Shanghai International Studies University first offered English classes at 1950, when the school was renamed as the Foreign Language Specialized School affiliated to East China People's Revolutionary University.
1952 in the second half of the afternoon, the whole country began to recruit students in a unified way, and at the same time, various departments began to reorganize. According to the instruction of the Ministry of Education, the school only offers Russian majors.
1June, 956, the State Council approved the renaming of Shanghai Russian Institute as Shanghai International Studies University, and the school re-established English major. 1956 in the summer vacation, the school hired Professor Ling Dayang from Fudan University and other brother universities, and recruited some English teachers from the society, such as Dong, Yang Shoulin and Xu Tianfu. The school decided to set up a preparatory committee for the English Department and appointed Comrade Dong as the convener of the preparatory committee. The Preparatory Committee of the English Department and the Preparatory Committee of the French-German Department jointly set up a party branch, with Comrade Lin Xiaofan as the secretary, temporarily refusing to enroll students, and required to make preparations within one year. 1957 starts school in autumn. The Preparatory Committee of the English Department mainly made teacher training and teaching preparation, organized teacher training courses, and sent some young and middle-aged teachers to Fudan University and Nanjing University for further study.
During the period of 1957, the anti-rightist struggle was launched all over the country, and the Ministry of Higher Education decided not to recruit students majoring in English, German and French in summer. According to the situation at that time, the school decided to set up a western language department with three majors: English, German and French. Fang is the director of the western language department and the secretary of the general branch. 1957 In autumn, some students majoring in English were transferred from Russian Department to start classes. This is the first batch of English majors. The students in this class graduated from the English Department of 196 1, and they are the earliest graduates of the English Department.
In August, 1958 and 174 students majoring in English in the Department of Foreign Languages of Shanghai First Normal University and more than 20 teachers including Lu Peixian, Gu and Qin were merged into Shanghai International Studies University. Since then, the strength of English major has been continuously enhanced.
1958- 1960 During the Great Leap Forward and the Great Educational Revolution, English teachers compiled a set of 1-8 volumes of English textbooks for internal printing. This is the first set of English textbooks independently compiled by the school. 196 1 spring, with the approval of Shanghai Higher Education Bureau, the English major of this school was established separately. Professor Zhong Fang is the head of the department and Comrade Jong Li is the deputy director. At the same time, the school party Committee decided to set up the General Party Branch of the English Department and appointed Comrade Liu Chuansheng as the Secretary of the General Party Branch.
Since its establishment, the English Department has attached great importance to the construction of teaching staff. At that time, under the condition that teachers were not sent abroad for further study, the training of young teachers was mainly on-the-job learning and amateur learning. However, during the Cultural Revolution, foreign language education in schools suffered heavy losses. In the late period of the Cultural Revolution, the school recruited "workers, peasants and soldiers" college students throughout the country. From 1972, about 600 middle school graduates from Shanghai entered the "Shanghai May 7th Cadre School" in Fengyang, Anhui. Among them, about 250 students majored in English and studied English during their four-year work. After the Cultural Revolution, Shanghai International Studies University, like other universities in China, resumed the college entrance examination system. From the late 1970s to the early 1980s, the teaching of English Department of Shanghai International Studies University developed steadily, and the scale of running a school began to expand. According to the development of society and the needs of the country, the English department has added two majors: international news and international trade.
On the basis of the continuous expansion of the English Department, after the school resumed the establishment of "Night University", it successively established overseas training department, Xujiahui branch, English Department II, news and communication department, foreign economic relations and trade department and other teaching units. In the process of its own development, the English department has delivered a large number of teaching and research backbones for these departments.
While completing the heavy teaching tasks, the leaders of English Department always put scientific research in an important position and actively mobilized teachers to carry out scientific research after teaching, aiming at improving the teaching quality through scientific research and laying a solid foundation for further scientific research and publishing teaching research results in the future.
In the early 1980s, in order to strengthen teaching and educating people and students' ideological and political work, the General Party Branch of the English Department took the lead in introducing the target management system and established the political counselor system and the class teacher work system.
1980 The Ministry of Education approved the establishment of a master's degree in English language and literature in the English Department, and 1983 approved the establishment of a doctoral degree in English language and literature. With the rapid development of the school, the English Department officially changed its name to English College on February 6th, 1994, and the construction of English discipline has since stepped onto a new level. It was listed as a key discipline in Shanghai by 1996 and 200 1, and was listed as a national key discipline by the Ministry of Education.