UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2010‐2011 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting Tuesday 15 February 2011 10:00‐12:00 26 Bedford Way room LG04 Staff present: Yoko Aldous (10.45) Sara Bragadina Siqin Brown Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer Roberto D’Onofrio Madeleine du Vivier (10.45) Juan Fernandez Diego Flores‐Jaime Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez Luay Hasan 1.
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Dr Lamia Jamal‐Aldin Dr Christine Hoffmann Fabrice Lamotte Katrin Lessing Li‐yun Liao Mireille Michel Marc‐Georges Nowicki Catherine Plant (10.45) Carmen Requena Jenny Rodgers Karine Roumetz Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Pierre Scordia Chizuko Seki‐Zdralka James Sinclair‐Knopp Cristina Testi Anne‐Sophie Vandamme Selina Zheng.
WELCOME AND APOLOGIES 1.1 Apologies: Anja Boeing, Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey, Claudia Geithner, Dr So Hiranuma, and Adam Salisbury. LANGUAGE CENTRE AND COLLEGE DEVELOPMENTS 2.2 GCSE language requirement 2012 (UCL proposal that all undergraduates joining UCL from 2012 must have a GCSE in a foreign language, if not they will need to take a course unit at the Language Centre): Chair explained that the two main challenges for us will be the extra classes that we may need to run and the potential for new languages – there might be students who need to study a language that we do not offer. We might also have to offer classes at 17:00 in order to avoid timetable clashes. Students will be applying to UCL throughout next year and this only applies to UK students; international students must already have an IELTS score of 6.5‐7 so are already eligible. 2.3 UCL space audit: there has been an on‐going review of space available at UCL of which there is a shortage of; suggestions have been made at college meetings for the cloister area to be made more available to students, for a new student refectory in Foster Court and for the space immediately next to the Bloomsbury Theatre to be used. The Language Centre of course still has its own problems with lack of space (for teaching and for staff). 2.4 BA Arts and Sciences ‐ a new BA programme to be introduced at UCL from 2012, with which the Language Centre will be very integrated: students will be required to take a Language Centre course unit for each year of their studies. If they are of a beginner level they will continue with that language for the Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐02‐15 ‐ Minutes 3.
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whole 3 years; if they already know a language that we offer they can choose that in year 1 and choose different languages each year. It will be a good opportunity for us to recruit more students, however we may need to review staffing and space – we really do need more space. However we may now be considered a priority because of this (as well as the GCSE language requirement). Students from our English UPSCE and UPCH foundation courses may be interested in applying for this degree. 2.5 Language Review: Chair gave a summary of the recent and on‐going college review of language provision at UCL – copy also given to all Coordinators for discussion within teams. 2.6 Kazakhstan: Chair gave a summary of developments at the Centre of Preparatory Studies in the Nazarbayev University in Astana, where many of our staff currently teach; it is generally very positive, with only a relatively low number of students achieving very low results, however more resources and facilities are needed. EXAMINATIONS 3.1 Reading and Writing exams: 3.1.a Chair confirmed that reading & writing exams are timetabled, along with all other Departmental exams, by UCL Registry; a draft timetable will be released in March; 3.1.b The college deadline for us to submit all exam scripts to the UCL Exams section is the first week of March; 3.1 Oral examinations: All Course Units Oral exam times have already been scheduled and rooms booked; students MUST book a slot for their online (available from the start of March) and all exams will be digitally recorded. COURSEWORK 4.1 Projects: Chair confirmed the dates for Project coursework submission, for Course Units and also for medical students and reminded all that detailed Project Guidelines are available online which clearly explain full details of the UCL plagiarism and late‐submission penalties. WORKSHOPS 5.1 All Coordinators asked to confirm to the Course Units office by Monday 21 February the dates for revision workshops in March and April and also details of any extra/rescheduled classes that will need to take place during Oral exam week – no rooms are currently booked for classes in this week. STUDENT FEEDBACK 6.1 Staff‐Student Consultative Meeting: Chair confirmed that the last Staff‐Student meeting in November was very positive (feedback was given to Coordinators at the time); minutes are available online; the next Staff‐Student meeting to take place on Wednesday 02 March. 6.2 Student Evaluation Questionnaires: Questionnaires will be given to all tutors to distribute to their students to complete at the start of March. ANY OTHER BUSINESS 7.1 SSC website (SSC’s for medical students): all reminded to look at the SSC website, to which there is a link on the Language Centre homepage and also to encourage the medical students to look at this, as all course information is available on there. 7.2 Medical related SSCs: the Medical school requested from a lot more medically related content in our language SSCs ‐ chair confirmed that we will review how this has gone at the end of the academic year. Meeting closed at 12:00. Course Unit Administrator +44 (0)20 7679 5481 15 March 2011 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2011‐02‐15 ‐ Minutes