The history of the School of Foreign Languages dates back to 1967, when an institution called "School of Basic Sciences" was founded to offer the students in our university basic sciences, Turkish and foreign languages education.
The School of Basic Sciences carried out comprehensive programs for "Basic Science Certificate", as well as language programs called TIFA, in order to improve students' ability to understand and use Turkish as their native language, even before they started their education in undergraduate programs and to teach a foreign language to the extent that they can benefit from the lectures and conferences and written sources in their own fields; and also to help them gain necessary knowledge of basic sciences and improve their world knowledge in order to achieve success in their field.
In the first half of the 70s, foreign language preparatory education, which had been given only to the students of the Faculty of Medicine in their first years, was extended to include the students from other fields; namely, from the fields of social sciences and engineering. In those years, "Modern Languages Unit" of the School of Basic Sciences was responsible for foreign language education. Teaching programs were divided into A-B and C groups according to the language proficiency levels of students, from zero beginners to advanced levels. The foundations of the Material Development and Examination Preparation Coordinators, which are now an integral part of the preparatory education, were launched for the first time also in those years.
Starting from the year 1982-1983 academic year, the students who would attend the foreign language related fields of the Faculty of Letters and the Faculty of Education of the University were obliged to take preparatory education officially. Also, starting from the 1984-1985 academic year, departments in the Faculty of Engineering were defined within the scope of compulsory foreign language preparatory education programs. The number of the faculties/schools requiring a compulsory foreign language preparatory education has increased gradually in time, and today, the School of Foreign Languages offers compulsory preparation education in English, French and German to many departments whose medium of instructions are partly or fully a foreign language. Moreover, students studying at the departments whose medium of instruction is Turkish can also benefit from an optional foreign language education in accordance with the relevant Regulations of the Higher Education Board.
The Department of Translation and Interpreting, which is affiliated to the Faculty of Letters of our university now, was founded under the roof of the School of Foreign Languages in 1982-1983 academic year in order to train qualified interpreters and translators in the English language. The department then moved to the Faculty of Letters in 1992.
Foreign language courses in the undergraduate programs conducted by the preparatory units of the School of Foreign Languages were appointed to the responsibility of the "Service Courses Unit" in 1998. Thus, the responsibilities of the administrators and instructors were redefined by a new organization so as to establish " Preparatory Units" and "Service Courses Unit" separately. The name "Service Courses Unit" was changed to "Elective Foreign Language Courses Unit" in 2007. In addition to the elective foreign language courses, this unit also provided compulsory foreign language courses for faculties and applied schools., as contemplated by the Council of Higher Education. The name of the unit was determined as "Modern Languages Unit" by the decision of the University Senate dated 03.05.2010, in order to provide a standard, based on the fact that the units of the foreign language courses given to the undergraduate programs in many universities in Turkey are called "Modern Languages Unit".
As of today, Modern Languages Unit offers compulsory and elective foreign language courses in German, Arabic, Chinese, Persian, French, English, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latin, Russian and Greek at different levels to the students of our university.
The official decision for the establishment of preparatory Turkish language education and for the responsible unit for international students was approved in 1990. The Turkish Language Preparatory Unit, which was in charge of teaching Turkish as a foreign language fulfilled its duty within the organizational structure of School of Foreign Languages. It was then incorporated into Hacettepe University, Language Instruction, Application and Research Center (HÜDİL), established in 2009. Turkish preparatory education of international students who enrolled in our university programs after 2009-2010 academic year was carried out by HÜDİL. The name of the center was changed to Hacettepe University Turkish Language and Foreign Language Teaching Practice and Research Center (HÜ TÖMER) with the regulation published in the Official Gazette dated 06 May 2012 and was directly connected to Hacettepe University Rectorate as an academic unit.
