Against the background of the world’s profound shifts unseen in a century, cultivating national consciousness is of great importance in foreign language education. This paper explores the essence of national consciousness, and discusses the basic principles, targeted objectives and routes of implementation for the cultivation of national consciousness in foreign language education. It points out that China’s stance, global vision, whole-process integration, and all-round growth are the basic principles to follow and that enhanced national backbone and confidence, established image of China, promoted cultural exchanges, and strengthened global governance are the major objectives to achieve. To realize this, it is necessary to upgrade the educational goals, make it part of curriculum objectives, integrate it into teaching practice, and amplify the teaching materials.