UCL CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES
& INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Course Units 2012‐2013 Away Day: Teaching Committee Meeting ‐ Minutes Wednesday 12 September 2012 11:30‐13:00 Chartridge Conference Centre, Chesham Staff present: Marie‐Laure Aris Anja Boeing Siqin Brown Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer Madeleine du Vivier Juan Fernandez Claudia Geithner Diego Flores‐Jaime 1.
2.
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2.2
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2.4
2.5
Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey Dr Christine Hoffmann Li‐yun Liao Mireille Michel Cathy Morand Marc‐Georges Nowicki Catherine Plant Jenny Rodgers Karine Roumetz Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Pierre Scordia Chizuko Seki‐Zdralka James Sinclair‐Knopp Genesia Spagnuolo Cristina Testi Anne‐Sophie Vandamme Selina Zheng.
Welcome and apologies Apologies given from: David Albury, Yoko Aldous, Sophie Bourguignon, Rachel Clarke, Roberto D’Onofrio, Dominik Dengler, Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez, Luay Hasan, Dr So Hiranuma, Fabrice Lamotte, Katrin Lessing, Adam Salisbury and Selina Zheng. UCL and CLIE developments New name: the Language Centre is now officially called The Centre for Languages & International Education, as of 10 September. This will be announced in the first Provost newsletter of 2012‐2013 at the start of term; all webpages and stationary is up to date; all tutors asked to ensure their email signatures are also amended; The Summer CELTA course, coordinated by Madeleine du Vivier had excellent results; The 2012 DELTA course results were very good; Cathy Morand and Jane Skirving are training to be DELTA tutors for the 2013 course; The Summer Intensive Modern Foreign Language courses (SIMFL), which ran for 2 weeks in July had very positive feedback, from both students and tutors; The Outreach SIMFL courses which took place over the Summer, for the first time this year, and were specifically aimed at school pupils, in particular school leavers who did not have a GCSE in a Foreign language, received positive feedback; we plan to run these again in the coming years. Some tutors who were involved in these courses made the following points:  The pupils had a lot of afternoon and evening activities scheduled; it seemed too much for them to fit in;  The pupils who were going to study at UCL afterwards seemed excellent, however all pupils were good, nice and polite;  The 9am class was perhaps too early for the pupils – mainly due to their full schedule of afternoon and evening activities; UCL CLIE Course Units Away Day: Teaching Committee Wednesday 12 September 2012 ‐ Minutes We will pass this feedback onto the organisers; perhaps the schedule was a little too regimented. 2.6 The Pre‐sessional courses this Summer were successful, with 85% of the participants going onto UCL afterwards; 2.7 Kazakhstan update: student numbers are still good; we are currently seeking Science tutors; Lesley Price is now Head of the Centre for Preparatory Studies in Astana; Ariane Smart is now in London working on the UPCH; 2.8 Qatar: The CLIE has been asked to put together a proposal for a Pre‐Masters preparatory course for the new UCL campus in Qatar; there would be 15‐20 places offered and two positions available. 3. Course Units 2011‐2012 3.1 Deferred Assessments and Referred Assessment1. Tutors must submit marks for the Deferred and Referred Assessments to the office by Friday 14 September 2012 at 10:00; 4. Course Units 2012‐2013 4.1 UCL GCSE Language requirement2. We do not know exactly how many students there will be, until they have registered at UCL, but it seems surprising that so many have been admitted to UCL without the GCSE Requirement;  The students will be able to choose from any of the languages that we offer;  Those who do not have credit available to take the language course as part of their degree programme will need to be taught separately (for example in classes from 17:00‐19:00);  For students who don’t have credit to take a language course, the module will appear on their UCL transcript as ‘zero credit’, with a different module code to our normal course units;  The students should be encouraged to continue studying a language after the first year; this would eventually have an impact on our higher level courses;  They should register in the same way as any other Course Unit student. 4.2 Dutch Course Units: as a joint initiative between the CLIE and the UCL Dutch Department, we will now offer Dutch 0.5 and 1.0 Course Units at levels 1‐4. There are not many Dutch Departments elsewhere so we can hopefully demonstrate that there is an interest in Dutch, which the online Dutch course that we offer has done. 4.3 Graduate Course Units: Modern Foreign Language Course Units will now be available to graduate students on taught Masters Programmes. This follows an initial request from the History Department for the following degrees: MA European History: students can take a 30 credit module (1.0 unit) and MA Transnational Studies: students can take a 15 or 30 credit module (0.5 or 1.0 unit). 0.5 units will be available in all the languages that we offer (aside from Dutch) and 1.0 units in French, German, Italian and Spanish only. All graduate course units will have a different module code (similar to the UG codes but the fifth character is a ‘G’) and are available to all taught masters students, not just those on these particular programmes, as long as it is taken for credit – we must check this during registration. In addition, students on the MA China: Health and Humanity will take two Mandarin 1.0 units (Level AB and Level CD) in year 1 (60 credits over the year) and will have the module codes: LCMAG912 and LCMAG934. These two course units are only available to students on this course. 4.4 BASc (Bachelor of Arts and Sciences degree). Students taking this new UG degree are required to take a 0.5 language course unit in each year of their degree. If they start with a language at beginner level in year 1, they must continue with that language each year; if they take a language at a higher level than beginners in year 1, they may choose to study a different language each year. The coursework for students from this degree programme will be discussed in more detail later today. 1
For students on the harmonised scheme and in any year other than the final year who receive a result of F – between 35‐39% there is the opportunity of referred assessment over the summer.
