Introduction

The Foreign Language Centre, founded in 1989, is an independent unit providing all the faculties and institutes of the university with language services. The Centre, employing about 200 full- and part-time staff (programme co-ordinators, language teachers and examiners, translators and interpreters, IT specialists, editors) offers a wide range of services to those interested in language learning, language exams and language mediation. In addition to the traditional language courses beginning in September and February, it organises special courses for those who would like to prepare themselves efficiently for the different levels of any of the other language exams administered at the Centre (ECL, Goethe, ITK ORIGO). Foreigners are welcome to enrol on the Hungarian language courses. The Foreign Language Centre offers customised language courses to those who wish to take an entrance examination in a foreign language, and to the employees of business firms and other institutions. Reintegration of the unemployed into the labour market is enhanced by highly intensive language courses not only in Pécs and Baranya, but in the whole Southern Transdanubian Region.
International language exams are also administered at the Foreign Language Centre. The standardised ECL Exam developed for the languages of the member states of the European Union based on a set of uniform principles, comprising 4 levels (www.ecl.hu) can be taken several times a year in the official languages of the EU (English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Slovak, Spanish, Serbian, Rumanian, Bulgarian, Russian, Czech, Croatian, Hebrew at the Foreign Language Centre. The FLC is the centre (Secretariat) of the international ECL Consortium, which has developed and now operates the ECL system, and is at the same time the official Hungarian representative of the Consortium. Since its establishment the Foreign Language Centre has been producing high-quality specialised translations and offering interpretation services to companies, institutions and private individuals. The university has a well-equipped, air-conditioned conference room (240 seats) with simultaneous interpretation equipment, where international conferences can be held. A bar and other facilities are also available. Translations are produced with the help of a word processor, tailored to the original format and proofread by native speakers of the target language thus ensuring high quality. Qualified interpreters are provided by the Foreign Language Centre to assist at international conferences, business negotiations and business and study trips abroad. The extended national and international network set up by the Foreign Language Centre supports a wide range of activities. In the field of language teaching and language testing we have worked together for several years with several universities of international reputation. The co-operation with language institutes and the experts of our partner universities involved in the development and operation of the ECL Exam has been especially significant. The staff of the Foreign Language Centre regularly take part in international events and are members of several national and international professional organisations.