 beijing language and culture university (blcu; ), colloquially known in chinese as yuyan xueyuan (), has the main aim of teaching the chinese language and culture to foreign students. however, it also takes chinese students specializing in foreign languages and other relevant subjects of humanities and social sciences, and trains teachers of chinese as a foreign language. it used to be the only institute of this kind in china. after the push for massification of higher education starting in the 90's, nowadays many other universities in almost every major city in china have a similar offer. thus bachelor, master or post-doc degrees in, "teaching chinese to foreigners", as well as bachelor and master degrees in several foreign languages are no longer only to be found at blcu.http://www.blcu.edu.cn/blcuweb/english/profile.asp beijing language and culture university is often called "little united nations" in china because of its very large amount of international students from various countries. ==history== thumb|left|150px|south gate| early in the 1950s when the teaching of chinese as a foreign language (tcfl) was still at the initial stage, the first generation of blcu teachers took an active part in the pioneering work. as a result, the first school of higher education specially oriented to foreign students, "higher preparatory school for foreign students", was established in june 1962. in 1964, the school was officially named "beijing language institute". in june 1996 it was renamed "beijing lan
1962_establishments_in_China Academic_language_institutions Educational_institutions_established_in_1962 Haidian_District Language_education_in_China Language_schools Universities_and_colleges_in_Beijing