UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2010‐2011 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting: Agenda Wednesday 22 June 2011 11:00‐13:00 Bedford Way room LG.04 Staff present: Claudia Geithner Carmen Requena Yoko Aldous Luay Hasan Jenny Rodgers Marie‐Laure Aris Dr So Hiranuma Karine Roumetz Anja Boeing Dr Christine Hoffmann Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Sara Bragadina Fabrice Lamotte Pierre Scordia Siqin Brown Katrin Lessing Chizuko Seki‐Zdralka Roberto D’Onofrio Li‐yun Liao James Sinclair‐Knopp Juan Fernandez Cristina Testi Diego Flores‐Jaime Mireille Michel Selina Zheng.
Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey Marc‐Georges Nowicki Philippe Galiner Catherine Plant 1.
WELCOME AND APOLOGIES 1.1 Apologies: Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer, Madeleine Du Vivier, Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez, Adam Salisbury and Anne‐Sophie Vandamme. Key to abbreviations used in these Minutes SAC Language Centre Self‐Access Resource Centre 2.
COLLEGE DEVELOPMENTS Chair gave short summary; no action points. 3.
COURSE UNITS 2010‐2011 3.1 Language Coordinator summary of feedback from the Student Evaluation Questionnaires: 3.1.a GERMAN: Generally very postive feedback given; it is not clear how many students use the Self‐
Access Resource Centre and perhaps those who have their lessons in the building use it more. ACTION: suggestion made to rephrase the questions regarding Teaching Support Facilities , e.g. ‘Have you ̏accessed ̋ SAC material, e.g. from elsewhere’. Some tutors of higher levels have noted that their students prefer to study at home, or find it difficult to sit in the SAC for long periods. 3.1.b SPANISH: Postive comments given on all aspects of the course; some also praised the SAC. 3.1.c ENGLISH: Postive feedback received for both the English Language Skills and the Academic Writing courses, and good to know that a lot of the students do use Moodle. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐06‐22 ‐ Minutes NOTED: would be preferable to introduce the essay writing skills earlier in the year. 3.1.d FRENCH: Good feedback and appreciation shown for the cultural events that we now organise. NOTED: Request for Listening assesment and Project deadlines (currently two weeks apart) to be in the same week, so as not to confuse deadlines: AGREED that this is not a good idea as two identical deadlines would cause more stress, and students would loose time given for Project feedback (normally once Listening assessment has taken place). NOTED: Request for a photocopier to be made available in the SAC: AGREED: whilst we understand how useful this would be, it would not be feasible, with regular maintenance issues and costs. 3.1.e JAPANESE: In general, the students gave positive feedback. Some students enquired about the use of Moodle; other low level students have expressed an interest in language exchanges: NOTED: All courses will be required to have a Moodle presence from 2012; requests for language exchanges to be passed onto our Events Officer, Tina Dickson. 3.1.f ITALIAN: Overall positive feedback, and students seem satisfied with the SAC facilities and also with the use of Moodle; NOTED: low level students commented on differing abilities in class, and in particular how some come to the course with knowledge of similar languages. Coordinator queried if, when timetabling it would be possible to group together students from certain backgrounds or disciplines; RESPONSE: this could be a disadvantage and if the class level were raised, we could not give the same assessment to all classes of the same level. This would also be logistically difficult when timetabling and could result in more the need for more resources. No action to be taken. Feedback from Student Evaluation Questionniares for Arabic and Mandarin given by Chair the following day, before Course Units General Meeting Swap Shop, on 23 June 2011, but noted here: 3.1.g MANDARIN: Positve feedback including praise for high level of teaching and appreciation shown for the workshops that are offered on top of classes; (NOTED: all students should be encouraged to attend workshops); NOTED: comments given that not enough audio material is available in the SAC; ACTION: This will be reviewed by teams tomorrow. 3.1.h ARABIC: All positve feedback; only 50% seem to have used the SAC. NOTED: Arabic Coordinator pointed out that for the Level B Reading and Writing examination, some students did not appear to understand the questions/instructions and so left some blank, although these type of questins were taught in class/at revision workshops; SUGGESTION from Coordinator: could the questions be given in English? RESPONSE: Level B is in target language. The type of questions given on exam papers should be given and practised in advance, so students should be used to the particular phrases. A list of example questions and types of instructions could be provided on course Moodle pages. 