Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) (Yuyan Xueyuan)

Founded in 1962, Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU), located at “Wudaokou”, the heart of Beijing’s university area, has become a leading public university with 12,000 full- and part-time students in undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as Chinese language training programs.

Beijing Language and Culture University (BLCU) is a university directly under the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China. It was established in 1962 under the guidance of Premier Zhou Enlai. In June 1964, it was designated as Beijing Language Institute. In 1974, Chairman Mao Zedong inscribed the name for the Institute. In June 1996, it was then renamed as Beijing Language and Culture University.

BLCU is known as the Mini-United Nations; it is the only university of its kind in China that specializes in offering Chinese language and culture courses to foreign students. Meanwhile, BLCU provides professional courses in various fields, such as foreign languages, Chinese language, information science, economics, arts, and other majors to Chinese students. In addition, BLCU helps foster the growth of our academic faculty and supplies language courses designed for those who plan to study abroad. Over 50 years of development has made BLCU a multidisciplinary university that has enhanced language teaching and research. This was done with synergetic development in fields such as Chinese, foreign languages and other relevant disciplines. Since its foundation in 1962, BLCU has been an important academic base for language and cultural research and the cradle for advanced international talents in China. In 2014, we made the explicit aim and plan to build a first-class language university and to promote the development of four great academic fields.

In the area of Teaching Chinese as Foreign Language (TCFL) and the promotion of Chinese culture, BLCU has the longest history, the largest size and the most well qualified academic faculty. Since its founding, the university has trained some 200,000 foreign students who are proficient in Chinese language and familiar with Chinese culture from 183 countries and regions. Many alumni have become celebrities in various fields such as education, politics and business.

BLCU has kept its distinguishing features and advantages in the field of Chinese international education since the 1990s; meanwhile, new and related disciplines have been developed as well. BLCU’s current disciplines are composed of eight categories: literature, economics, law, engineering, history, education, management and fine arts.

The university is currently comprised of 3 faculties, 9 independent schools and 8 research centers as follows: the Faculty of International Education of Chinese Language (including the School of Chinese Studies, the School of Advanced Chinese Training, the School of Intensive Chinese Studies, the School of Preparatory Education，the Base of Chinese Teaching and Research and the School of Mandarin Education), the Faculty of Foreign Studies (including the School of English Studies, the School of Translation and Interpreting, the School of Applied Foreign Languages, the School of Oriental Languages and Cultures, the School of Western Languages and Cultures, the School of Middle East Studies and the International and Regional Studies Institute), the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (including the School of Chinese Language Education, the School of Humanities, the School of International Relations, the School of Political Sciences and the School of Journalism and Communication); the School of Information Sciences, the Business School, the School of Marxism Studies, the School of Arts, the School of Language Rehabilitation (including the Institute for Speech-Language Pathology and Brain Science), the Department of Linguistics, the School of Continuing Education, the College of Network Education, the Department of Physical Education; the Center for Studies of Chinese as a Second Language, the Institute of Linguistic Sciences, the Chinese Culture Research Institute, the Beijing Advanced Innovation Center for Language Resources, the Institute of International Student Education Policy and Evaluation Research, the Institute of Economy Research, the Base of Language Cognition Science Discipline Innovation Introduction (Cultivation) and the Institute of Chinese Calligraphy International Communication.

BLCU Mission

Since its founding, BLCU has set the mission and taken on the responsibility of spreading the Chinese language and culture across the world.
　　International vision, excellence in research and teaching, and serving the country and world have long been BLCU’s pursuit.
　　In just half a century, BLCU has become one of the top language universities and the largest Chinese language education center in the world.
　　Mission
　　♦ To be a world leader in research and teaching of Chinese language and culture
　　♦ To be a university teaching and studying the largest number of languages in the world
　　♦ To produce graduates who are global citizens, equipped to make an important contribution to the economy and to society in our
　　inter-connected world
　　♦ To serve our local region – academically, culturally and economically
　　♦ To continue to make BLCU education available to all those able to benefit from it, regardless of economic or social circumstances