UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2011‐2012 Teaching Committee Meeting ‐ Minutes Monday 18 June 2012 12:00‐14:00 16 Taviton room 432 Staff present: Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey Catherine Plant David Albery Philippe Galinier Barbara Resta Yoko Aldous Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez Jenny Rodgers Anja Boeing Karine Roumetz Sophie Bourguignon Luay Hasan Adam Salisbury Siqin Brown Dr So Hiranuma Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Roberto D’Onofrio Dr Christine Hoffmann Chizuko Seki‐Zdrzalka Dominik Dengler Fabrice Lamotte James Sinclair‐Knopp Madeleine du Vivier Li‐yun Liao Genesia Spagnuolo Juan Fernandez Mireille Michel Hector Ferreira‐Duran Farida Mounti Anne‐Sophie Vandamme Diego Flores‐Jaime Marc‐Georges Nowicki Selina Zheng.
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Welcome and apologies Apologies given: Marie‐Laure Aris, Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer, Claudia Geithner, Pierre Scordia and Cristina Testi. 2.
Summer Intensive Modern Foreign Language courses 2.1 Chair gave summary of details for the Summer Intensive Modern Foreign Language Courses for schools, arranged by UCL Outreach: NOTED: Confirmation given of 1 beginners class for each language, each with at least 14 students (for French and German x15 students and for Japanese x16 students); Tutors will need to judge the best option for a break within the 4 hours, e.g. one half hour break, or two 15 minute breaks. ACTION: tutors to confirm if existing Course Units syllabi and course book lists would be appropriate / relevant for these courses – to email Sheryl Tait with details; NOTED: Rooms are booked for these classes in the following locations: Torrington Place, Rockefeller building, Charles Bell, Taviton street and Central House: ACTION: tutors to confirm if they have any class room preferences or specific requirements, so rooms can be allocated accordingly. 2.2 UCL Summer Intensive Modern Foreign Language courses NOTED: for the existing UCL SIMFL courses (aimed at UCL students) approximately 30 people have applied so far. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐06‐18 ‐ Minutes 3.
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Course Units: Recap 3.1
Syllabi NOTED: some syllabi for the Arabic and Japanese SSC courses for medical students still need to be updated, to be more medically orientated in a targeted, tailored way, especially for the course content for low levels; ACTION: Course Units office to email relevant Coordinators with good examples of syllabi with medical‐based content. 3.2
Course material ACTION: Tutors to inform the Course Units office if any new material is required for the Language Centre Self‐
Access Centre, especially if a course book list will change for 2012‐2013: we must ensure all relevant material is in stock. Listening and Grammar course assessment Discussion took place regarding new piece of coursework which combines Grammar & Vocabulary and Listening skills, which were previously assessed separately in two 1 hour assessments taken in December and February. All asked for suggestions and ideas. NOTED:  This assessment will count for 15% of overall course result (as previous two assessments would have done);  The weighting between the two skills (Grammar/Vocabulary and Listening) should still remain as 5% and 10%;  The 90 minutes could be divided equally between the two skills, e.g. 45 minutes for each;  The majority feel it best to give the Grammar section before the Listening tasks;  The majority prefer to give a slightly differently structured assessment to low levels (A and B) as would have done previously;  Some languages would previously offer slightly different assessment to 0.5 and 1.0 unit classes (e.g. Level B 0.5 unit and Level AB 1.0 unit);  For the Translation Skills course units the coursework will remain unchanged as these involve slightly different assessments (two Linguistic Course assessments); AGREED:  Length of assessment: 90mins (1 hour is not enough, 2 hours too long, with regards to room bookings at UCL);  The tasks can be level significant (i.e. slightly different for levels A and B), but this must be consistent across all languages; ACTION: teams to discuss further with their Coordinator, based on what has been raised today, and Coordinators to give feedback in bullet points to Chair. The assessment details will then be confirmed together with Chair and Coordinators at a Senior Coordinators Meeting on 21 June 2012, and details of this circulated to all for agreement, before the publication of the 2012‐2013 Student Handbook. 5.
Moodle RECEIVED: all present received a copy of the UCL guidance on what are the minimum requirements for all Moodle courses. NOTED:  All of our courses must now have a Moodle presence; this can be one page for each syllabus, which can be divided by groups if necessary;  Tutors should not put Course Units material onto the Moodle pages, just a link to the Course Units website, as the material will not always be up to date / live;  Moodle for Summer Intensive courses for schools: the students taking these courses would not have automatic access to Moodle as they do not register for these courses on Portico; they would need to log in as a guest with an enrolment key. ACTION: all tutors to attend the ‘Moving to Moodle 2’ course on Wednesday 27 June at 11:45 (listed on the June Staff Development Schedule circulated to all on 08 June); new users to Moodle should also attend the ‘Getting Started with Moodle’ course also on 27 June at 10:00. NOTED: request for Moodle page for the graduate Academic Reading courses; ACTION: Course Units office to create these and inform the 3 relevant tutors. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐06‐18 ‐ Minutes 6.
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Material Development Course material development sessions have been scheduled for tutors this week, from 19‐22 June, mainly for reviewing the resources available in the Language Centre Self‐Access Resource Centre. NOTED: 
Ian Newby and Rob Lawson will be available to introduce ideas to staff for material development; not all members of each language team need to be present; Any other business Staff development NOTED: Madeleine Du Vivier reminded all present about the workshop scheduled for Friday 29 June at 11:30, ‘Ways of handling feedback to classroom activities’, which is specifically aimed at Course Units staff; ACTION: Coordinators asked to attend this workshop so they can feed back to their team members. Referred Assessment NOTED: 
Students eligible for the Referred Assessment will be emailed by the Course Units office with the offer of assessment; if accepted students will be sent the task by email on July 31 and will have from 1‐31 August to complete the work and email back to the office; 
Results would need to be passed onto UCL Registry by 14 September 2012. ACTION: The Course Units office will email Coordinators with details of students eligible to take the Referred Assessment by the end of this week; ACTION: relevant languages teams will need to prepare assessment questions (as discussed in Course Units Teaching Committee on 08 June 2012) an email to the office. Deferred Assessment NOTED: if any students have applied for Deferred Assessment these would be scheduled for mid‐September, before Course Units registration commences; the office have not yet been informed of any applications; Late assessment NOTED: Resit students who had not taken their Oral examinations, but had taken the Reading and Writing exam this year were offered one last opportunity to take the Oral exam, but have not responded to the offer, so no late examinations will be required. CELTA course NOTED: there are 3 places a remaining on the summer Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults course, which runs from 02 July 2012 for four weeks. Meeting closed at 14:00. Course Units Administrator +44 (0)20 7679 5481 25 June 2012 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐06‐18 ‐ Minutes