About us
The prevailing attitude at Vytautas Magnus University is that good knowledge of several foreign languages is an indispensable part of modern university education. The Institute of Foreign Languages is a division of the University offering the widest range of foreign languages in Lithuania.
An exceptional feature of VMU and a value consistent with the spirit of artes liberales is a possibility for students of all faculties to select as many languages as they wish from a list of more than 30 modern and classical languages: Arabic, Cantonese, Croatian, Danish, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Kartvelian, Korean, Kyrgyz, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian Sign Language, Mandarin Chinese, Norwegian, New Testament Greek, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. This way, VMU student enrich their education with the plurilingual competence – a unique, individually formed constellation of two-three-four or more languages – gaining a competitive advantage in the global labour market.
According to VMU Study Regulations, students have to choose no less than 12 and no more than 24 credits of foreign languages. All Bachelor students have to reach C1 competence of English. In C1 level, they can choose from a variety of courses: General English, Business English, Legal English, Academic Writing, Creative Writing, etc.
Languages are learned intensively, five times a week. Four times a week seminars in classrooms are held. One lecture takes place on Moodle, a virtual learning platform, where students and teachers participate in discussion forums, prepare group projects or do interactive tasks. We have more than 50 lecturers; 15 of them are native speakers.
The Institute of Foreign Languages is actively involved in promoting learning languages: we organise book exhibitions, show films in foreign languages, organise language weeks and other events. One of the most popular events is the celebration of the European Day of Languages. This includes public lectures about plurilingualism, active teaching and learning of languages with foreign students and funny, colourful and inventive shows performed by our students, guests and schoolchildren. The events of the European Day of Languages spread to Kaunas schools as well.
Students from other universities, VMU employees, schoolchildren from VMU partner schools and members of Kaunas community are welcome to learn languages together with VMU students or in evening courses.
