UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2011‐2012 Teaching Committee Meeting ‐ Minutes Friday 08 June 2012 12:00‐14:00 26 Bedford Way room LG.04 Staff present
Luay Hasan Karine Roumetz Anja Boeing Dr Christine Hoffmann Adam Salisbury Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer Fabrice Lamotte Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Roberto D’Onofrio Pierre Scordia Juan Fernandez Li‐yun Liao James Sinclair‐Knopp Hector Ferreira‐Duran Farida Mounti Genesia Spagnuolo Diego Flores‐Jaime Marc‐Georges Nowicki Cristina Testi Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey Catherine Plant Selina Zheng.
Philippe Galinier Barbara Resta Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez Jenny Rodgers 1.
Welcome and apologies Apologies given: Yoko Aldous, Marie‐Laure Aris, Siqin Brown, Claudia Geithner, Mireille Michel, Anne‐Sophie Vandamme. 2.
UCL and Language Centre developments 2.1 Chair gave summary of notices, including an update on Language Centre summer courses. 2.2 NOTED: Language Centre name change ‐ our new name will be The Centre for Languages & International Education, officially from September 2012. This will be announced in the Provosts first newsletter of 2012‐2013 in September, as if announced sooner, could cause problems for the English for Academic Purposes courses, with regards to visas etc. 2.3 Health and Safety: a complaint was made by a member of Language Centre staff regarding the main staff/teachers room at Bedford Way; we have regular inspections with UCL Health and Safety. However we may arrange for a Staff Committee, so that staff can also take some responsibility for such issues. 2.4 NOTED Raised: could a water machine be installed in the main staff room RESPONSE: this would not be possible as there is already a lack of space in the room, and it would not be permitted for health and safety reasons to have the machine outside in the corridor. There are two other water machines for staff to use: one on the 1st floor, one on the lower ground floor in the staff photocopier room. 3 Course Units 2011‐2012 3.1 Board of Examiners meeting yesterday went well; NOTED AND AGREED: New Visiting Examiners for Arabic, German and Mandarin to be found; Examiners for French and Japanese have agreed to stay on for another year. ACTION: Comments from Visiting Examiners to be reviewed and to action as necessary; teams to review. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐06‐08 ‐ Minutes 4 3.2 Referred Assessments: NOTED: students for the following courses fall into the Referral band and will be offered Referred Assessment: LCAR6001: Arabic Level A, LCAR6002: Arabic Level B, LCGE6005: German for Business and Current Affairs, LCSP6001 Spanish Level A. Students will be asked to confirm if they wish to take assessment by end of July, then if they wish to, we will email the task to them and give them a month to complete it. NOTED: Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez (Spanish tutor) feels the task set for the Referred Assessment (similar to the Project coursework) is not challenging enough and is an easy way to pass the module; RESPONSE: The assessment is capped at 40% (pass) and is intended to show that the student has improved; AGREED: For Levels A to C we will provide students with a title and 3 sources and ask them to write an essay; for level D and above we will provide a piece of text and ask students to discuss and comment on this. ACTION: tutors for these modules to produce a project title and sources, as discussed. 3.3 Deferred Assessments: these must be offered within 6 months of the original assessment date and take the form of the assessment that was originally deferred – usually in the form of the reading and writing exam. 3.4 NOTED: one resit student who did not take the Oral exam (but did take the Reading and Writing exam) was emailed today and offered one last opportunity to take it; to be confirmed. 3.5 Student Evaluation Questionnaires: ACTION: each coordinator to produce a short, bullet point summary of feedback and action points. 3.6 Year 3 SSC Student Report Forms ACTION: tutors to complete and return to office as soon as possible. 