University Council of Modern Languages
Plenary Meeting
13 January 2012
Chair: Jim Coleman
Present
See appendix
- Apologies
These were received from Kris Spelman-Miller, Lucille Cairns, Liz Andersen, Ben O’Donohoe, Teresa Mackinnon, John Morley, Kate Beeching, Andrew Ginger.
- Minutes of the Plenary meeting on 10 June 2011
These were approved as a true record of the meeting.Most matters arising would be covered in the course of the meeting.
Survey of non-accredited language studies
Jim Coleman reported that is now available on the UCML website.
IGRS event 17 June 2011
Jim noted that this had been a successful event and hoped that another similar event could be held in the future.
- Chair’s report
Jim noted that this would be the final report that in this format as at future meetings, the Vice Chairs would report on their areas of responsibility.He welcomed new members of the Steering Group and wider Executive to their respective groups.He then provided an overview of the current context and of UCML activity.He noted that this was a particularly fast-moving time.
AULC
Jim reported that he had attended the AULC conference in Reading the previous week and had given a plenary address on employability.UCML would be working in partnership with AULC to do a survey of non-specialist language students taking accreditedand non- accredited programmes.
.
CERCLES
This is the European Conference of University Language Centres.Jim reported that Cercles has issued a statement on language policy in HE in Europe which could be useful in discussions in universities in the UK.
Employability
In December 2011 the Education and employers task force produced a report on graduate employability and languages.It brought together evidence on the value of languages to the British workforce and contains some useful references
Europe
Jim reported that there had been announced a doubling of the budget for mobility well as a new statement from the Council of the EU in favour of languages and mobility
Higher EducationAcademy (HEA)
A strategic plan for 2012-16 had been published which includes a focus on the disciplines though no specific mention of languages. Nereo, discipline lead for languages was present at the meeting. Jim also reported that the new lead for the Arts and Humanities was Graham Bilbow.
HEFCE
Jim noted his thanks to Daniela La Penna for leading the working party on providing a UCML response to the HEFCE consultation on the REF. Following lobbying from the community, HEFCE had made changes to the regulations regarding maternity and paternity leave.
Jim also quoted from the HEFCE report on PhD trends (1,250) of those starting PhDs in 09/10 were in Languages.This represented a 14% increase since 2007/08 and a 52% increase since 1996/7. The number of EU students studying for a PhD in languages had increased by 33% since 2007/08compared with other disciplines where the increase was14%.59% of those starting a PhD in languageswere women.
Jim and Jocelyn would be meeting with HEFCE on 2 February to discuss the issue of Strategically Important and Vulnerable Subjects (SIVs) and residence abroad.
HELG
The Higher Education Languages Group was formerly hosted by BIS but, owing to cuts in staff and a reorganisation of the department, BIS was no longer able to host meetings.However, they hoped to attend those convened by UCML.The next meeting would take place on 23 February with representatives fromBIS, DfE, HEFCE, the British Council,LLAS, the Teacher Development Agency (TDA), CfBT and AULC.
Interpreting
Jim reported that he had attended a major event at the European Commissionlooking at training provision in the UK for interpreters.He noted that the UKisnot getting proper representation at meetings because we don’t have people with language skills to act as interpreters.This issue has led to serious proposals to attract more people into interpreting degrees.
UCML is leading an outlineproposal to get a charismatic figure like Brian Cox to speak for languages and create a programme for TV.
LANGSA
Language Graduates and Students Associationhas just been created by Lizzie Fane who manages Thirdyearabroad.com.
LLAS
Liz Hudswell provided an update on LLAS activity later in the meeting.Jim also flagged up that LLAS had carried out a useful survey on ab initio language learning.
QAA
Jim reported that the QAA had just issued a new quality code for HE on 15 December.Some parts werealready online and consultation was underway.The code was much broader than the Key Information Sets (KIS).Consultation meetings were taking place throughout January.
Schools
The consultation on the review of the National Curriculum had elicited more responsesthan any other DfE consultation.The interim results had been published.Discussions on Programmes of Study for core subjects had been postponed.It had been suggested that MFL become a foundation subject without attainment targets but mandatory at Upper KS2, KS3 andKS4.Jim commended the response to the review which can be found at
E bac
The e bac has received cross party backing and has had the effect of increasing the number of students planning to do GCSE.The number of candidates for GCSE in 2013 in England has gone up to 52%. Although this is a positive development, there is the fear that this will focus attention on GCSE and not on other schemes of certification.
Schools for the Future Europe
Two conferences would be taking place to launch this publication: in Oxford on 8 March and at the Institute of Education on 12 March.
