Established in 1972, Department of Foreign Languages is one of Xinzhou Normal University’s “Five Time-honored Departments”. There are at present 46 full-time teachers, including 16 associate professors, 24 lecturers a nd 6 assistants. Among them, 9 have furthered their studies as senior visiting scholars at domestic key universities a nd 6 as visiting scholars at foreign universities, and 3 as a doctoral candidate. The student population is over 970, majoring two undergraduate specialties, English a nd Translation, as well as two junior college specialties,Applied English a nd English education.
The Department is equipped with 5 Language labs, 2 translation & interpreting training labs forming a LSCAT language training base. The department library has a collection of over 6,000 books of more than 4,000 varieties, 30 academic journals a nd periodicals as well as one English newspaper, China Daily, which can fully satisfy the needs of both teachers a nd students, a nd help improving their teaching a nd research.
The Department has always endeavored to improve teaching quality a nd has adhered to education reform over the years. We hold the principle of “Research on teaching a nd teaching on research”, creating academic environment. In the past three years, the faculty members have published 49 research papers, 11of which in core journals and 11 books. One research project of Shanxi Higher Education Reform has been approved a nd 11 University-funded research projects have been registered a nd authorized.
The Department has always given priority to cultivating students’ practical ability. Responding to the call of “ Whole-course Teaching Practice”, we periodically hold various contests, such as English Speaking Contests, English Teaching Contests, etc. to improve students’ comprehensive abilities. In the past three years, 24 students have won different prizes at the provincial level.
The Department has always been updating teaching concepts a nd methods, concentrating on developing students’ ability to study in an autonomic, exploratory a nd cooperative manner, thereby forming excellent teaching style, learning style as well as department spirit. The past three years witnessed fruitful achievements in the Department, with an average passing rate of 31% in TEM-4，39% in TEM-8, a nd an average admission rate of 21% in the national Graduate Admission Examination. In 2018, the number of students who passed Graduate Admission Examination reached 35, the admission rate as high as 30%. The rest of our graduates chose to work or start a business, a nd the average one-off employment rate reached 81% in the past three years, creating good reputation in society.
Striving to bring out conspicuously the characteristics a nd advantages of the foreign languages department of a local normal university, we adhere to integration a nd interdisciplinarity of English specialties with teacher education a nd translation studies, focusing on foreign language education. What is more, we continuously enhance our discipline strength, raise the quality of talent fostering an d make every effort to cultivate high-quality versatile an d innovative professionals who not only have a solid foreign language foundation but are proficient as well in applying foreign language skills an d professional knowledge in teacher education a nd translation studies to benefit economic a nd social development in our country.