About Languge Institute

• INSTITUTE OVERVIEW
• INSTITUTE ADMINISTRATION
• PHOTO ALBUM

INSTITUTE OVERVIEW

1- Foundation

The Institute was founded by a Presidential Decree for the purpose of upgrading the teaching of languages in the Syria, by means of organizing various teaching and training courses, and through research and particular studies in the area of language learning. One of the tasks envisioned for the institute is holding local, regional and international conferences and symposia on applied linguistics and methodology of teaching foreign languages. An added role for the institute is to provide lingual and technical support for conferences held at Damascus University and for negotiation with international academic entities.

The Institute started its activities in mid 2002.

2- Institute Structure

The Institute coordinates the work of the existing language centers at Damascus University. In addition to the already existing centers, the Institute is preparing to open centers for Spanish and Chinese.

3- The Institute Facilities:

• Language Labs
• Internet Access Hall
• Video Room (self access)
• Conference Room
• Library
• Language labs: the institute houses two language labs equipped with the latest audio-visual and digital aids (individual student consoles, ELMOS, Video Projectors, etc).
• Internet Access Hall: This hall is connected to the Syrian Higher Education and Research Network (SHERN) through a T1 link. The Hall is open to students, faculty, and staff.
• Video Room: This room is equipped with 14 individual TV-Video consoles for self access learning. Faculty and students can check out audio-visual material from the Institute Library and view it at their convenience in the Video Room.
• Conference Room: Equipped with state-of-the-art technology, the Conference Room is the venue to hold The Institute conferences and workshops.
• Library: The Library includes about 5000 titles (books & periodicals) as well as a collection of audio-visual materials. Library holdings are constantly enriched through new acquisitions of titles in all languages taught at the institute. An expansion project is underway.

4- Future Plans

The Institute is working on opening two centers for Chinese and Spanish by the September of 2005. In 2003, the goal of launching Turkish, German, and Hebrew language centers was successfully concluded

INSTITUTE ADMINISTRATION

The Institute is run by:

The Institute Council: The Board of the council is made up of, the Director of the Institute, the directors of the language centers, and representatives of the Faculty Union and the Student Union.

Each Language Center is run by :

The Center’s Council is made up of the director of the Center in addition to three members of the teaching staff appointed annually by the director or the institute.