OCR
Jocelyn Wyburd and Terry Lamb were attending meetings convened by OCRto define future A levels.
Teacher Development Agency (TDA)
This will be named the Teaching Agency in March 2012. The TDA has reported falling numbers of applications in German and Spanish and is offering bursaries ranging from £12,000 to £20,000 for trainee teachers in 2012/13.
UCAS
Because of the introduction of the new fee regime, application numbers are down by 6.4% from last year.This means that numbers are similar to the 2010 entry levelas numbers went up in 2011.There are concerns about the number of applications especially frommature students.The numbers of languages applicants up to the end of December was marginally lower than the average.The mainconcern is non-European languages where the number of applicants is down by 20% on last year’s figures.It is possible that uncertainty over the year abroad might be the cause of this.
UCML activity
Communication
UCML now has a Facebook site with 46 followers.The new Vice Chair for communications and engagement, Liz Andersen, would be developing a communications strategy.
Visits to Universities
Jim reported that he had visited the University of Bristol, the University of Cardiff and Cilt Cymru and that he would shortly be visiting the University of Leeds and LeedsMetropolitanUniversity.
Executive
The new exec and steering group would be meeting on 24 February.
Biennial conference
This isjointly organised by UCML, LLAS and AULCand would be taking place inEdinburgh on 5-6 July 2012.Members were encouraged to offer a paper and attend.
Languages in the Globalised world
This conference would be taking place on 5-6 September at LeedsMetropolitanUniversity.
Researching multilingually
The AHRC is funding an initiative to create a research network to better understand the complexities and opportunities when researching multilingually.Three seminars are taking place in Durham, Manchester and UWE.Abstracts for these seminars must be submitted by 31 January 2012. More details at
Year Abroad
Jim noted that continuation of the year abroad was an issue of concern.A working group had been established by BIS and UUK and was chaired by Colin Riordan.Five working groups had been collecting evidence about the year abroad and how this could be supported for new regime students from 2012 as no government funding had been earmarked for this.The working group would be reporting to David Willetts on 6 March 2012.
Joan-Anton Carbonell at KingstonUniversity had produced a useful study which reported that 17, 314 students from UK universities spent a year abroad in 2009/10.
Jim reported that the BritishAcademywas supporting a UCML initiative on the Year Abroad and employability.UCML was workingwith Lizzie Fane from Yearabroad.com in getting people to send in their stories of their experience abroad. The British Council had emailed 17,000 former assistants.The website was open for 23 days and 576 stories were received which included some valuable quotations from former students.An event to launch the results of this initiative would take place in late March. This would be the opportunity to promote the value of the year abroad and give the government the opportunity to showcase any supportive action it is going to take in response to Colin Riordan’ s working group.
Jim confirmed that the future of the assistantships scheme coordinated by the British Council had been secured after an intensive lobbying campaign.
- Honorary Secretary’s report
Jocelyn Wyburd presented the report as the outgoing Honorary Secretary.The results of the elections to the restructured Executive Committee and the Steering Group were now on the UCML website in the news section.She reported that members were informed of the results through the website and Facebook.She thanked the following former members of the executive for their contributions:
Elizabeth Andersen who had represented Germanic Studies
Cai Wilkinson who had represented Slavonic and East European Studies but had accepted a post in Australia
Kris Spelman Miller who had represented Linguistics
The newly elected Vice Chairs were
Naomi Segal (Research)
Liz Andersen (External Engagement and Communications)
Jocelyn Wyburd (Language and Intercultural Education)
New members of the executive were
Kate Beeching (Linguistics)
Andrew Ginger (Hispanic and Lusophone studies)
Margaret Littler (Germanic Studies)
Ulrich Tiedau (Area Studies)
Ramona Gonczol (Slavonic and Eastern European Studies)
John Morley (Institution Wide Language Teaching). John will also be main link to AULC
Jocelyn noted that the Steering Group and Executive would be reviewing the website structureand considering the best way of keeping people informed.She invited those present to request to be added to the plenary list if they were not already registered.
Jocelyn also noted that a call for nominations for the post of Honorary Secretary had been issued with a deadline of 20 January 2012.
Jim thanked Jocelyn for her work in steering the restructuring process.
- Treasurer’s report
Tony Shannon-Little reported that a reminder from LLAS regarding subscription for 2012 would shortly be issued.
Tony also reported that there is likely to be an overspend this year because of additional travel costs and the £2000 contribution that UCML was making to the biennial HE conference. However, the restructuring of the executive would lead to fewer meetings and therefore reduced costs.There may be an overspend of £2000-£3000 this year but UCML had money in reserve.Membership fees were being kept at previous levels because of the straitened circumstances of institutions.
