The English Major Program of the School of Foreign Languages at Nanchang University has been offered since 1975, and the Foreign Language & Literature and the English & Japanese orientations were added in 2008.

Besides four foreign teachers, the English Major Program boasts 36 Chinese teachers, among whom 7 are full professors and 15 associate professors. There are 16 teachers with doctoral degrees and one member of the National Advisory Committee on Teaching English as a Major in Higher Education under the Ministry of Education. In addition, there are 2 academic leaders of Jiangxi universities and 2 provincial-level core teachers. In recent years, the English Major Program has been granted 7 projects from the National Social Science Fund of China and 3 Humanities and Social Science projects from the Ministry of Education. In 2015, it ranked first in a comprehensive evaluation of English offered in higher education undergraduate programs in Jiangxi Province. In 2019, it was granted the status of ‘the First-class Major in Jiangxi Province’ and won Nanchang University’s support for the benefit of first-class undergraduate major programs.  

The English Major Program is well equipped with smart-classrooms for foreign studies, simultaneous interpretation classrooms, CAT classrooms, digitalized language laboratories, self-study classrooms for foreign languages, foreign language books and reference material rooms, and it provides access to audio and video websites for foreign language teaching.

Guided by the motto of the School ‘Promoting both Chinese and foreign studies, simultaneously cultivating ethics and professionalism’, the English Major Program puts into practice the training concept of “integrating language and culture, placing equal emphasis upon both first and second foreign languages, and unifying knowledge and practice”. Following the requirement of “laying a solid foundation, strengthening capability, improving quality, expanding adaptive capacity and focusing on innovation”, the English Major Program aims at training students in basic skills such as listening, speaking, reading, writing and translation. This method aims at turning students into professional talents in English who are equipped with strong self-study capabilities, independent thinking abilities, high ideological and ethical standards, and profound professional knowledge. This will produce students who are able to meet the requirements of national economic construction and social development.    

The English & Japanese Orientation is designed to train students in the basic skills in these two languages, turning them into versatile and practical bilingual talents who are able to engage in translation, teaching, management or research in the fields of academic study, foreign affairs, education, business, trade, culture, science and technology, tourism, military services, press and so on.  

The English Major Program offers a series of courses, for example English Writing, English Listening，Audio-visual News, English Conversation, Public Speaking, Selected Reading in Humanities and Social Sciences, Film and Television Criticism, and Simultaneous Interpretation. The English and Japanese major also offers such courses as Japanese Conversation, Japanese Listening, Advanced Japanese, Audio-visual Japanese, Japanese Translation, and Business Japanese.

The English Major Program lays emphasis on international exchanges and cooperation. For example, it has established a Chinese-Australian cooperative education project with Edith Cowan University where some junior students will be invited to study for a year.

The English Major Program encourages and guides students to participate in various competitions, some of which are at the national level. Students shine in those competitions and participation yields bountiful fruits, demonstrating they have developed in all aspects with solid professional knowledge. Over the past four years, 40% of our students have pursued postgraduate studies, including those who were recommended for postgraduate studies without taking the national postgraduate entrance exam. In addition, the admission rate for overseas study has hit 40% and the employment rate 95%.