3.7 Course Units results NOTED: Provisional results are now displayed on the Course Units noticeboard for students to take, should they wish to. Official results will be available on PORTICO at the end of July. Course Units 2012‐2013 4.1 New Courses NOTED: Chair confirmed new courses that will be offered and new students that will be permitted to take a Course Unit with us from September 2012:  MA European History: students can now take a 1.0 language course unit for credit;  MA Transnational Studies: students on this new MA programme can take a 0.5 unit in any language;  MA Chinese Health and Humanity: specifically aimed at non‐Chinese natives. Potentially required to take a 1.0 unit in Mandarin in term 1 and a 1.0 unit in term 2. There have not been many applications as of yet. Students might need to be assessed separately for each unit. The Project would need to be related to their field of study, the final exam not necessarily so.  Dutch Course Units: in conjunction with the Dutch Department we will now offer Dutch course units at 4 levels; level AB will be taught by the Dutch Department, all other levels/modules by us;  Russian Course Units: in conjunction with SSEES, who do not currently offer language course units; finer details still to be confirmed. Both the Dutch and Russian course units would offer another option for students on the (BASc) BA Arts and Sciences programme, who will be required to take a language course unit for each year of their studies.  New 1.0 Course Units in Translation Skills will now be offered in French and German, equivalent to levels 6 & 7. NOTED AND AGREED: Further information on all of the above will be confirmed in more detail in September 2012, before registration begins. 4.2 Coursework NOTED: it was commented on by a new College Committee on Education that our courses contain a lot of assessment and the same feedback has been received from students on the Staff‐Student Committee Meetings; NOTED: students would often achieve high marks in the Grammar and Vocabulary assessment and use that as a (false) barometer of their ability for the remainder of the year. ACTION: to merge the Grammar and Vocabulary assessment (taken in December) and the Listening Course assessment (taken in February) into one new piece of assessment. The two skills could be merged into one assessment, or split into separate sections. Suggested date for the assessment: term 2, week beginning 28 January 2013; ACTION: teams to review and discuss the format and details over the next few weeks. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐06‐08 ‐ Minutes 5 6 4.3 Teaching dates 2012‐2013 NOTED: Term 1: 08 October to 14 December; Term 2; 07 January to 15 March; Oral examinations: week beginning 18 March 2013. AGREED: all asked to be back at college following the summer break on Monday 10 September 2013. June Review Meetings agenda Agenda for June emailed to all today; ACTION: tutors to let office know if they require a room for their team meetings this week. ACTION: Course Units Teaching Committee on 18 June: one person from each team to summarise what has been discussed and agreed regarding the new piece of coursework. Summer Intensive Modern Foreign Language Courses Noted: The UCL SIMFL courses will run for 2 weeks from 02 July 2012 and are equivalent in teaching hours to a course unit, therefore if an applicant has taken a level A course unit they must not take a beginners level SIMFL course. UCL students will have priority, then University of London students, then the public. The SIMFL website has gone live today. Action: if tutors wish to teach on these courses please let your coordinator know as soon as possible; would be recommended if you have outstanding teaching hours to make up. Noted: UCL Outreach wish to offer similar courses to A level students, so that they do not feel disadvantaged when applying to UCL (they would meet the new requirement for applicants to have a GCSE or equivalent in a foreign language). These courses would start a week later on 09 July 2012, would be offered only at beginners level and we would receive funding for these. NOTED: There will be very specific arrangements for these students: in particular on Wednesday 11 July from 14:00‐15:00 arrangements will be made for them to meet with some undergraduate students to meet and talk about language learning; ACTION: tutors to encourage their undergraduate students, and also tutors on the SIMFL courses to inform their students, to participate in this event on 11 July. 7 Meeting closed at 14:00. Course Units Administrator +44 (0)20 7679 5481 15 June 2012 Any other business 7.1 Internal Quality Review NOTED: there will be an IQR during the 2012‐2013 academic year; date to be confirmed; 7.2 Continuing Professional Development ACTION: tutors to complete and return their CPD form to Liyun Liao as soon as possible. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2012‐06‐08 ‐ Minutes