- Update from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland
Scotland
Liz Hudswell provided a brief update on behalf of UCML Scotland as none of the members of the group had been able to attend. The group is currently chaired by Margaret-Anne Hutton from St Andrews.In the notes of their last meeting, it was reported that a languages working group had been set up by the Scottish government.Margaret-Anne Hutton was a member of that group.The main issues of concern in Scotland centred around the transition from school to university and the impact of fees on the year abroad.In this context, LLAS were running an HEA supported event at Strathclyde in May at which Jim Coleman would be one of the speakers.
John Macklin from GlasgowUniversity was present at the meeting and reported that, after a period of press reports on the demise of the department at Glasgow, the department had received support from the management of the University to rebuild the department.It is now recruiting staff including Chairs in Spanish and French.The Language Centre and English Language teaching would be brought into the school of Modern Languages.
There was some discussion about the advantages and disadvantages of orchestrating a press campaign when departments are under threat of closure though it was agreed that it was important for those in a department in difficulties to know that they had the support of the wider languages community.
Northern Ireland
John Gillespie from Ulster sent a message reporting that proofs of the Languages Strategy for Northern Ireland were being worked on.This would be published in the next few weeks.
Wales
Claire Gorrara from the University of Cardiff and Chair of UCML Wales provided a report on activity in Wales.She noted that there had been a loss of some languages programmes at Glamorgan but that at Swansea there had been no redundancies after restructuring.The Routes into Languages Wales programme was generating a lot of activity including a Why Study board game, a fourth year module at Cardiff and Bangor for language teaching in schools, a DVD on the Year Abroad and partnerships between students on the year abroad and schools.
Key issues in Wales included the decrease in the teaching of German at all levels and a 10% fall in the numbers taking GCSE languages (excluding Welsh) across the whole of Wales.Future activity for UCML Wales involved encouraging PVCs to support language provision.
- Update on Shaping the Future
Pam Moores provided an update on this initiative which had been funded by HEFCE following the publication of the Worton review into languages in higher education.She noted that all resources were on the website, the project was now finished and the final report was complete.However she encouraged members to continue sending resources of wider interest to the community, notably profiles of research.Members should email Claire Wilkins at to obtain a template for people to add resources.Pam also stated that it would be helpful to add information about what departments are doing in the light of the new fees regime or activities to promote languages in their institution. AtAstonUniversity, for example, all students are being offered the chance to study a language free of charge.
- Update on Speak tothe Future
Pam Moores also reported on Speak to the Future which was launched in 2010. It is a cross-sectoral initiativewith 5 key objectives, two of which are related to HE.Elections to the executive have taken place and Speak to the Future has been set up as a company.The website address is .Lid King, former National Director for Languages, is Chair of the Executive, Mike Kelly is Honorary Secretary and Nick Mair is fund raising manager.Dominic Luddy is employed to promote the campaign.Tim Connell has now taken over leading working group 5 and Pam Moores is leading group 4.She invited members to contact her if they wouldlike to joinworking group 4.
Pam encouraged members to go to the Speak to the Future website to pledge support for the campaign and receive the newsletter.The BritishAcademy and the Institute of Linguists were supporting the campaign. It is hoped that a successful funding bid will be submitted by the end of March 2012.
- Update from the LLAS Subject Centre (including Routes into Languages)
Liz Hudswell provided an update on both LLAS and Routes into Languages. She reminded members that LLAS had lost the majority of their funding from the Higher Education Academy and were now operating as a not for profit organisation.They had received a grant from the Higher Education Academy to support the programme for this year.LLAS was continuing with the same kind of activity that it had carried out over the last 10 years.This included an events programme with three major conferences forthcoming and a programme of workshops mainly in the area of e learning and internationalisation.LLAS was also able to offer a bespoke service for departments on request.Liz also pointed to the survey of students which was being offered as a service to departments.More information was available from
Liz Hudswell reminded members that Routes into Languages had received continuation funding to July 2012 and Mike Kelly was in discussions with HEFCE about the possibility of funding beyond that date.HEFCW may also provide continuation funding for Routes Wales.The Routes programme management team were collecting data from first year undergraduates to assess the impact of the Routes programme.
In the regions there continued to be a substantial programme of activity concentrated on those activities which seemed to be successful such as the ambassadors ‘programme, sixth form conferences, the spelling bee.The national networks for Translation and Interpreting were working closely with the regional consortia.A call for bids into research into Public Sector Interpreting had been issued by the programme management team.Routes into Languages continues to produce resources which will be more visible on the Routes website.