UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2010‐2011 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting Thursday 11 November 2010 09:00‐11:00 26 Bedford Way room LG04 Staff present: Yoko Aldous Anja Boeing Siqin Brown Carmen Cabrera Balaguer Rachel Clark Roberto D’Onofrio Madeleine du Vivier Juan Fernandez Diego Flores‐Jaime Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey 1.
2. Philippe Galinier Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez Fernando Gracia‐Garcia Claudia Geithner Luay Hasan Dr So Hiranuma Dr Christine Hoffmann Fabrice Lamotte Li‐yun Liao Mireille Michel Marc‐Georges Nowicki Carmen Requena Jenny Rodgers Karine Roumetz Adam Salisbury Fabio Sastre‐Alonso Pierre Scordia Chizuko Seki‐Zdralka Anne‐Sophie Vandamme Selina Zheng.
WELCOME AND APOLOGIES 1.1 Apologies: Marie‐Laure Aris, Sara Bragadina, Catherine Plant, James Sinclair‐Knopp and Cristina Testi 1.2 Welcome to Carmen Cabrera‐Balaguer who will take on the role of Coordinator for Spanish Course Units. LANGUAGE CENTRE AND COLLEGE DEVELOPMENTS 2.1 Committees: UCL has reduced the number of committees that take place to avoid unnecessary repetition. There will be no more Language Centre Board of Management, however the LC Executive meeting will continue; Dr Hoffmann reported the following to them, regarding enrolment: 
UPCH applications were closed early as the course filled up; 
The Diploma course has fewer students in term one, as there were some visa related issues; 
Part‐time courses have well over 300 students enrolled; 
Evening Course numbers are slightly down, however all languages are running; 
Course Unit numbers are slightly down, with almost 1,300 students this year; 
SOAS have been stricter about allowing their students to take intercollegiate courses (we presume this is for financial reasons), which has had some effect on numbers, especially on the TEFL course unit; last year there were approximately 70 SOAS students taking a Course Unit at the Language Centre, this year only 10; Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2010‐11‐11 ‐ Minutes 
3. The majority of our students usually come from Economics (last year more than ever), whereas this year there are fewer. The majority this year are from the medical school; It is interesting to see a shift in numbers amongst the different languages: 
This year French has the highest number of students with 316, compared to Spanish which has 261 this year (and usually has the highest number). 2.2 As a result of lower student numbers some tutors have not been able to fulfil their contractual hours. When this happens with EAP courses, tutors make up these hours teaching, for example part‐time summer courses. If CU tutors prefer, we can reduce their fractionality (and increase it again next year), however we do not recommend this. We suggest the hours are made up in other ways, for example: Task chains; Teaching (unpaid) on the Summer Intensive Foreign Language Courses in July; Offer workshops for the second script languages. 2.3 2012 GCSE Requirement: from 2012 all incoming UCL students must have a language GCSE and it will be compulsory for them to continue with some language training; we will hopefully have more, and larger higher level courses running as a result of this; 2.4 Language Review: The college language review is still under discussion. There has been some restructuring with administration; the focus is now on the language side of things. 2.5 BA Liberal Arts: From 2012 a new BA in Liberal Arts will be offered at UCL (there will be no pilot for this). Carl Gombrich (previously UPSCE Course Coordinator) has been appointed as Programme Director. There is also a steering committee for this new programme. All students who take this (American style) degree must take a language 0.5 unit for the full 3 years that they are at UCL (if they start at a low level – or if already a high level can change language). They can also choose to take modules from UCL language departments alongside the LC course units. Students also complete a voluntary year abroad. Students from our foundation courses (UPCH) could also feed into this. 2.6 Finance: As you will have seen from the Provost’s newsletter (25 October 2010), there are more difficult times for Higher Education with decreases in government funding. We cannot download all costs to the students. All courses will be looked at to see how necessary they are and all faculties will need to look at their programmes to see how necessary and financially viable they are. The LC is not exempt from this and we must also be careful with our resources, most immediately attention could be paid to reducing photocopying, stationary and catering requirements. COURSE UNITS 2010‐2011 3.1 Registration 2010‐2011: Registration has now closed for this year, there should be no new students joining unless their circumstance is exceptional and they need a language course for a specific reason. After 4 weeks of teaching all students should now be in the correct classes and levels, so changes of levels should no longer be necessary, or permitted. 3.2 Reading and Writing examinations: we expect to have drafts for Levels A to D completed by Christmas; coordinators are scheduled to meet next week to look at papers for level A and B. 3.3 Oral Examinations: As Ayanna Prevatt‐Goldstein is due to go on maternity leave this week, rooms have already been booked and allocated for Oral exams taking place in March and May. Students will be able to book their oral slots online, via the Course Units website from March 2011. 3.3.1 The possibility of scheduling Oral exams for medics students in term 2 was discussed (these usually take place in term 3 during the final exam period), but it would be difficult to ask the medical school to adapt their timetable/availability to fit in with the college timetable. Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2010‐11‐11 ‐ Minutes 3.4 External Examiners: All of external examiners will remain the same for this year, with the exception of Italian and for the EAP course units, which are to be confirmed. 3.5 Staff‐Student Consultative Meeting: this has been scheduled to take place on Thursday 25 November at 17:15 (in the Course Units Handbook the meeting has been advertised to take place a week later). Class student representative forms have been left in pigeonholes for tutors to distribute; there is one form per class. Please note that it is not compulsory for classes to choose a representative or attend the meeting. 3.6 Rooms for Term 2: All class for Course Units have now been roomed – these will appear on registers from next week. There should be no changes in student availability for term two – AS has checked online for potential clashes in term 2 and we have asked tutors to confirm term 2 availability with their classes last month. Some Departments do offer 0.5 units in term 2 only, but these should have already been scheduled and students already chosen them. 4. 3.7 Events organised by Tina Dickson: Tina now has the role of Events office for the Language Centre. There will be a section on the Course Units website to promote these events. Events could take place at short notice, so please remind students and ask them to check the events page regularly. Please also cooperate with Tina if she requests your advice on suitable events, or your assistance with alerting your students to something; however she will always email or call students to inform them. Please feel free to suggest ideas or make recommendations to Tina. These are not compulsory events but they do add an interesting element to the courses. SSCs 2010‐2011 4.1 From this year all SSCs must be processed on PORTICO, so these language courses will appear on students’ final transcripts; 4.2 The Medical Faculty have requested that we teach more medical related topics therefore we also need to update the SSC syllabi. Please can teams provide the office with revised versions ready to update. 4.3 This year almost 160 medics have registered, which is an increase on last year. 4.4 As the year 3 medic students have very limited availability, many of these classes have had to be scheduled to take place in the evening – this is not our choice and to those tutors who are teaching these (especially those tutors who do not normally teach in the evenings) it is much appreciated. 5. ANY OTHER BUSINESS 5.1 Peer Observations: six English tutors have stated they would like to observe foreign language classes – if you have not already stated a preference we will pair you with an EAP tutor; 5.2 Mini observations will take place in term two. 5.3 Progression: PGR raised the issue that if a student achieves only 40% in the previous year can we disallow them to continue with a 1.0 unit in the same language the following year, as they could struggle? Response: we cannot actually forbid them as this is against the progression rule. If we know they intend to continue with the language the following year we could encourage them to take a Summer Intensive course. If students are struggling with a course they can always attend additional classes for practise. Meeting closed at 11:00 Course Unit Administrator +44 (0) 20 7679 5481 15 November 2010 Course Units Teaching Committee Meeting 2010‐11‐11 ‐ Minutes