited and more than 100 teaching and scientific research projects, including 41 provincial projects, have been funded.
Based on HFU’s orientation of “Locality, Application and Internationalization”, the School has established a language training center with 15 labs, including simultaneous interpretation rooms and CAT labs, and a library with a rich collection of original English, German, Japanese, Korean books. It has conducted production-university-research cooperation with various enterprises, such as Guoxuan High-tech, BOE and Shanghai YGYM Translation Services Co.,Ltd., and provided language training for multinational enterprises, such as Continental Tire (China) Co.,Ltd., Volkswagen (Anhui) Co.,Ltd. Besides, it has provided translation and interpretation service for meetings and academic forums.
The School focuses on cultivating high-level application-oriented foreign language professionals with qualified language application and intercultural communication ability. In the Language Proficiency Examinations such as TEM-4, TEM-8, Japanese-Language Proficiency Test, Korean Proficiency Test, the passing rate in the School ranks among the top in domestic institutions of the same level. The School has organized student exchanges and summer camps with cooperative institutions in Germany and short-term study programs in Japan. Students actively provide services for important provincial and municipal activities, such as World Manufacturing Convention, Hefei International Marathon, visit of Sapporo University (Japan) Delegation at HFU and visit of Soon Chun Hyang University (Korea) Delegation at HFU.
In recent years, the School has won more than 50 national awards and over 80 provincial awards, including the grand prize, Gold prize, the first prize and other awards in various competitions, such as the National English Competition for College Students, FLTRP ETIC Cup National English Writing, Reading, Debating competitions, and National German Debating Competition for College Students, China National Japanese Speech Contest, Korean Speech Contest of Anhui Province. Two students are entitled “Top Ten Young Students in Anhui Province”, and two selected as Olympic torchbearers for the Athens Olympics and the Beijing Olympics.
Undergraduates from the School are mainly engaged in international trade, foreign language education, foreign tourism, translation, cultural communication and other related fields. 147 students have studied in Germany through the Sino-German 2+3 cooperation program, and 311 students have studied in South Korea through the Sino-Korean 2+2 cooperation program. There are also undergraduates admitted to prestigious universities and research institutes such as Tsinghua University, Nanjing University, Beijing Foreign Studies University, Shanghai International Studies University, and the Japan Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences as postgraduates, or chosen to study abroad for further education.