Centre for Languages and Business Communication
The Language Centre
Welcome to the Language Centre; Hanken's Centre for Languages and Business Communication!
Hanken is known for its high quality and diverse language education with an emphasis on intercultural Business Communication. An Economist from Hanken can communicate professionally both verbally and in writing in demanding national and international business situations, and has a competitive advantage in the labour market through studies in several languages.
An important part of the language education is to prepare students for exchange studies at a foreign university.
Management and governance
The Language Centre is led by a Director and a Board. Sofia Stolt is the Director of the centre. Rector has also appointed a Board for the term 2022–2024, which is led by professor Maria Holmlund-Rytkönen. The other members are represented by the staff of the Language Centre, the administrative staff of the university and the students. The Director of the Language Centre is the administrator of the Board and the Secretary is amanuensis Veronica Hasselström, who also manages the administrative work of the unit.
Language studies
The Language Centre offers education in seven languages:
English, Finnish, French, German, Russian, Spanish and Swedish.
The Bachelor's degree includes compulsory studies in the two national languages Finnish and Swedish (6 + 6 ECTS) and in two foreign languages (6 + 6 ECTS). The Master's degree also requires 5 ECTS in languages.
Language and Communication can also be studied as a minor at both Bachelor's and Master's level, and also as individual courses within the framework of elective studies.
Education and research
The educating staff at the Language Centre has a solid pedagogical background and the courses in languages and Business Communication have received good results in the course evaluations. All language and Business Communication teaching is research-based and there are many exciting research projects on language teaching.
Co-operation in Languages
Many language centres cooperate across university boundaries and some language courses taken at other institutions can be credited here or included in a minor in languages.
You do not need to be a degree student at Hanken to be able to take language courses, most of our courses are open to independent students.
FINELC – A network for language centres at Finnish universities.
Kieliverkosto – A language education political network and an open forum for all those interested in languages and language education. The network promotes discussion on language learning and teaching, the role of language in society, the assessment of language skills and languages in work life.
KiVANET – A national and digital network that offers courses in foreign languages.
Vasa högskolekonsortium – Students from Åbo Akademi University, Hanken School of Economics, VAMK, Novia University of Applied Sciences, the University of Helsinki and the University of Vaasa have the opportunity to participate in joint language courses.
2DIGI2 – A network of language teachers where pedagogy comes before technology.