UCL LANGUAGE CENTRE
Course Units 2007‐2008 Teaching Committee Meeting - Minutes
Tuesday 24 June 2008 13.30‐15.00 Taviton Building, room 347 Staff present: Claudia Geithner Karine Roumetz Yoko Aldous Fernando Gracia‐Garcia Adam Salisbury Marie‐Laure Aris Dr. So Hiranuma Pierre Scordia Sylvie Batlle Dr. Christine Hoffmann Chizuko Seki‐Zdrzalka Sara Bragadina Mireille Michel Cristina Testi Roberto D’Onofrio Marc‐Georges Nowicki Antonella Veccia Juan Fernandez Catherine Plant Diego Flores‐Jaime Maria‐Teresa Forteza‐Rey Carmen Requena Petra Garcia‐Rodriguez Jenny Rodgers Apologies: Anja Boeing, Edward de Chazal, Fabrice Lamotte, Liyun Liao, Anne‐Sophie Vandamme and Selina Zheng. 1. WELCOME AND INTRODUCTION 1.1
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Welcome to all; the agenda for the remainder of this week will be: ‐ A workshop on Marking Criteria for Extended Essays given by Daphne Thomas to give us an insight into how EAP mark; ‐ Portico Presentation: Adam Salisbury will demonstrate Portico to us all to show some of the difficulties experienced by the administration office; ‐ Electronic Material: Ian Newby from CETL has been working on a Task Chain – a set of exercises, in English using authentic reading and listening material which can be used across languages, so tutors will be able to insert tasks into the template for their own languages; once he has demonstrated this to us we can decide what we would like to do and how we will use it. Staff Development and Continuing Professional Development: Jane Skirving (Academic Advisor) has asked for feedback on what sort of sessions staff (academic and administrative) would like for the coming year; Continuing Professional Development: Jane will be circulating CPD forms to all members of staff to complete with information about their skills, knowledge, training undertaken etc. ‐ please return your form, including ideas for Staff Development to Jane Skirving as soon as possible as it is important to have a record of what we have all done; Language Centre policies, procedures and guidelines will be made available to all L.C staff on the intranet pages; Mandarin Team: we have been looking extensively at the Mandarin team. Liyun Liao has been carrying out Moodle/CETL Project work with Ian Newby, which she would like to take further; Course Unit Teaching Committee Review Meeting 2008‐06‐24 – Minutes Therefore after much discussion and review we are happy to announce that the following decision has been made: ‐ Shaomin Lee, our Visiting Examiner will take over as Coordinator for Mandarin Course Units, as of August; ‐ Liyun Liao will now be responsible for facilitating and coordinating materials development, mainly for the Staff Quiet room and for the Self‐Access Centre. 1.
PROCEDURES AND REGULATIONS 1.1
The Course Units office gave feedback to the tutors regarding Language Centre Procedures and ask that tutors pay particular attention to the following points in order to help the academic year to run more smoothly: ‐ Deadlines: it is crucial that we stick to deadlines, e.g. submitting coursework marks, returning Student Report Forms to the office – it’s good that most tutors do, but if a few don’t then it can place unnecessary pressure on the office; ‐ Emails: tutors should check their emails daily as this is the main form of communication used by the office and by students and should try to use their UCL email account; there are two cluster rooms available in Bedford Way; Please do not always inform students that the office will email them about everything – students are only emailed via the office regarding major, one‐off issues such as signing up for an oral exam – many, things, such as revision workshop details will be posted online for students to check themselves; ‐ Microsite: most course units material is available online; coursework coversheets – tutors are emailed with a link to these; Project Guidelines, Syllabi and Past Examination papers are also available for tutors and students to download. Some tutors leave work, e.g. class handouts for their students on the course units microsite – other Departments do the same, so students are familiar with this; ‐ Reading & Writing Examinations: when tutors submit their exam papers to the office, any last minute changes are intended for any necessary last minute minor typos and are not an excuse for changing whole sections of the paper; ‐ Office hours: tutors must adhere to the office hour which they have informed the administration team of – this is the availability that we will give to your students if asked; the Course Units office official hours are 09:00‐17:00, Monday to Friday – please try to come within these hours and don’t presume we will be available afterwards. 1.2
Feedback for administration: tutors were asked to raise any issues they have regarding administration, procedures etc.: ‐ Cancellations: if a student cancels from the course or changes class please can the office let us know so that we do not email them unnecessarily; WE DO TRY TO INFORM TUTORS WHEN A STUDENT CANCELS AND WE DO NOT ALLOW STUDENTS TO CHANGE CLASSES WITHOUT FIRST INFORMING/ASKING THE NEW TUTOR; ‐ Oral Exams: is it possible to set a deadline for online oral exam bookings, so we are not required to re‐schedule so many extra slots? IN THEORY THERE IS A DEADLINE – STUDENTS ARE EMAILED ASKING THEM TO BOOK THEIR EXAM AND BOOKINGS CANNOT BE MADE/CHANGED 48 HOURS BEFORE THE EXAM, HOWEVER THERE ARE ALWAYS EXCEPTIONS. ‐ Online Marking Schemes: can the Marking Schemes for the final exam be available online for Students, as this would reduce the amount of photocopying we need to do? THIS WAS DISCUSSED LAST YEAR, BUT SOME TUTORS PREFERRED NOT TO MAKE THE MARKING SCHEMES AVAILABLE TO STUDENTS UNTIL LATER IN THE YEAR WHEN THEY BEGIN REVISING FOR THE FINAL EXAM, E.G. DURING REVISION WORKSHOPS. IT WAS AGREED THAT MARKING SCHEMES WILL BE PUT ONLINE, ALONG WITH THE PAST EXAM PAPERS FOR ALL LANGUAGES EXCEPT ITALIAN AND JAPANESE – FOR THESE, STUDENTS WILL NEED TO SEE THEIR TUTOR. Course Unit Teaching Committee Review Meeting 2008‐06‐24 – Minutes 2.
ANY OTHER BUSINESS 2.1
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3.6 The I.C.T team have asked that tutors give them more notice when making requests to prepare Material for listening assessments; UCL Open Day: this takes place tomorrow – we have posters, flyers etc. for tutors to have on the Language Centre stand. It is important that tutors are available for this – the main purpose is to remind / inform undergraduate students that they can take a Language option during their studies; LCL bookshop: LCL International have sent a selection of new course material for tutors to look at in preparation for our meeting with him later today; Language Centre computers: some of the P.Cs do not have languages installed, so we cannot use accents; WE HAVE BOUGHT NEW SOFTWARE SO THEY SHOULD ALL HAVE THIS – WE WILL CHECK WITH I.C.T Staff room: it can get very noisy making it impossible to work and a lot of other people’s work is often left on the tables and work spaces; IF OTHER MEMBERS OF STAFF ARE BEING NOISY THEN TUTORS SHOULD POLITELY ASK THEM TO BE MORE QUIET AND RESPECTFUL OF OTHER PEOPLE WORKING; WE WILL ASK PEOPLE TO MOVE ANY WORK THEY HAVE LEFT IN THE STAFF ROOM GIVING A DEADLINE, OTHERWISE IT WILL BE REMOVED. Bicycles: we will ask the College for new bike parking facilities as the old ones have been removed, due to vandalism. Meeting closed at 15.00. Course Unit Administrative Assistant +44 (0) 20 7679 5481 30 June 2008 Course Unit Teaching Committee Review Meeting 2008‐06‐24 – Minutes