Tomsk State Pedagogical University

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INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION OF TSPU CELEBRATES ITS 90TH ANNIVERSARY

In December 2022, the Institute of Foreign Languages and International Cooperation (IFLIC) of the TSPU will celebrate its 90th anniversary.

The Institute was created by the decision of the TSPU's Academic Council in August 31, 2020 by merging two structural units of the university - the Faculty of Foreign Languages and the Department of International Cooperation.

The first mention of foreign language education in the Tomsk Industrial and Pedagogical Institute dates back to December 10, 1931: On this day the first German teacher V.V. Medlina was hired.

In 1932, at the Institute was created Department of Foreign Languages, which was the ancestor of the IFLIC. The department was headed by V.A. Kopylov, a lawyer who was fluent in German and had experience in teaching it. In December of that year, by order of the People's Commissariat of Education of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, departments were consolidated all over the country, including the Tomsk Industrial and Pedagogical Institute. The Department of Linguistics, headed by the highly qualified linguist G.T. Chuich, was created at the Faculty of Literature. It united seven disciplines, one of which was the German language. In 1933 the Department of linguistics was renamed into the Department of General and Russian linguistics. In addition to Slavists, there were also German language teachers.

In the same year the RSFSR was radically changing the way foreign languages were taught in high schools. In order to prepare highly qualified specialists it was recommended to pay more attention to foreign language education of students. 

In 1936, the Department of Foreign Languages is established again, headed by L.L. Beke. He was an erudite, highly qualified specialist, who knew several European languages. It was he who would become the first Dean of the Faculty of Foreign Languages.

The Department of Foreign Languages remained the only one at the Faculty until 1941. During the Great Patriotic War two departments were organized on its basis: of German and English.

In 1947 the Soviet linguist, ethnographer and archaeologist, Doctor of Philological Sciences, Professor of the Institute Andrey Petrovich Dulzon developed a plan of research work on the study of the indigenous peoples of Siberia and their languages, collecting historical, ethnographic, archaeological and linguistic material in the expeditions in the Tomsk region and Krasnoyarsk territory. On the basis of A.P. Dulzon's personal study of linguistics, a Laboratory of languages of the peoples of Siberia was opened. Together with his students, the Professor led 35 complex expeditions to the north of the Tomsk region and to the Krasnoyarsk area to gather material on the Chulym-Turkic, Ket, Selkup, Khanty, Mansi, Nganasan, Shor, Evenki languages.

Today the Laboratory is renamed to the Department of Languages of Siberian Peoples, and its archive, which was collected over 70 years as part of a comprehensive program to study the origin and evolution of Aborigines of Siberia and their languages, is one of the most valuable collections in the field of autochthonous languages and cultures of Siberia.

As the years passed, the department was gradually developing, new departments appeared: Department of French Language (1962), Department of English Philology (1976), Department of German Philology (1976), Department of the Theory and Methodology of Teaching Foreign Languages (1991), Department of Linguistics (1997), Department of Linguistics and Intercultural Communication (1998), Department of Translation and Translation Studies (2006). In 1994, the department was renamed to Institute of Foreign Languages at the TSPU and carried this title until 2002. In 2020, the Faculty became the Institute again.

 

Today, the structure of the Institute of Foreign Languages and International Cooperation includes five Departments ( Department of Romance-Germanic Philology and Foreign Language Teaching Methodology, Department of English Philology and Intercultural Communication, Department of Translation and Translation Studies, Department of Siberian Languages, Department of Business Communication in Russian and Foreign Languages), as well as the International Cooperation Department and the Information Resource Center for Language Training. The mission of the Institute is to train highly qualified competitive bachelors, masters and postgraduates in the field of teacher education, linguistics, intercultural communication, translation and translation studies. All programs provide for the study of two foreign languages in various combinations according to the learner's choice. The Institute provides a stable and effective system of cooperation between the TSPU and foreign scientific and educational organizations.

 

Today, IFLIC is a dynamically developing structure with more than 75 employees and more than 650 students. The Institute regularly organizes scientific and educational events: all-Russian and international conferences, language competitions, master classes, aimed at improving the content and technologies of education to ensure high quality of education to meet the challenges of our time.

The Institute celebrated its anniversary year with a number of significant events: in 2022, the Institute launched a dual degree programme together with the Jilin University of Foreign Languages (Jilin, China, Changchun). The Open Interregional Foreign Language Contest for schoolchildren "Alterlingua", which allows participants, winners and prize-winners to get up to 10 extra points for the Unified State Examination in foreign languages, was included into the list of the Ministry of Education; the scientific project of the Institute got support of the Russian Science Foundation in the contest of small individual scientific groups' projects for 2023-2024.