UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2011‐2012 Teaching Committee Meeting ‐ Minutes Tuesday 08 November 2011 14:00‐16:00 26 Bedford Way room G03 Staff present:
Dr So Hiranuma Karine Roumetz David Albury Dr Christine Hoffmann Adam Salisbury Yoko Aldous Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Anja Boeing (Chair) Pierre Scordia Siqin Brown Fabrice Lamotte Chizuko Seki‐Zdrzalka Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer Li‐yun Liao James Sinclair‐Knopp Rachel Clark Mireille Michel Genesia Spagnuolo Roberto D’Onofrio Farida Mounti Cristina Testi Madeleine Duvivier Marc‐Georges Nowicki Anne‐Sophie Vandamme Juan Fernandez Catherine Plant Selina Zheng.
Diego Flores‐Jaime Barbara Resta Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez Jenny Rodgers 1.
Welcome and apologies Apologies given: Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey, Petra Galinier, Claudia Geithner, Luay Hasan, Cathy Morand and Carmen Requena. 2.
UCL and Language Centre developments 2.1 UCL 2.1.a Chair gave brief summary of notices, including news that numbers for UCL applications for 2012 entry seem to be up, despite increase in fees, however it is too early to know for sure; 2.1.b Qatar NOTED: Chair has been asked by UCL to make a summary/proposal for a pre‐master programme to be taught at the new UCL campus in Qatar, to start in 2012; it would be for a Museum Studies/Archaeology programme and would cover English for Academic Purposes within these areas. 2.2 Language Centre 2.2.a I.Q.R NOTED: There will be an Internal Quality Review of the Language Centre during the 2012‐2013 academic year. 2.2.b Name change NOTED: The Language Centre name will change next year; a possible suggestion is Centre for International Education, however it should include the word, ‘language’ as this is obviously the major part of what we do; staff are welcome to offer suggestions. 3.
Course Units 2011‐2012 3.1 Registration 3.1.a Course Units: student numbers for this year are good, with approximately 1290, although there are fewer Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐11‐08 ‐ Minutes 4 classes; 3.1.b TEFL Course Unit: there are fewer TEFL students, as with last year, even though there is a new CELTA option for students taking the TEFL unit, and despite promotional material being distributed earlier. This could be because SOAS do not seem to permit their students to take a UCL course unit as they used to (approximately 70 SOAS students each year would take Language Centre course units, this year only a handful); 3.1.c. SSCs (for medical students): there are fewer year 1 and 2 medical students, however arrangements for year 2 students has changed, so could be a result of this. 3.2 Reading and Writing examinations NOTED: the Course Units Coordinators will meet for the first time to review exam papers on 23 November, starting with Levels A and B; ACTION: all examination papers must be emailed to Coordinators by Wednesday 16 November at the latest. 3.3 Oral examinations 3.3.a NOTED: Oral exams are scheduled to take place in the last week of term 2 (March) and the first week of term 3 (April); ACTION: Adam Salisbury will distribute by email the confirmed numbers of students per course to Coordinators; Oral exam schedules must then be emailed to the office by the end of this week. 3.3.b NOTED: Revision workshops must be offered for each language and level, as advertised, and there should be a separate Oral exam revision workshop and a Reading and Writing exam workshop; these can be offered separately by class, or one per level. 3.4 Staff‐Student Consultative Meeting NOTED: the first Staff‐Student Consultative Meeting for this year will take place on Wednesday 07 December at 17.15. ACTION: Student Representative Nomination Forms will be produced by the Course Units office and given to all tutors next week to distribute in classes. 3.5 Term 2 rooms NOTED: it is possible that some students will have timetable clashes in term 2; ACTION: in anticipation of this, Adam Salisbury will check the online timetables for students on each course that we offer and email, by the end of November to inform each language team of these potential clashes. The teams / each tutor will need to address any clashes with students, and if necessary the class will have to be rescheduled for term 2. 3.6 Attendance email NOTED: An email was sent from the Course Units office this week to all students with low attendance, warning them of the Faculty of Humanities and Arts attendance requirement. 3.7 Language Culture Activities NOTED: a number of successful extra‐curricular events have been arranged by our Events Officer, Tina Dickson so far this term; ACTION: tutors to inform their students of up‐coming events and to encourage them to look at the Events listings on the Course Units website. 3.8 British Council Inspection NOTED: A British Council Inspection of the Language Centre will be taking place next week, this will involve the English for Academic Purposes course units; the Language Laboratory will be out of use, as this is where the inspectors will be based. SSCs 2011‐2012 4.1 There are still some SSC courses for which we do yet have an updated, medically orientated syllabus. ACTION: Tutors to update and email these to the office as soon as possible – we must produce a syllabus, even for courses that are not running this year. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐11‐08 ‐ Minutes 5. ANY OTHER BUSINESS 5.1 Live @UCL NOTED: all UCL staff and students will change to a new email system and for the Language Centre the transition will take place over this year and next. This will start with administration staff at the start of December, when staff from UCL Live will be in hand to help staff with the changeover. 5.2 Summer Intensive Modern Foreign Language Courses NOTED: The UCL SIMFL courses will take place again over the first two weeks of July 2012; if there are tutors whose contractual hours have not been fulfilled through Course Units teaching this year, they can teach on the SIMFL courses as part of their contract. 5.3 Moodle NOTED: a new version of Moodle (Moodle 2) will be in use from June 2012. Staff Development sessions will be taking place this week; a reminder that all of our courses will be require, by UCL to have a Moodle presence from September 2012. Meeting closed at 16:00. Course Units Administrator +44 (0)20 7679 5481 14 November 2011 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐11‐08 ‐ Minutes