2
UCL Academic Regulations now state that for the admission of UK applicants, all UCL undergraduate degree programmes require a GCSE or equivalent pass in a language in common use. UK students who do not have this upon entry must take a 0.5 course unit at the CLIE; if their degree programme does not allow this they must take a 0 credit language course unit (on top of their 4 units). UCL CLIE Course Units Away Day: Teaching Committee Wednesday 12 September 2012 ‐ Minutes 4.5 In‐class course assessment. This new piece of coursework will integrate and replace the previous Grammar and Vocabulary assessment and the Listening course assessment. The specific details of this assessment were agreed at a Course Units Coordinators meeting (21 June 2012) and were circulated to all on 29 June 2012. The original suggestion to call this a ‘Progress Test’ were dismissed, after having looked at names for similar coursework in other Departments – the word ‘progress’ may not be relevant at that stage, and may even be misleading to students, as this piece of assessment covers only some of the language skills they are learning. 4.6 Reading and Writing examination papers: teams are requested to work on exam papers this week and next: Tutors MUST use the 2012‐2013 examination template (emailed to all on 11 September 2012) to ensure consistency; The deadline for finishing ALL papers (Levels 1‐6) is Monday 24 September; The deadline for finishing papers for Academic Purposes, Professional Purposes and Translation Skills (all Level 7) is Reading week (05 November 2012) – tutors have requested this as it is useful to see first what students interests will be. 4.7 Registration: details of Registration dates for 2012‐2013 were confirmed and list of new module codes and examples of Registration Forms were distributed to all. 4.8 UCL Online Timetable Developments: Chair summarised updates to all – UCL now offers a calendar subscription service for staff and student personal timetables via the Online Timetable. 5. SSCs 2012‐2013 (Student Selective Components for medical students) 5.1 Following discussions with and requests from the Medical School over the summer, the Chair summarised how the SSCs will now be structured: Year 1  Taught in block 1 only, attendance compulsory;  As before classes will take place on Thursday afternoons;  All assessment will take place in block 2: In‐class assessment at the end of January, submit Project at the end of block 2, take Oral exam at the end of block 2.  In term 2 students will regularly see their tutor to discuss project and receive structured guidance. This can take place at the usual time on Thursday afternoons. Exact details of contact time during term 2 are to be discussed amongst teams, and confirmed by the start of term. There must be consistency across all languages. Year 2  Language SSCs take place in block 1 only and are assessed in January 2013 (as in 2011‐2012).  As before classes will take place on Friday afternoons. 6. Language and Culture activities, language exchange There is a section on the Course Units website detailing language and cultural events that have been organised by Tina Dickson – please make your students aware of this. These activities should be seen as a part of their language learning. Tutors are requested to ensure they communicate with Tina Dickson regarding these events. 7. Any other business 7.1 Peer Observation. Observations will take place this term between 12‐23 November. These are for all Course Units and EAP teaching staff. Madeleine du Vivier will leave a copy of the Observation Form in everybody’s pigeonhole which must be completed and returned to her. 7.2 The UCL Language Space has changed location; this has now moved to Foster court room 101. The old Language Space on Malet Place will now be used as a common room for students on the BASc course. 7.3 Results of the UCL Staff Survey showed good feedback. The main criticisms were for the lack of space and resources. UCL CLIE Course Units Away Day: Teaching Committee Wednesday 12 September 2012 ‐ Minutes 7.4 A former colleague, Jean Coles who initiated and set up our TEFL course is currently unwell and in hospital. All tutors (who knew Jean) were asked to sign a card. Meeting closed at 13:00. Course Units Administrator +44 (0)20 7679 5481 17 September 2012 15:00‐16:30 Projects for BA Arts and Sciences students Group discussions took place to brainstorm ideas on how to approach the project coursework, specifically for students from the BASc course, as their degree pathway is so interdisciplinary. Some suggestions were made (below) but this is to be confirmed:  The BASc students could be asked to write a short explanatory piece outlining their motivation for choosing the specific aspects of their pathway modules, in order to ensure that they understand the multidisciplinary approach;  The requirement for BASc students to submit a draft of their work must be stronger and reinforced, in order to contextualise and legitimize their choice;  They could be asked to write a glossary related to their topic as part of the draft, to ensure they work with the sources at a linguistic level as well as in terms of extracting ideas and information;  They should not be limited to selecting reference material specific only to the language they are studying, but have a broader, global source range with ideas and developments written ABOUT the chosen language;  We could permit different source mediums (e.g. videos, surveys, statistics) to allow flexibility in finding sources relevant to their specific combination of themes. UCL CLIE Course Units Away Day: Teaching Committee Wednesday 12 September 2012 ‐ Minutes