School of Foreign Languages

School of Foreign Languages


I. Overview  

School of Foreign Languages was founded in 2004, formerly known as the Department of Basic Courses of Guangzhou Maritime School. The school currently has two undergraduate majors of Business English and Italian. As of September 2021, there are 769 on-campus students majoring in Business English. The major of Italian was established with the approval of Ministry of Education in early 2020 and 45 students were enrolled in 2021. School of Foreign Languages currently has five institutions, namely, Business English Department, College English Teaching Department, Italian Department, Experimental Center and Maritime English Research Center. In recent years, the school has been approved to build university level characteristic majors, Maritime English Research Center, Cross-border E-commerce Collaborative Education Center and other projects, which resulted in the continuous advancement of the teaching quality and the reform and innovation of training modes of applied talents.


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Under the background of semi-military management of the University, students from School of Foreign Languages have a solid professional foundation, and the average passing rate of TEM-4 is ahead of similar colleges and universities in the province. Our students have won many awards in various professional competitions. In the 2018 “FLTRP · Guocai Cup” National English Writing Contest, Pang Guanting and Lin Xuling, 2016 Business English majors, won the special prize of Guangdong division and the second prize of the national finals respectively, and Zhang Yuzhao, a 2017 Business English major, won the second prize of the national finals of the 2020 “Big Writing Event Under One Topic” English Writing Contest.


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School of Foreign Languages has carried out various forms of entrepreneurship education and training for students through activity platforms such as college students’ entrepreneurship plan contests, college students’ vocational ability enhancement training camps and entrepreneurship culture festivals. In the past three years, students have successfully won a number of college students’ innovation and entrepreneurship projects of national, provincial and university level. The primary employment rate of graduates has always remained above 99%. Students have been highly praised for their work as civil servants, administrative assistants, foreign trade specialists, documentation specialists and data operators in foreign-related social organizations, law firms, accounting firms, foreign trade companies, international logistics companies, business institutions and other enterprises and institutions in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Deng Zijun, a 2018 Business English graduate of Class 144, and Chen Zhouying, a 2020 Business English graduate of class 165, were successfully enrolled into “Go West” college graduates volunteer program.


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II. Undergraduate Programs

1. Business English  

With years of trying, the major of Business English has been uniquely characterized with a practical foreign language talent training approach through Three Combinations, that is, Organic Integration of Double Certificates(Diploma and Occupational Qualification Certificate), Organic Integration of Sections(Language Section and Major Knowledge Section) and Organic Integration of Competence(Language Competence and Major Competence).

Based on virtue, intelligence, physical development, arts cultivation and perception of labor, this major aims to cultivate all-around practical Business English talents who are endowed with solid English language abilities, a comprehensive know-how on linguistics, management and international commercial law, a competitive capability in English language application, and a comprehensive ability in cross-cultural communication, innovation and business orientation to conduct translation, marketing and Customs clearance in the domain of trading, management, finance, foreign affairs, shipping, shipping agent and cargo agent, etc.. In addition to the key language courses, the designed professional courses include Business Documentation(in English), Correspondence and Writing for Navigation English, Navigation Geology, Law of Maritime Commerce, Ocean Transport, Customs Declaration and Quarantine Inspection, Forwarders’ Operation, Shipping Economics and Marketing, Containerized Transport and Management, and Introduction to International Shipping Economics.


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The major also adheres to the image of better match between course orientation and professional standards, and keeps proceeding integration between industry and teaching and between theory and practice. The practice teaching, which occupies more than 35% of the total practice periods in training program for this major, includes experimental teaching, major internship, business proposal planning, academic activities and social practice. For off-campus promotion, we as well as the enterprises mutually draft the plans on the training program, on auxiliary teaching, on perceptual practice, on internship, on teachers’ temporary working in enterprises during summer vacation, on R & D of case teaching and seminars, and on campus recruitment, etc. Benefited from a widely-existing cooperation between universities and enterprises, we devote to take full advantage of ample resources in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area to well serve the upgrading of practical talent training capabilities and serve as a wide platform for talent cultivation and teachers’ career development.

2. Italian  

The Italian major was approved by the Ministry of Education in early 2020 and enrolled students in 2021. This major aims to cultivate talents in secretarial, teaching, management and other fields by comprehensive development in morality, intelligence, physical education, art and labor, with solid basic skills and professional knowledge and ability in Italian. What’s more, they should also be familiar with Italian national conditions, cross-cultural communication thinking, certain English communication skills, and the understanding of international business and maritime industry foundations Knowledge. The practical innovation ability, high overall quality, are required to meet the needs of China’s foreign exchanges, national and local economic and social development, and provide business and translation services for various foreign-related enterprises, international business, maritime enterprises, foreign language education and academic research institutions talents in secretarial, teaching, management and other fields.  


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In addition to the core courses, the undergraduate programme of Italian offers abundant featured courses, including but not limited to Business Italian, Business Letter Writing in Italian, Italian for Cross-border E-Commerce, Business Negotiation in Italian, Maritime History of Italy, Italian for Shipping, Italian for Law. Apart from pursuing postgraduate degree and preparing for the civil service exam, many graduates work in foreign trade companies, business institutions, financial institutions, Italian language training institutions, translation companies, foreign-related law firms, foreign-related accounting firms, international logistics companies, cross-border e-commerce industry, shipping and foreign trade companies, mainly engaged in positions of business, finance, translation, administrative assistant, foreign trade specialist, teacher and so on.

