On November 16 to November 18, 2017, the celebration of the 10th anniversary of sister provinces relation between Hubei Province and State of Saxony in German was held. During the talks between Wang Xiaodong, Deputy Secretary of CPC Hubei Provincial Committee ( also the provincial governor and Stanislaw Tillich, governor of Saxony, Professor Tan Yuan, vice director of School of Foreign Language in HUST and Dean of Department of German, did the escort interpretation.

On November 24, the seventh session of Military World Games was held in Wuhan. It’s the first time for China to be the host and its scale, number of participants and influence have all made a historical record. Zhang Yifan and Ding Xun, teachers from Department of Translation and Interpretation, did simultaneous interpretation and consecutive interpretation on the opening ceremony.

On November 26, the second session of Hankou North "Belt and Road" Market Procurement and Trade Forum was held. Ding Xun did the simultaneous interpretation on the forum. During that time, traveling merchants from ten countries along the “Belt and Road” has signed commodity purchase at a value of 850 million dollars.

“That’s only a small part of our teachers and students’ contribution to local international cooperation.” Prof. Zhang Zaihong, vice Dean of School of Foreign Language said proudly. The annual statement recorded all the interpretations they did in hundreds of important international communication events in Hubei Province or central China region from 2015 to 2017. They did the interpretations in English, German, Japanese and French, covering different fields, such as politics, economy, culture, ecology, law and medical care, etc.

“I have participated in some German interpreting work since I came to HUST in 2008.” Tan Yuan said, who now become a reputed German interpreter in Hubei province. “I witnessed that the activities in foreign affairs of Hubei province is becoming more and more frequent and high leveled. “Tan Yuan said that he was deeply proud of participating in those events. Also, he expected that the School of Foreign Language can participate to the internationalization of Hubei Province more and deeper.

Keeping pace with the times is also an important thing. In recent years, with the “Belt and Road Initiative”, the development strategy in central China and China(Hubei) pilot free trade zone are promoted solidly. Meanwhile, the School of Foreign Language encouraged teachers and students to make full use of their language skills and participate in the social practice and service in Hubei Province in their spare time. Since the bridging character of foreign language is important and processing internationalization strategy calls for language basis.

The Great Cities Forum of Britain, “A Rising Global City, Challenge and Opportunity, Wuhan Forum”, the second session of International Bio-Expo in Optical Valley, the International Seminar on E-Governance Based on Shared Development, “Belt and Road” International Forum on Higher Education, the press conference of Wuhan Military World Games, “Innovation and Future” Sino-British Entrepreneur Saloon…..Zhang Yifan did simultaneous interpretation in all of the listed events last year. Actually, in his notebook, there are dozens pieces of such work records in 2017.

Ding Xun has also did many simultaneous interpretations and consecutive interpretations in international events, such as ICOMOS-Wuhan Forum, US-China Sub National Legislatures Cooperation Forum, the Planning Seminar of the Yangtze River Demonstration District, the Tennis Forum of Wuhan Open, Chile Week in Hubei Province, the first session of Sino-Hungary Mining Pollution Repairing Seminar and the International Tea Forum. Sometimes, she both does bilingual hosting and interpretation. She was renowned as “the most popular female interpreter in Hubei Province”

The students are also positive to do relevant practice and internship. They do escort interpretation, consecutive interpretation and simultaneous interpretation for international seminar; be volunteers at Wuhan Open and be volunteer teachers in Xiaochang. They tell stories in different places of the world in Chinese, English, German, Japanese and French.

“While encouraging the teachers and students to devote to social service, the School of Foreign Language is also positive to establish platforms for culture exchanging and cultivate relevant cultural brands.

In 2012, with the deepening of the exchange between Wuhan and South Korea, the School of Foreign Language and Consulate of South Korea in Wuhan cooperated to establish the first Sejonghakdang (like Korean Confucius Academy) in central China. Till now, over 2000 students registered to study Korean language and culture.

In 2013, the School of Foreign Language set French major, aiming at cultivating professionals for the communication between France and Hubei Province.

Also, the school sends oven twenty teachers and students as volunteers to Confucius Academy in the United States, New Zealand and Brazil each year.

“Under the new historical background, professionals with translating skills and multi-knowledge background are needed. So, our duty is not only to seek opportunities for existing translation professionals, but also to cultivate foreign language professionals with abundant knowledge, exquisite skills and devotion to social service. “ Zhang Zaihong said.

In recent years, School of Foreign Language combined its own feature and the university’s advantage in engineering and medical majors. It deepened the educational reform and attached more importance to curricula construction by making innovations in teaching principles and teaching methods.

Now, School of Foreign Language has excellent courses at university level. Three of them are provincial excellent courses and two of them are national excellent courses. The school has established five research centers, including Foreign Language Education Research Center, Linguistic Research Center, Translation Research Center, Comparative Culture (Literature) Research Center and Regional Research center. Also, it has several teaching platforms, such as Simultaneous Interpretation Laboratory, Computer Aided Translation Laboratory, Interpreting Training Platform and Hubei Province Language Learning Demonstration Center, etc.

School of Foreign Language encourages the teachers to study abroad or do translation and interpretation practice, so that they can improve their learning ability and knowledge reserve. Teachers have made several innovations in teaching methods, such as case teaching, simulating teaching and flipped classroom. Also, to widen teachers and students’ horizon, the school introduced several international lectures, seminars and conventions.

With advanced teaching idea, completed teaching facilities and high quality faculty, the School of Foreign Language has establish a pleasant educational environment which attracts talented students with aspirations to swarm in.

Zhu Haoran is a doctoral student majoring in computational linguistics. Although majoring in surveying and mapping of Wuhan University during undergraduate period, he was interested in interpreting and admired some renowned interpreting teachers very much. So, he endeavored to prepare the postgraduate exam and finally ranked first both in the written examination and interview of the master degree of translation and interpreting.

Zhu Haoran said he had considered a lot before making the decision of changing both university and major for his master degree. “The School of foreign Language in HUST both has professors with deep theoretical background and experienced interpreting teachers. So, if I choose to be a student here, I can not only learn translation theory but get opportunities to do interpreting as well. “

During his graduate period, Zhu Haoran has done simultaneous interpretation and consecutive interpretation for twenty international events in Wuhan, such as Wuhan Open, World Supercomputing Summit, etc. Also, he ranked sixth in the global finals of the fifth session of Cross-Strait Interpreting Contest. Now, he has published two thesis in SSCI periodicals and presented his papers on the 2016 International Legal Translation Conference and the 2017 Linguistic Doctoral Student Forum.

Wang Di has already become a teacher. She used major in journalism in Zhongnan University of Economics and Law for her bachelor degree and was attracted by translation and interpretation after studying for her second degree in HUST. So, she chose the School of Foreign Language in HUST for her master degree. Yang Zong, who had recently won the grand prize in central China zone of the seventh session of Cross-Strait Interpreting Contest shared the experience with her. He used major in history in Central China Normal University.

Yang Zong said that students will compare a lot while choosing universities including the faculty, facilities, resources, social reputation and so on. “I’ve heard that interpreting teachers in HUST had participated in many international events in Wuhan, their experience and the opportunities brought by them were quite attractive.

Cultivating students and equipped them with skills need for future is always the pursuit of School of Foreign Language in HUST. In recent five years, student there had won many rewards of many provincial and even national interpreting contests. When students are graduated, they could successfully apply for several renowned international universities, such as University of Munich, University of Frankfurt, University College London, University of Tokyo, Hong Kong Baptist University and Chinese University of Hong Kong, etc.