The Department of Foreign Language Education for Non-majors was established in March 2006 and comprises forty-four faculty members. It offers university-wide language courses—College English and College Japanese—at the undergraduate level. In the last eight years, the Department has forged ahead and made tremendous progress with the support of the management of DUFL.
The faculty can reflect on some great achievements over the years. The Department has a full staff complement consisting of one professor, fifteen associate professors and twenty-eight lecturers. One of them is currently serving as director of a Confucius Institute in Brazil. In addition, the Department has been awarded numerous honors for individual excellence in teaching (including municipal-level awards) and research as well as for exceptional performance as a team of faculty members in DUFL.
The Department has made notable achievements in instruction reforms. English as a Second Foreign Language and Intercultural Communication are regarded as key courses within the university, with the former featuring the interweaving of “language acquisition” and “content-based instruction” through both compulsory and elective courses. The Faculty has published a range of textbooks: New Theme College English. Pass rates in the national College English Band Four and Six examinations have also shown a marked improvement under the guidance of the Department. The teaching reform project “The Construction of Innovative College English Curricular System in Foreign Languages Universities” received the third prize in the Teaching Achievement Awards for tertiary institutions in Liaoning Province and the second prize in the DUFL Teaching Achievement Awards. The Department has excelled in the National English Summer Camp for College Students and the National English Contest for College Students. Students also achieved second prize, third prize and an honorable mention in the College Oral English Contest for non-English majors in Liaoning Province.
Initiatives the Department has undertaken include the following: national research projects supported by the National Fund of Social Sciences and the Ministry of Education, twenty-four provincial-level research projects, and five research projects with the financial support of the Dalian Municipal Social Sciences Fund. Topics of recent projects include one related to basic foreign-language education in Chinese universities as well as the humanities and social sciences. In addition, faculty members have published five academic monographs, ten textbooks and eight research papers in CSSCI academic journals. Academic research concentrations currently include literature studies, intercultural communication, foreign language instruction theories, English for specific purposes, and so forth.
