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 University houses the academic Institute of Foreign Languages 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 30 modern and classical languages: English, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Turkish, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Estonian, Latvian, Norwegian, Danish, Russian, Polish, Serbian, Latin, Modern Greek, Old and New Testament Greek, Hebrew, Lithuanian Sign language and Lithuanian for foreigners. This way students of VMU enrich their education with the multilingual competence – a unique, individually formed constellation of two-three-four or more languages – gaining a competitive advantage in the global labour market.
According to Study Regulation document, students have to choose no less than 12 and no more than 24 credits of foreign languages:
- students who have begun studying English language at the university from higher level than A1, have to reach C1 level of academic English, aimed at the development of receptive and productive verbal and written types of language activities;
- students who have begun studying English language at A1 level or enrolled at the university in 2015 or earlier have to reach B2 level of academic English;
students who start to study at the university and have C1 level of academic English, have to study a subject of higher level of English language or other foreign language with a minimum of 12 credits. Students can use their remaining credits to study English courses of higher than C1 level, other foreign language courses or optional study subjects.
Languages are learned intensively – five times a week. Four times a week seminars in classrooms or in the computer language laboratory SANAKO STUDY 1200 are held. One learning sessions 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; ten 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 Languages Day. This includes public lectures about multilingualism, active teaching and learning of languages with foreign students and funny, colourful and inventive shows performed by our students, guests and schoolchildren. Annually the events of VMU European Languages Day spread to Kaunas schools as well.
Students from other universities, VMU employees, schoolchildren from VMU “Rasa“ gymnasium, members of Kaunas community are welcome to learn languages in groups together with VMU students or in evening courses.