The Department of Foreign Languages is one of the core departments of the university. Throughout the long history of the department, scientific activity played an important place in the structure of the department’s operation. The diverse scientific interests of the department staff include various areas of linguistics: grammar, lexicology, history of language, lexicography, literary criticism, theory and practice of translation, and others. Along with this, serious attention is paid to the issues of teaching foreign languages with the account of the specifics of a technical university, the development of effective and innovative methods of teaching foreign languages at different levels of education (undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate studies). A special place in the scientific activity of the department is also occupied by research related to the scientific and methodological principles of creating textbooks that take into account the specifics of the professional orientation of teaching foreign languages in all areas of training at a civil engineering university.
Teachers of the department take an active part in international, national and regional scientific conferences. The department became the organizer of the annual interuniversity open scientific and practical conference "From Traditions to Innovations in Teaching Foreign Languages". The first of this series of conferences took place on April 22-23, 2016. In 2017, the conference received the status of an all-Russian, and in 2019, it became an international event.
On October 5, 2017, the first meeting of the CHIR-Environment scientific psychological and pedagogical school, founded by E.I. Chirkova, professor of the SPbGASU Department of Foreign Languages, took place; it aims at exchanging pedagogical experience, improvement of teaching skills, and helping young scientists and teachers to enhance their researches. Representatives of universities and schools of St. Petersburg and other cities of Russia take part in the meetings of the scientific school. Six issues of a collective monograph Innovative educational space: theory and practice of teaching foreign languages and Russian as a foreign language in higher education have been published.
On October 26, 2018, the Department hosted the International Scientific Roundtable “From learning the language to learning the world”, aimed at developing international cooperation in the sphere of scientific activity and the establishment of scientific contacts of SPbGASU in the field of pedagogy, psychology, sociology, philosophy of language, language-teaching methods, general philology, Russian philology, teaching Russian as a foreign language, intercultural communication with various scientific and educational organizations for the implementation of joint research and pedagogical projects.
The work of the round table was held in sections:
- 1. The Russian language. Methods of teaching Russian as a foreign language
- 2. Foreign languages and intercultural communication
- 3. Pedagogy in high school. Philosophy of the language
The event was attended by researchers from Finland, Azerbaijan, the United Kingdom, the People’s Republic of China, the Republic of Congo, the Republic of Benin, and the Algerian People’s Democratic Republic.
Based on the results of the round table, a collective monograph "From the knowledge of the language to the knowledge of the world: philosophical and psychological-pedagogical aspects of linguistics” was published.