The School of Foreign Languages & Literature of Yunnan Normal University (YNNU) dates back to 1938 when the Department of English of National Southwest Associated University (NSAU) was established. Throughout its 8-year history, the Department had kept its operation with efforts despite great challenges encountered. The School was successively renamed as the Department of English of National Kunming Normal College in 1946, the Department of Foreign Languages of Kunming Normal College in 1950, the Department of Foreign Languages of Yunnan Normal University in 1984, and the School of Foreign Studies of Yunnan Normal University in 1994, and finally in 2010 adopted its present name, the School of Foreign Languages & Literature of Yunnan Normal University. In 2014, Xu Yuanchong, once educated in the English Department of NSAU, was awarded the “Aurora Borealis” Prize for Outstanding Translation of Fiction Literature, one of the highest honors that celebrate excellence among international translators. He is the first Asian translator winning such an award. Since its birth more than 80 years ago, the School has been focusing on cultivating qualified teachers and serving basic education in China. Nowadays, with foreign languages education in ethnic areas as its characteristics, the School focuses on multiple languages education for undergraduates while enrolling an ever-expanding number of postgraduates.

With over 1,800 undergraduates and more than 450 postgraduates, the School now has 150 faculty members, including 18 professors, 40 associate professors, 42 PhDs, and 6 foreign teachers. Most of them have been to such countries as the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Spain, and Egypt, where they pursued academic degrees, researched as visiting scholars, or took refresher courses.

The School is now equipped with 6 digitalized multimedia language laboratories, 1 simultaneous interpreting training room, 1 intelligent translation training room, 28 multimedia classrooms, 1 multimedia lecture hall, 18 classrooms for regular teaching and studying, and 1 library which houses more than 35,600 volumes of books and audiovisual materials in Chinese and other foreign languages.

Building on the education traditions from NSAU, the School has earned widespread recognition both domestically and internationally. It boasts a provincial-level key discipline with distinctive advantages, and a Doctoral Degree Program Development Project in Yunnan (2024-2026). The School has established a well-structured degree authorization system. It has one first-level master’s degree program of Foreign Languages and Literature, offering three sub-disciplines of English Language and Literature, Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics, and Japanese Language and Literature. The School also operates a Master of Translation and Interpreting (MTI) program, covering three specializations: English Translation, English Interpreting and Japanese Translation. Additionally, leveraging the University’s Master of Education (M.Ed.) program, it offers a specialized track in English Teaching. Additionally, it provides the “Outstanding Talent Program” (4+2 integrated bachelor-master program) and the Rural Education Master’s Program, and has constructed a multi-dimensional talent development framework. Over years of development, the School has forged a distinctive academic profile with diversified research focuses and innovative education models. In the fifth-round Academic Discipline Assessment by the Ministry of Education, the first-level discipline of Foreign Languages and Literature was rated as “C+”, demonstrating the School’s academic strengths and marked progress. In the 2022-2023 Shanghai Ranking's Best Chinese Disciplines Ranking, our School has consistently remained in the top 30% cohort for two consecutive years, consolidating our regional leadership among universities in western China. These accomplishments fully demonstrate our School’s academic excellence and potential in the field of foreign language studies.

The School offers four undergraduate programs, namely English Program, Japanese Program, Spanish Program, and Arabic Program. The English Program was authorized as a Provincial Program with Distinctive Advantages in 2005, and was approved as a National First-class Undergraduate Program Development Project in 2020. In 2019, as the first normal program in Yunnan Province, the English Program successfully passed the second-level certification for normal university program conducted by the Ministry of Education; In 2021, the Japanese Program was approved as a Provincial First-Class Undergraduate Program Development Project; The Spanish Program is one of the only two Spanish Programs offered by universities and colleges in Yunnan Province; The Arabic Program is the only undergraduate program of its kind in Yunnan Province. In the fifth-round Comprehensive Evaluation of Undergraduate Program conducted by Yunnan Education Bureau in 2024, the English Program and the Japanese Program were rated as “C+”, and the Spanish Program and the Arabic Program were rated as “B-”. The School also offers a diverse range of second-foreign-language courses, covering such languages as French, Japanese, Spanish, Russian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Korean.

