School of Foreign Languages (SFL) of Shenyang Ligong University was founded in 1979. Formerly known as Section of Foreign Language Teaching and Research, Department of Foreign Languages and Branch of Foreign Languages of Shenyang Institute of Technology, SFL got its present name when the university was authorized to change the name in May 2004. All the faculty members of SFL have constantly made improvement, innovation and remarkable achievements under the correct leadership of the university Party Committee and the joint efforts of the school leading group and all the staff. With its over 40 years’ development, SFL has born sweet fruit in teaching reform and teacher morality construction, and has become an advanced model of the school, the city, the province and the whole country.
SFL has a highly-qualified and energetic teaching team. There are 93 members, of whom 7 are professors, 24 associate professors, 55 lecturers and 1 assistant, and 6 have PhD degree, 61 have Master’s degree and 18 have bachelor’s degree. It consists of 8 teaching and research sections, and has English and Russian majors and an authorized degree program of Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI), responsible for the training of English and Russian majors as well as MTI graduates and the teaching of foreign languages to all undergraduates and graduates in the university.
SFL is well equipped with advanced teaching and experimental facilities: 6 multi-media classrooms, 13 modernized digital language laboratories, 1 translation laboratory and 2 simultaneous interpretation laboratories. The school reference room holds more than 4,000 books and audiovisual materials available to teachers and students, offering solid academic support for foreign language teaching and research.
SFL has established the educational concept of “focusing on college foreign language teaching, taking the construction of foreign language majors as the principal line, overall deepening foreign language teaching reform, and cultivating comprehensive high-quality application-oriented foreign language talents”, meanwhile abiding by the “four highlights” in practice, namely, highlighting the core position of college foreign language teaching, highlighting the central position of undergraduate teaching quality, highlighting the talent cultivation characteristics of English and Russian majors, highlighting the training quality of graduate students. Over years of efforts, SFL has gained outstanding results in its teaching, scientific research, academic work and the construction of teacher morality.
The quality of undergraduate teaching is the lifeline of specialty development, and to speed up the construction of high-level undergraduate education is the working goal of colleges and universities. SFL, all along, has been conducting teaching reform in order to improve the quality of undergraduate teaching. “College English” course was rated as Provincial Quality Course of Liaoning in 2007; “College English” faculty team was named as Provincial Teaching Team in 2008; “Integrated Russian” of Russian Major was elected as Provincial Quality Course of Liaoning in 2008; “History of British Literature” course of English Major was chosen as Provincial Quality Resource-Sharing Course in 2013, becoming the first cross-school credit earning course in the university, and more than 500 students from five colleges and universities across the province have enrolled in the course for many times so far, greatly improving the social reputation of the University and SFL; English Major won the 4th place of 28 universities in the undergraduate teaching assessment of Liaoning Province in 2012, and Russian Major ranked both the 3rd of 8 universities with Liaoning University in the provincial assessment in 2013, which have been the top two of nearly 40 majors of the university evaluated so far; English Major was approved as the pilot major of Liaoning undergraduate colleges and universities in 2013; SFL possessed an authorized MTI degree program in 2014 and is permitted to set up Translation Major for undergraduates in 2020, which have brought foreign language teaching to a new level.
SFL has insisted on promoting teaching through academic research and encouraged teachers to apply the research findings to teaching practice. In recent years, faculty members have completed over 50 research projects at national or provincial level and more than 10 projects at university level; have been granted the awards of scientific and teaching achievements of different levels; have delivered over 200 academic papers, of which more than 100 were in core journals; have participated in the composition of specialized books, translations, dictionaries, textbooks and teaching reference books, more than 80 in total, which have been published and received good feedback from the readers. SFL successfully applied for the expanded project of College English Teaching Reform of the Ministry of Education “Research on the Teaching Mode of Improving Students’ English Listening and Speaking Ability Based on Modern Network Education Technology”, which provided a new platform for College English teaching reform. As a member of the project team, SFL made great contributions to the compilation of New Universal College English, a series of general higher education “11th Five-Year Plan” textbooks, which were later rated as National Quality Textbooks.
SFL has stuck to the road of education internationalization and actively expanded the field of foreign education according to its own features. It has established cooperative relations with the University of Illinois, Chicago in the US, New Zealand Institute of technology, National Research Tomsk State University, Tomsk Polytechnical University, and Novosibirsk Institute of Surveying and mapping in Russia to carry out internationally cooperative school running, so that students can improve their personal growth programs from an international perspective, and develop into comprehensive application-oriented talents who meet the needs of the international stage. It has also attached great importance to the growth and development of teachers, and has sent them to the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Finland and other countries to study and visit for academic exchanges and cooperation and be the president or teacher of the Confucius Institute, which have not only broadened the horizons but also strengthened the construction of its teaching team.
SFL has placed great emphasis on the ideological and political construction, kept to the socialist direction of university running, implemented the fundamental mission of cultivating talents by morality, fully mobilized the activeness of all the faculty, stimulated the enthusiasm of teachers to love and enjoy teaching, and created an excellent atmosphere of harmony and progressiveness. It was awarded the honorary title of “Model Post for Women Workers to Make Contributions” by All-China Federation of Trade Unions, “Advanced Collective of Pioneer Workers” by Liaoning Provincial Labor Union, “Shenyang May 1st Labor Award”, “Shenyang Advanced Collective of Staff Professional Ethics Construction”, “Top Ten Collectives in the Construction of Staff Professional Ethics” by Shenyang Education, Science, Culture and Health System, “Advanced Party Committee” by Shenyang Municipal Education and Science Committee, “Advanced Labor Union” by the Labor Union Committee of Shenyang Ligong University and “Excellent Organization Award” of “The Fifth Liaoning Province Foreign Languages Contest”.
SFL has won an academic reputation in the foreign language field of Liaoning Province, and is currently the Standing Director Member of Liaoning Foreign Language Teaching & Research Association, Director Member of Liaoning Translation Academy, Member of Asia Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (Asia TEFL), Member of International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL), Member of Association of Chinese Teachers of Russian Language and Literature (ACTRLL) as well as Member of Liaoning Russian Language Education Association.
All the SFL cadres, teachers and students, under the correct leadership of the university Party Committee, are determined to carry forward the military spirit of “Patriotism and Dedication, Striving for Self-improvement, Truth-seeking and Being Practical, Pursuit of Excellence”, uphold the school motto of “Keep Your Ambition and Advance Your Intellect, Combine High Ability with Moral Integrity”, strengthen the quality of talent cultivation, adhere to the connotative development, continue to deepen the reform of education and teaching, concentrate on one’s strength, pull together, and strive to contribute for building the university into an application-oriented one with distinctive national defense feature.