III. Faculty  

School of Foreign Languages has a faculty of 52 full-time teachers, including 4 professors, 14 associate professors and 30 lecturers, accounting for 35% above associate professors. 19 teachers have academic backgrounds on business, accounting for 37%. 9 teachers have PHDs, and 39 teachers have masters’ degrees, accounting for 85% of the faculty. Besides 2 members of professional construction steering committee for enterprises, it has a stable team of tutors from enterprises in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. They deliver lectures, and participate in teaching and thesis guidance. In the school, a high-level team with PHDs or with double qualified certifications is being formed, to adapt to the requirements of “application-oriented” undergraduate teaching.


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With excellent research qualities, noble professional ethics, and reasonable professional title, age and academic background structure, the faculty thus guarantee high-level teaching and research.

The current leading group includes the Party secretary Chen Weiwei, deputy Party secretary Ou Junwei and deputy dean Liu Huiling.

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IV. Facilities

To cultivate applied talents with practical ability and innovation, the school has focused on the following two aspects in terms of teaching facilities.

First, on perspective of the laboratory construction on campus, the school owns 9 laboratories, covering an area of 1440 square meters, launched in March 2008. Among them, there are 6 basic laboratories and 3 professional ones. The facilities value 5.634 million yuan.

Second, for the construction of off-campus practice base, the school simultaneously improves the standards while increasing the numbers. There are 5 off-campus practice bases, such as Shenzhen Tongtuo Technology Co., Ltd., which provide good training and practice conditions for students.

V. Academics & Scientific Research

School of Foreign Languages (SFL) prioritizes its disciplinary development and defines as its mission the enhancement of quality education of high-caliber students. With the growing academic atmosphere, there has been an increasing number of achievements in recent five years: 1 research project funded by National Social Science foundation, 1 humanity and social science research project funded by Ministry of Education, and more than 15 academic research projects funded by Guangdong Social Science foundation and Guangzhou Social Science foundation with publication of over 5 monographs, translated works or textbooks, and 56 academic papers. The total amount of academic funding, including national, provincial, municipal and collegiate funding, arrives at more than 1,200,000 CNY.


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The Maritime English Research Center (MERC) was founded in August, 2017 by SFL. It is one of the key collegiate research centers for humanity and social science and one of the core innovative engineering projects approved by Guangzhou Maritime University (GMU).  Putting the resources of GMU into full play, MERC undertakes the relentless task to keep propelling forward the research of Maritime English and offer languages services to the maritime industries, fulfilling its obligations and commitments to facilitate the implementation of China’ s Belt and Road strategy, the construction of the Greater Bay Area and the development of Guangzhou International Maritime Service Center.

MERC is currently staffed with 12 fulltime university researchers and 1 part-time non-university researcher. Among them, there are 5 professors, 4 associate professors and 5 lecturers, 4 out of whom hold the doctor’s degree.

MERC’s main fields of academic research involves:

l The practice of maritime English translation, academically headed by Professor Cheng Ping;

l Research on Marine culture and literature by Professor Liu Huiling;

l Research on Maritime English teaching methodology and practice by Professor Li Hong.

 The focal points of MERC's academic research are set on:

l The principles and standardization of international maritime treaties translation

l Corpus-based translation research focusing on the study of international maritime treaties translation with corpuses sourced from domestic and international maritime laws and regulations, and maritime court verdicts and documents, to enrich the theories and consolidate the practices of corpus-based translation

l Systemic study and analysis of the tracks and threads in the evolution of Chinese and western marine literature, to explore in depth the unique literary forms of marine literature and pioneer new territory in literature studies

l Comparative study of Chinese and western marine cultures, to put Linnan marine culture, Chinese marine culture and western marine culture into a uniform framework of study and enrich our marine culture through assimilating the essence of diverse marine cultures

l Research on ESP teaching models of maritime English, to explore new viable teaching models for Maritime Spoken English course and Maritime English Intensive Reading Course, etc. for students of maritime majors

l Research on the teaching reforms of ESP and college English in quest for new theories and practice of college English teaching

So far, there have been 14 academic theses published by the MERC's members in CSSCI such as Shanghai Journal of Translators, Foreign Languages and Translation, Journal of Zhejiang Ocean University and Maritime Education Research, and so forth, including works like The Narrative Development of Chinese Classic Fictions, Research on the Innovation Development of the Discipline of Foreign Languages in Local Maritime Universities Based on the Blue Sea Strategy, The Structuring of Multimodal Maritime English Teaching, Research on Constructing Business English Major with Maritime Characteristics and more.  

Other major academic achievements include: A Panoramic Overview of English Marine Culture - an elite open video course funded by Guangdong province, one academic monograph, 3 research projects on social science planned and approved by Guangdong province and 2 Guangzhou City research projects on philosophical and social science.

VI. International Cooperation

In recent years, our college has continued to expand the opening of international exchanges and cooperation forms. It has carried out exchanges and cooperation with universities such as Rzeszów University in Poland, Dresden International University in Germany, Perugia University for Foreigners in Italy, and opened Sino-German and Sino-Italian joint classes. The joint training of Chinese and foreign students majoring in Business English and Italian has been realized.




The college’s IELTS teaching team actively serves our school’s Computer Science and Technology, Finance and other majors in China-Australia cooperative education teaching, and forms a strong joint force of our school’s open education and international exchanges with the International Education College.


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