College English Department

    The College English Department is one of the most important basic course teaching units in Wuhan university. Its predecessor was the College English Teaching and Research Section of the Department of Foreign Languages. In 1972, Wuhan University offered its first College English course. In 1987, the Ministry of Education promulgated the College English Syllabus, and colleges and universities across the country began to set up college English teaching institutions. Wuhan University separated the College English Teaching and Research Section from the English Department in 1988 and upgraded it to the College English Department, and later formed the School of Foreign Languages and Literature together with the Department of Foreign Languages and the Department of English. In 2000, four universities merged as one, and the College English Teaching and Research Sections of the other three universities were incorporated into the College English Department. The famous international jurist Professor Han Depei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress and international jurist Professor Wan Exiang have successively taught in the College English Teaching and Research Section.

    There are 130 teachers in the College English Department, of which 25 have doctoral degrees. The Department has 11 Teaching and Research Sections: 9 Undergraduate, 1 Postgraduate College English Teaching and Research section, and 1 Master’s Supervisor Team. The Undergraduate Section is responsible for the teaching of college English courses for more than 15,000 undergraduates in two grades. The Postgraduate section is responsible for the teaching of college English courses for more than 6,000 postgraduates and more than 2,000 doctoral students. The Master’s Supervisor Team, composed of professors and associate professors, is responsible for the teaching and postgraduate guidance of foreign linguistics and applied linguistics.

    The College English Department has always been committed to teaching reform, constantly updating teaching concepts, exploring new teaching methods and teaching models, and focusing on cultivating students’ language application ability and cultural literacy. In 2004, with the strong support of university and educational administration departments, it took the lead throughout the country in establishing an autonomous learning center based on computer networks, giving full play to students’ autonomy in learning and realizing the individualization of English learning. The Department also uses “English Street” as a platform to vigorously develop secondary classrooms and create a good environment for campus learning and application. It actively cooperates with the university to organize summer international oral English training courses to cultivate students’ comprehensive language application skills and cross-cultural communication skills. It also carries out teaching discussion and exchange activities between Chinese and American teachers to improve teaching performance.

    Through continuous reform and innovation, The College English Department has achieved remarkable results. In 2006, Wuhan University was approved in the first batch of “Demonstration Universities of College English Teaching Reform” by the Ministry of Education. In 2009, the course “College English”of Wuhan University was approved as a national quality course project. In 2013, the course “College English”of Wuhan University was approved as a national quality resource sharing course. In 2018, “Research on the three-dimensional curriculum system of College English based on the cultivation of ‘tip-top talent’” won the first prize of teaching achievement in Hubei Province. In 2018, the MOOC course “British Society and Culture” was launched on the MOOC platform of Chinese universities, and in 2020 it was rated as the “First-class Online Undergraduate Course in Hubei Province”. In 2021, the College English Teaching and Research Section was rated as “excellent grass-roots teaching organization of ordinary undergraduate colleges and universities in Hubei Province”. The students have won many outstanding prizes in various English competitions at the provincial and national levels. The faculty won excellent results in the university, provincial and national teaching competitions, and one of them won the champion of the “SFLEP Cup” National College English Teaching Competition.

    The College English Department has remarkable achievements not only in teaching, but also in research. Teachers of the College English Department undertook 1 National Social Science Fund Chinese Academic Works Translation Project, 3 Ministry of Education of Humanities and Social Science Projects, 4 Collaborative Education Program of Ministry of Education projects, more than 10 educational science planning projects in Hubei Province, more than 10 provincial teaching and research projects of Hubei universities and more than 20 independent scientific research projects (humanities and social sciences) of Wuhan University.

    In recent years, the discipline of the College English Department has been steadily promoted, the talent-training quality and scientific research level have been significantly improved, and the social service ability has been gradually enhanced. It has become one of the important guarantees for Wuhan University to create “Double First-Class” and promote the comprehensive reform pilot work of “Three-Wide Education”.

Department Head: Zhang Mingyao

Deputy Department Head: Wen Fang, Zhao Ling, Li Jiali

Director of the First Teaching and Research Section: Yu Yongfang

Director of the Second Teaching and Research Section: Wang Mingyue

Director of the Third teaching and research section: Xiong Hongping

Deputy Director of the Third Teaching and Research Section: Guo Saijun

Director of the Fourth Teaching and Research Section: Wen Ting

Director of the Fifth Teaching and Research Section: Lu Peng

Director of the Sixth Teaching and Research Section: Yu Shilong

Director of the Seventh Teaching and Research Section: Qian Yan

Director of the Eighth Teaching and Research Section: Xie Xiaohong

Director of the Ninth Teaching and Research Office: Guo Yi

Director of the Tenth Teaching and Research Section: Su Zizhou

Director of English Education Teaching and Research Office: Gui Min