Paper for College Postgraduate Studies Committee, 5 May 2010
Modern Language Training for PG Students in HSS
BACKGROUND
A recently-commissioned British Academy report, Language matters (2009) makes the following recommendations (these are quoted directly from the report):
· There should be a language requirement (or proven levels of competence) for university entry, or universities should ensure that students at least leave with a language qualification (i.e., apart from a single first language).
· Individual HSS university departments should (if appropriate to the degree programme) make provision for language learning for their students.
· Universities should ensure that they provide language training to meet the needs of their researchers.
· The AHRC and ESRC should review their training guidelines and their financial support for intensive language courses for their funded postgraduates, with a view to encouraging the development of language training programmes specifically geared to the needs of postgraduate researchers.
An increasing number of PhD candidates are requesting provision in modern languages, with encouragement from their supervisors. They do so for a number of reasons: to widen their research abilities, develop their professional skills, and improve their collaborative abilities for teaching, publication, and research. But in some disciplines or sub-disciplines such as Classics or European History reading knowledge of modern foreign languages is not just a helpful but a vital skill.
CURRENT PROVISION
Given these demands for provision, which are shared across postgraduate programmes in HSS (notably Divinity and Law), Dr Andrew Newman of LLC has very kindly agreed to convene two courses each semester (3 hours per week, in two 1.5 hour slots, for 11 weeks). One course trains students to read French with the aid of a dictionary; the other trains students in German. Each course can accommodate a maximum of just 20 students and requires 14 to run; if there is sufficient demand, both courses are repeated in the second semester. All organisation is done informally, not using MyEd or Wisard—so administrative errors can occur easily.
Spaces in these courses are reserved and payment arranged directly by the PG administrator of each School. If a student drops out or doesn’t show, no refund can be arranged. Tutors are hired on a contractual basis by LLC. The courses commence in Week 2 (terminating beyond Week 11), to allow programmes to promote the courses to the students and to help Dr Newman with room bookings. Instruction is also offered by IALS, but it is more expensive and is designed for conversation and not scholarly skills.
At present, Classics provides Latin and Greek reading-skills courses for credit at four levels, for students from across HCA and HSS. PG students are taught alongside UG students, with a variant means of assessment. There is a wholly PG course in Introductory Latin. Since registration is on Wisard, these courses bring funds into the School; they certainly benefit HSS as a whole.
EVALUATION
From 2009/10, all HCA students who take the LLC courses will complete assessment forms. Anecdotal feedback from students who have completed these LLC-based courses is very positive: these are proper courses designed to train students to read with a dictionary.
However, significant administrative and structural problems remain:
· Since there is a rigid quota for each class, and there is no central administration, enrolment must be handled internally by each School. If a student withdraws (and this always happens), then the School PG Director or Graduate School administrator must either replace this student with another, or sacrifice both the place and its costs (which are borne by the School). Moreover, since these courses are not taken for credit, Graduate School administrators are routinely not advised of the lost place—so funds and provision are wasted.
· Only one course is offered in each language, each semester. Each assumes very little knowledge of the language. But the baseline knowledge is normally variable across the class—this makes instruction difficult because some students require remedial tuition beyond the class (which the instructor offered gratis last year) or the more advanced students find that their needs are not adequately supported.
RECOMMENDATIONS
The intellectual, professional, and economic benefits of ensuring proficiency in modern languages are obvious, and the British Academy and funding councils are planning to increase available funding for such provision, especially at the postgraduate levels.
Given the increasing demand from postgraduates, this paper makes the following two recommendations:
1. The College consider underwriting the provision of the existing modern language training courses in French and German offered by LLC so that they can be made available to all PG students across HSS via Wisard (or EUCLID).
· These courses should be offered at times advertised well in advance;
· They should be tailored to various levels of prior expertise (beginners, intermediate, etc.);
· The risk of LLC incurring a significant financial loss after recruiting staff to teach them should be removed.
This provision should reduce the administrative burden on both the PG Director in LLC, and other PG Directors across HSS, since students can simply be signed up for these courses at the time of registration.
2. That CPGSC consider at a later date the wider implications of the British Academy’s report, Language matters, for language and skills training for HSS PG students.
Dr Adam Budd, Coordinator of Graduate Methods Training HCA
Dr Enda Delaney, Director of Graduate Studies HCA
21 April 2010