Starting from the 2008-2009 academic year, with the aim of raising the expected exit levels of the preparatory programs, and also in line with the relevant requests from the faculties and and departments, the objectives of the preparatory education levels were raised, considering the academic medium of instruction requirements and academic purposes at the undergraduate level. Courses and exams related to preparatory education curriculum programs were restructured. According to this, advance level programs that can be defined as C2 according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) were configured as ING-FRA-ALM / 160 for students entering the university with a foreign language score and studying languages, literature, linguistics, interpreting, and foreign language teaching for their professions-to-be. On the other hand, in the ING-FRA-ALM / 150 coded programs structured by considering the academic needs of the undergraduate students in the programs where medium of instruction is fully (100%) or partially (at least 30%) in a foreign language, an Upper-Intermediate preparatory exit level was identified as B2 as defined in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) . For the students whose departments use Turkish as the medium of instruction and who are willing to study in “optional’ preparatory programs”, a program with an ING / 140 code was designed. These programs were structured as "Beginner", "Intermediate" and "Advanced" levels according to the results the students took in the "Level Identification Exam" before they started their preparatory education.
During the 2012-2013 academic year, a modular course structure based on the progression of students to a higher level was adopted and put into practice.. The aim of the module was to ensure that the intended learners would progress efficiently in foreign language learning. In this structure, foreign language preparatory education was applied in four quarters of each academic year. Programs for students who chose to study a language as an academic field in their departments were grouped under 160 coded lessons as before. Students who were enrolled in academic programs with full or partial instructions in their BA programs were again grouped under 150-code courses. Students who were enrolled in departments with a Turkish medium of instruction, but were willing to study at a preparatory language program were categorized under 140 coded courses. The students who had the obligation to attend the foreign language preparatory program and did not have enough scores in the exemption exam done at the beginning of the academic year and the students who enrolled in the optional preparatory program were placed in suitable positions at ten different levels depending on the scores in their level identification exam and for all students who attended a foreign language program, the output level was at least B1 +.
In this process, the academic outputs and feedbacks of the modular system have been examined and it is again restructured so as to carry out a modular system with a period of 14 weeks starting from the 2016-2017 academic year. As a result of the instructor feedbacks and student progress evaluations, the programs and output levels have been renewed. The 160, 150, and 140 coded programs serve the exit levels accordingly. Students who have an obligation to attend the foreign language preparatory programs and who have not received sufficient points in the exemption exam at the beginning of the academic year and those who have enrolled in the optional preparatory program are placed at the appropriate level depending on the scores they have taken in the level identification test.
In preparatory programs, the average number of students enrolled each year is around 3000, with the majority being in the Dept. of Basic English. In the Dept. of Modern Languages , the number of students in the undergraduate programs varies by an average of 8000 students.
Starting from its foundation to the present, our directors who have served for the Hacettepe University School of Foreign Languages are presented below:
Our Directors:
1. Prof. Dr. Bozkurt GÜVENÇ (1967-1969)
2. Prof. Dr. Altan GÜNALP (1969-1970)
3. Doç. Dr. Gürol ATAMAN (1970-1972)
4. Doç. Dr. Erfüz ERGÜER (1972-1976)
5. Prof. Dr. Gürol ATAMAN (1976-1977)
6. Prof. Dr. Hüsnü ARICI (1977-1982)
7. Doç. Dr. Bülent BOZKURT (1982-1989)
8. Prof. Dr. Himmet UMUNÇ (1989-1992)
9. Prof. Dr. Özkan IZGI (1992-1994)
10. Prof. Dr. Deniz BOZER (1994-1997)
11. Prof. Dr. Güray KÖNIG (1997-2005)
12. Prof. Dr. Sibel BOZBEYOĞLU (2005-2008)
13. Prof. Dr. S. Nalan BÜYÜKKANTARCIOĞLU (2008-2012)
14. Prof. Dr. Tuncay ERGENE (2012-2016)
15. Prof. Dr. S. Nalan BÜYÜKKANTARCIOĞLU (2016-2019)
16. Asst. Prof. Dr. Recep ÖZBAY (2019 - )
We owe thanks to all the administrators, coordinators, lecturers, administrative and service staff who have served at the School of Foreign Languages since the date it was founded.