3.1.i Student Evaluation Questionnaires for Academic Reading courses: Chair raised the point of distributing questionnaires also to the graduate students taking the (non‐credit bearing) Academic Reading courses; ACTION: the three tutors who teach these courses to meet and agree this. 3.2 Issues to note NOTED: One student cheated on the Reading and Writing exam and admitted to this; it will be interesting to see what decison is made by panel assesing the case; NOTED: Plagiarism: there was one suspected case of plagiarism with the Project coursework this year. Tutors must always be careful how they approach this issue and must always consult with their Coordinator in the first instance. Some Visiting Examiners commented on some very high marks, especially for the Project and in particular for low levels; Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐06‐22 ‐ Minutes NOTED: it is not possible to give 90% or above, especially for Level A. 3.3 Feedback from Visiting Examiners: 3.3.a JAPANESE: NOTED: Suggestion made for the sources required for the Project reference material to be different for lower levels, as could struggle with authentic material; ACTION: Japanese team to review this and to meet and discuss also with Arabic and Mandarin teams, as this applies to all three languages. 3.4 Results NOTED: Provisonal results are now avaialble on the Course Units noticeboard; Confirmed results will be released by college at the end of July. 3.5 Referred Assessment NOTED: students who fall into the UCL Referral band will be emailed by the office soon with offer of Referred Assessment and asked to confirm by end of July if they wish to take it. If they do, a task will be emailed to them at the start of August, with a deadline for completion by end of August. Discussion on format fo assessment and it is suggested that this assessment should take the form of a Project, as last year; AGREED: The essay/project title will be set by tutors; the essays should be the same word length as the Project coursework submitted in March; to avoid potential plagiarism sources will also be provided for low levels (A and B); levels C and upwards will source their own reference material. ACTION: Tutors for relevant levels to provide office with essay questions by 08 July. 4 COURSE UNITS 2011‐2012 4.1 Dates: NOTED: Chair confirmed term dates, as well as dates for term two Oral examinations; all tutors to be back at college after the summer break, on 12 September 2011. 4.2 Course Material (syllabi, course books): NOTED: deadline for language teams to give changes to syllabi and course books, as well as requests for amendments to the Student Handbook to the office by 30 June 2012 – please inform if there are or are not changes. 5 SUMMER INTENSIVE MODERN FOREIGN LANGUAGE COURSES NOTED: Chair confirmed dates for the SIMFL courses as 11‐22 July 2011. Details to be made available on the Language Centre website and to be made more visible, e.g. in the News and Events area and also on the UCL website. Request made for tutors to inform any students they believe may be interested in taking a course. 6 ANY OTHER BUSINESS NOTED: Agenda for the June/July meeting schedule was distributed to all present and all asked to inform Chair or the Course Units office if wish to add or amend anything. 6.1 NOTED: tomorrow morning there will be a Course Units General Meeting ‐ ‘Swap Shop’: Each team asked to come to the meeting with a couple of ideas and examples of teaching and learning methods that have been successful for them, to share with colleagues; In the afternoon teams asked to review the material available in the SAC and to collate and provide the office with a list of what is needed (including ISBNs and RRP’s); we can then establish a budget per language. 6.2 NOTED: SSC Report Forms for year 3 medic students: end of year report forms will be distributed in tomorrow’s meeting for tutors to complete and return to the office by the end of tomorrow. The office have been waiting for confirmation of attendance records for those students who attended Evening Courses, which has delayed the distribution of the forms. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐06‐22 ‐ Minutes 6.3 NOTED: UCL Open Day: Thursday 30 June 2011. It will not be necessary for CU tutors to be available on the Language Centre stand; representatives from Language Centre Marketing will be at the stands and admin staff available in the Course Units office. 6.4 NOTED: Adam Salisbury will be giving a session about Moodle next week; all asked to attend; 6.5 NOTED: Chair announced the possibiltity to apply for a new Translation Skills 1.0 Course Unit; the existing 0.5 unit courses would be, for example an introduction/overview, while the 1.0 unit would be more in‐depth, and translation both ways, e.g. one term French to English, one term English to French. We would need to submit our application by the end of next week, in order for the courses to be approved in time for 2011‐2012. 6.6 NOTED: EAP Coordinator raised the possibilty of running a 1 term Course Unit for EAP which would begin in term 2, aimed at the Erasmus/affiliate students who join UCL in January. RESPONSE: it may be possible for us to run somehting; to be discussed. 6.7 ACTIONED: Contact details: all tutors asked to complete, at the meeting a form with their up to date contact details and passed onto the Language Centre Finance office. Meeting closed at 13:00. Course Units Administrator +44 (0)20 7679 5481 28 June 2011 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐06‐22 ‐ Minutes