The College of Foreign Languages at Shandong Agricultural University (SDAU) was founded in September 1999 out of the former Foreign Language Teaching Office (subordinate to the Department of Basic Courses). Currently, it has 104 faculty members, including 6 professors, 40 associate professors, and 15 doctoral (including PhD candidates) teachers, and recruits 8-10 foreign English, Japanese, and Russian teachers every year.

The College offers, at present, 5 undergraduate programs, namely, English, Japanese, Russian, Business English, and Business English (Cross-border E-commerce Orientation). The program of English (language and literature) was rated as a university-level key discipline in 2003 and the university’s characteristic specialty in 2005. In 2006, it passed the undergraduate teaching evaluation for English majors implemented by the Ministry of Education (MOE). It was selected as one of the key programs supported by SDAU in 2013 and one of the Class A undergraduate programs to receive the financial allocation of Shandong Province in 2014. Since its founding, the College has cultivated 2,902 graduates.

The College holds a series of unique cultural programs and activities, such as Peer Tutoring, Excellent Student Cultivation (ESC), Mobile Post, SDAU English Talent Show, Shuxiang (lit. book-fragrance) College, and Mobile Micro Party Class. It has also, in collaboration with the local enterprises, built some cross-border e-commerce training bases as the practice platforms for its students. Up till now, more than 600 of its graduates have been admitted by the top or renowned universities of China, the US, the UK and Australia to pursue their postgraduate studies. In addition, every year, the undergraduates have the opportunity to study as exchange students in Japan, Russia or other countries.

The teaching quality of our college has been steadily improving, and ranks among the top at SDAU. Many of our teachers have won the first or second prizes in the teaching contests or have been awarded teaching titles at national or provincial levels, including the first prizes in the Teaching Star Contest held by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, the second prizes in the Teaching Contest held by Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press (both of the contests are the top national events held for college foreign language teachers in China), the top ten provincial college English teaching experts, the first prizes of Shandong provincial college English teaching skills competition, the second prizes of the teaching competition for young teachers in universities of Shandong, the first prizes of multimedia teaching courseware competition for young teachers at provincial level, etc. In the past three years, the staff members have published a total of 256 teaching and research papers, of which more than 30 papers have been published in core journals such as Journal of Foreign Languages. They have carried out more than 90 academic projects supported by grants at various levels, including one by the National Social Science Fund of China, one by the MOE Foundation of Humanities and Social Sciences, four by the MOE Foundation on the Integration of Industry, Education and Research, and over 70 by provincial grants. In addition, they have published or translated 13 monographs and won 10 scientific research awards at the university level or above.

The College is dedicated to the idea of moral education, strives to develop fine learning atmosphere, fosters characteristic campus cultural activities, and constantly strengthens innovation as well as entrepreneurship. It aims to cultivate talents with solid foreign language skills and abilities, broad knowledge of related disciplines, and certain comprehensive professional knowledge, so that they are capable of doing translation, business, management, teaching and research, cultural exchange, etc. in such areas as trade, agricultural science and technology, tourism, education, culture, international economics and foreign affairs.

(Updated in December 2019)