Foreign language teaching in Suzhou University can be traced back to the early days of Soochow University, with a history of 1 10 years. Xu Guozhang, a famous foreign language educator in China, and Jiang Yang, a literary translator, are outstanding alumni of Soochow University.
The School of Foreign Languages of Soochow University, formerly known as the English Department of Soochow University, was founded in 1940. In 1950s, it was renamed the Foreign Languages Department of Jiangsu Normal University, and was officially named Foreign Languages College from 1995. After more than 70 years of running a school, the college has developed into a secondary college of comprehensive universities with considerable scale and great influence in China.
There are 246 on-the-job faculty members in the college, including 2 professors, 72 associate professors and more than 50 teachers with doctoral degrees. The college now has seven languages, including English (including English and teacher training), Russian, Japanese, French, Korean, German and Spanish. Recently, a new translation major has been established. English language and literature began to recruit graduate students in the 1980s. By the beginning of this century, seven disciplines, including English language and literature, foreign linguistics and applied linguistics, Russian language and literature, Japanese language and literature, master of education (English), master of translation, and curriculum and teaching theory, had fully enrolled graduate students.
In 2003, the English language and literature major in our college began to set up doctoral programs. During the Ninth Five-Year Plan, the Tenth Five-Year Plan and the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, English Language and Literature was successively rated as a key discipline in Jiangsu Province. 20 10 Foreign Language and Literature Department affiliated to the College was awarded master's degree and doctor's degree as a whole; In 20 1 1 year, in addition to the original English language and literature major, the college independently added three doctoral programs in Russian language and literature, foreign linguistics, applied linguistics and translation studies. In the same year, foreign languages and literature became a key discipline in Jiangsu Province. At present, the college also has a postdoctoral mobile station for foreign languages and literature.
At present, the college has more than full-time undergraduates 1 100, and more than 320 full-time doctoral and master students. The college has always attached importance to teaching quality and personnel training. Over the past 30 years of reform and opening up, a large number of outstanding foreign language talents have been trained for the country. In 20 12, the college English major was named as the key major in the 12th Five-Year Plan of Jiangsu Province. The core course of this major, Comprehensive English, was rated as a top-quality course in Jiangsu Province, and English Classics: From Bacon to Woolf was approved as a national top-quality video course by the Ministry of Education. In addition, the College English Application Course, which belongs to the Department of Foreign Languages of our college, was selected as a national excellent course by the Ministry of Education, and the Department of Foreign Languages of our college was approved as a "demonstration site of college English teaching reform" by the Ministry of Education as a whole.
Over the years, the college has insisted on promoting foreign language teaching through academic research. The traditional academic feature of this subject is the study of foreign languages, literature and translation. In 1980s and 1990s, Professor Wang Wenchang successively edited and published A Dictionary of English Collocation (1988) and A Dictionary of English Usage in the New Century (1998), both of which won the first prize of the National Education Book Award and the first prize of the National Book Award. At present, the college has concentrated a high-level foreign language research team. In the past five years, teachers have undertaken more than one project funded by the National Social Science Fund 10, presided over nearly 100 projects at all levels, including those planned by the Social Science Department of Jiangsu Province and the Ministry of Education, and published nearly 100 papers and more than 50 professional/translated works in academic journals at home and abroad every year. The college has formed distinctive research characteristics and academic influence in mainstream disciplines such as linguistics, literature and translation. The College is now an affiliated unit of the National Language and Semiotics Research Association, and it undertakes various large-scale international or national academic conferences of various disciplines at all levels every year.
At present, the college is located in Tianci Village Campus of Suzhou University, with Chongyuan Building as the main office building, Chunhui and other five small buildings of Soochow University as departmental office buildings, and Yifu Building as the main teaching building of the college, surrounded by green trees all the year round and picturesque.