The School of Foreign Languages was founded in July 2000 as the Department of Foreign Languages and in 2003 as the School of Foreign Languages, which was formerly known as the Foreign Language Teaching and Research Office of the Department of Basic Courses of the University. It consists of 4 departments (English, French, Arabic, Spanish and Portuguese) and 2 College English teaching and research sections, with 2 teaching and auxiliary institutions, including the digital provincial language experimental teaching demonstration center and the library, and 4 research institutions, including the "Language Cognition Research Institute", "Asian English Education Policy Research Institute", "Silk Road Countries Information Culture Research Center", and "Country and Regional Research Institute".

Undergraduate programme: There are five undergraduate programmes in the school, namely English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Arabic. The English programme was approved as a national first-class undergraduate major construction site in 2021 and was recognized as a high-level "new liberal arts" construction major in Gansu Province in 2024. The Arabic programme was approved as a provincial first-class undergraduate major construction site in 2021.

Faculties: There are a total of 112 full-time teachers (including 7 professors and 29 associate professors), among them 72 teachers studied or worked abroad. The school employs senior foreign teachers all year round, and sends teachers abroad to be visiting scholars or for exchange every year. It has formed a comprehensive foreign language teaching and research team in the new era with a complete organizational structure, distinctive professional characteristics, and complete hardware and software facilities. Many teachers have won national and provincial teaching competition awards, provincial and university-level "Outstanding Teacher Award", "Excellence Teaching Award" and "Young Teacher Teaching Award".

Graduate programme: The school currently offers a first-level graduate program in foreign languages and literature as well as an MTI (Master of Translation and Interpreting) graduate programme.

Teaching achievements: Based on the teaching-centered approach and focusing on improving the quality of education and teaching, in the past five years, the school has won the awards of 3 provincial first-class courses, 1 provincial teaching team, 13 provincial-level teaching reform projects, and 12 quality construction projects, with more than 400 awards at provincial or national level in student professional competitions such as the "FLTRP · National Talent Cup" National Foreign Language Competition.

Talent cultivation: The school has always adhered to the educational philosophy of "Learning foreign languages well and being a good Chinese", taking root in Gansu and the western region of China, serving transportation, relying on the university's engineering advantages, persisting in the characteristics of application-oriented talent cultivation, and exploring the moderate integration of foreign language skills and engineering knowledge. Since its establishment, the school has trained more than 3,200 outstanding students for the country and society. More than 35% of graduates worked with large state-owned enterprises, with an average annual signing rate of more than 80%. A large number of outstanding students work in national ministries and overseas units. The graduates have received unanimous praise from employers due to their professional, responsible and hardworking performance.

Research achievements: In recent years, the school has made remarkable achievements in research, publishing highly-recognized academic journal papers and books, undertaking a number of national and provincial research projects. In 2023, two teachers were funded by the National Social Science Fund Project. All these achievements have made positive contributions to local economic and social development.

International cooperation: The school has established cooperative relationships with many foreign universities such as Complutense University of Madrid, Campinas State University in Brazil, and University of Besancon in France to strengthen exchanges and cooperation with the international academic community and broaden students international horizons through teacher and student exchange programmes.

Against the background of education globalization, the School of Foreign Languages continues to strengthen the construction of its faculty team under the university's 1152 development goal, to improve the level of teaching and research, build an overall pattern with obvious advantages, outstanding characteristics, coordinated development of various languages in Gansu Province, and strives to build the school into a training base for applied foreign language talents with distinctive professional characteristics in the northwest part of China.