Foreign Languages School

The Foreign Languages School of Yunnan Normal University (FLSYNU) has a splendid history of 68 years, whose predecessor was the English Department of the Southwest Associated University and later the English Department of Kunming National Teachers Institute. With quickened steps of development, it got the present name in 1994, and since then it has enjoyed high prestige in Yunnan Province.

FLSYNU aims to train the students to become qualified middle-school and college teachers, tourism guides, translators and interpreters and caters to the possible best services for the basic education and economic development of China. It focuses on the four-year undergraduate program with a quick development of the postgraduate program and offers other programs in a scientific and flexible way.

FLSYNU consists of English Department, Japanese Department, Tourism-oriented Foreign Languages Department, College-English Department, Adult Education Department, Senior-college Program Section, Junior-college Program Section, Tourism-oriented Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Section, Japanese and SFL Teaching and Research Section, Postgraduate Program Section for English Majors, Postgraduate Program Section for Non-English Majors, College-English Teaching and Research Section (I), College-English Teaching and Research Section (II), and Audio-visual Instruction Section. It has five research institutes, namely the Institute of English and American Literature, the Institute of Translation Studies, the Institute of Linguistics, the Institute of Foreign-Language Studies and the Institute of Tourism Culture.

FLSYNU administers the following centers and institutions: The Training Center for Middle-school English Teachers of Southwest China Sponsored by UNESCO and UNDP, Kunming WSK Center of the Ministry of Education of China, Kunming NAETI Center of the Ministry of Education of China, Yunnan BFT Center of the Ministry of Personnel of China, Yunnan CATTI Center of the Ministry of Personnel of China, The In-service Training Institution for Yunnan Tourist Guides, Yunnan Self-study English-Examination Center of the National College Program and Yunnan Association of Foreign Languages.

FLSYNU has sixteen language laboratories, three multimedia classrooms, and three student audio-laboratories. The school library houses over 30,000 books, 188 kinds of academic periodicals, 16 kinds of newspapers and 2,600 audio-visual products either in Chinese or in other languages.

The school’s qualified teaching staff consist of 134 full-time teachers, of whom 13 are professors, 40 are associate professors, 44 are lecturers. Among the teachers, four have a doctorate, three are doctoral candidates, 68 have MA degrees and 22 have entered their MA programs. More than half of the teaching staff have studied or lectured in such countries as USA, Britain, Australia and Japan.

At present, FLSYNU has 1,083 full-time undergraduates plus 1,565 adult students. The College-English Teaching and Research Department commits itself to teaching English to 5,994 undergraduates and 777 postgraduates of non-English majors.

The postgraduate education of FLSYNU is enjoying a quick development with an enrolment of 400 postgraduates and the two postgraduate programs are English Language and Literature and Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics. It has also run a joint MA program with La Trobe University in Australia.

Since the beginning of the Tenth Five-Year Plan, the teaching staff of FLSYNU have 250 academic papers, 26 monographs, 20 textbooks and 30 translated academic books published by different publishing houses with their focuses on English and American literature, applied linguistics, translation studies, cross-cultural communication and English teaching methodology.

The leading group of FLSYNU has proved itself to be cooperative and practical. In 2001, 2004, 2005 and 2006, it has won four times the honors of Advanced Unit at the university or the provincial level.

 With the ushering of fresh wind from the “Evaluation for Improvement” by the Ministry of Education, FLSYNU is bring in a new climate of academic freedom and reform, better teaching facilities and management, and propelling itself to a higher order of existence.