The Department of German and French for Special Purposes is a subdivision within the School of Foreign Languages. Its history started in 1962, when the Department of German for Special Purposes (headed by Associate Professor Olexandr Kalynychenko) and the Department of French for Special Purposes (headed by Assistant Professor M.A. Shytova) were established as separate university departments. In 1977 they became part of the School of Foreign Languages, and in 1987, following their merger, there appeared the Department of German and French for Special Purposes headed by Assistant Professor Valentyna Pasynok. Since 2007 the Department has been headed by headed by Associate Professor Polina Husieva.

The teachers’ professional skills have been constantly improved. Valentyna Pasynok got her DLett (Pedagogy) degree in 2002, O.M. Shumska and O.M. Bielozyorova got their PhD (Philology) degrees in 2007 and 2008 correspondingly. Thus, among the department teachers we can find 1 Dlett, Full Professor (Valentyna Pasynok), 4 Associate Professors with PhD degrees (P.T. Gusieva, A.P. Bilohub, L.P. Kurgut, L.D. Mayevska) as well as 2 Assistant Professors with PhD degrees (O.M. Bielozyorova and O.M. Shumska).

The department research is focused on Germanic Studies, Pedagogy, Psychology, including the problems of speech activity, intercultural communication, terminology systems, casuality in linguistics, anthropocentrism, text concepts, discourse and others. The results of the research are set forth in monographs, articles, conference and seminar presentations both in Ukraine and abroad.

The department teachers involve university students into their research as well. In particular, they participate in the annual on-line conferences with presentations covering pressing issues of German and French.

The department develops with students’ command of German and French using both traditional and modern methods of teaching foreign languages. One of the purposes is to teach students how to apply foreign languages in their specialism areas. For this purpose, in 2003 the department initiated the Seminar New Approaches to Teaching Foreign Languages, which has been carried out twice a year since. Among the participants of the Seminar there are representatives of faculty and students from other higher educational institutions of the city. The results of the seminar are published in a separate volume. Modern methods have been introduced into teaching process and new teaching materials have been published. As a result 19 sets of teaching materials, written and compiled by the teachers of the department, have been recommended for the use in the secondary and higher educational establishments of Ukraine by the ministry of Education and Science.

In order to boost the students’ interest in learning foreign languages, the department organizes the University and City German and French Language Competitions.