The School has a solid foundation for the development of discipline and programs, supported by multiple teaching and research platforms, including Yunnan Provincial Internship and Practice Base for MTI, “National CATTI Promotion Center” of China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, and Provincial Joint Training Base for MTI. “Foreign Languages and Literature” is part of the “Yunnan First-class Discipline Development Project” and is the only Provincial Key Discipline with Distinctive Advantages in Yunnan Province. “English Languages and Literature” includes another provincial development project, i.e., “New Models of Foreign Literature Teaching and Research in the Context of Globalization”. In addition, the School is equipped with such research centers as the Sino-European Education and Culture Exchange Center, and collaborates with universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, Spain, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, and other countries, so as to provide international exchange platforms for its faculty and students.

The School has a solid foundation for the development of discipline and programs, supported by multiple teaching and research platforms, including Yunnan Provincial Internship and Practice Base for MTI, “National CATTI Promotion Center” of China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, and Provincial Joint Training Base for MTI. “Foreign Languages and Literature” is part of the “Yunnan First-class Discipline Development Project” and is the only Provincial Key Discipline with Distinctive Advantages in Yunnan Province. “English Languages and Literature” includes another provincial development project, i.e., “New Models of Foreign Literature Teaching and Research in the Context of Globalization”. In addition, the School is equipped with such research centers as the Sino-European Education and Culture Exchange Center, and collaborates with universities in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Japan, Spain, Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, and other countries, so as to provide international exchange platforms for its faculty and students.

The School aims to cultivate students with high moral characters and makes unremitting endeavors to enhance its talents training. In the national Test (Band 4) for English Majors, Japanese Majors, Spanish Majors, and Arabic Majors, the passing rate of our students is well above the national average. With the great efforts of our faculty members of Sector of Public Foreign Language Teaching, the average performance of YNNU students in the College English Test (Band 4 and Band 6) keeps improving. Additionally, many of our students have been enrolled as postgraduate students to prestigious institutions, including Beijing Foreign Studies University, Tongji University, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, and Sichuan International Studies University. They have also achieved excellent results in Uchallenge and NECCS, among other high-level national competitions.

He Zhihong, one of the School’s graduates, was awarded “Peace Medal” by the United Nations and “Peacekeeping Medal” by the Ministry of Public Security. At the UN Peacekeeping Summit in New York in 2015, to emphasize China’s commitment to world peace, General Secretary Xi Jinping shared the story of He Zhihong, a Chinese peacekeeper who sacrificed her young life while serving on a United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti in 2010, and who once said that “In this vast world, I may be just like a small feather. But even so, I want this feather to carry the wish for peace.” He Yongqun, another graduate, was awarded Youth Leader for Rural Prosperity of China, and National Model for Ethnic Solidarity and Progress in 2019.

As the presiding unit of the Yunnan Foreign Language Education Society, the School houses Kunming Testing Center for WSK (Waiyu Shuiping Kaoshi) under the Ministry of Education, Yunnan Testing Center for JLPT (The Japanese-Language Proficiency Test), TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean), J.TEST (Jitsuyo Nihongo Kentei) and NAT-TEST (Japanese Language Proficiency Test).

By leveraging their disciplinary strengths, the faculty and students of the School actively serve national strategy and local social economy. For example, as volunteers, consecutive interpreters and simultaneous interpreters, they have participated in such international conferences and events as COP15, the Third Round of ASEAN-China FTA 3.0 Upgrade Negotiations, China-South Asia Expo, World Dragon Boat Racing Championship, the 16th Chinese Bridge-Chinese Proficiency Competition for Foreign Secondary School Students as well as the 3rd Chinese Bridge-Chinese Show for Foreign Primary School Students. Besides, the School has hosted multiple international and domestic high-level academic conferences to promote its high-quality development.

Against the background of “Belt and Road” Initiative and “Double First-Class University” Development Plan, all the faculty members of the School forge ahead together on a new journey toward a School culture characterized by “inheriting the education traditions of NSAU by seeking truth, inclusiveness, harmony, innovation, and excellence.” With the development philosophy of “First-Class Undergraduate Education, First-Class Disciplines, First-Class Talents,” the School strives to serve and integrate itself into national strategies, and contributes to local economic and social development. Going ahead, the School will keep focusing on foreign language teachers cultivation, and develop a national base for foreign language talents which emphasizes the balance between academic excellence and practical application. The School will make efforts to establish a student-centered ideology, inherit fine traditions, actively explore new teaching approaches, improve the quality of education, and continue to implement a development strategy for research-oriented, application-centered, and versatile talents. By doing so, the School will work hard to serve the basic education in Yunnan Province, and provide a steady stream of high-quality, high-standard, and high-level foreign language talents for China and Yunnan Province.