J,o

Higher Education Projects

lhe following brief descriptions of work in progress at some English universities are taken from Newsletter ~o. I February 1973 of the r~uffield Foundation Group on Research and Innovation in Higher Education, Nuffield Lodge, Regents Park, London NWI.

;~ Curriculum

T~,cevrated European Studies

At Loughborough a new course has recently been in i t ia ted to cover the languages, pol i t ics and economics of Modern Europe. The course is based upon the Department of European Studies which provides teaching in languages and pol i t ics. Economics is taught by the Department of Economics. During the f i r s t year two modern languages are studied together with introductory courses in economics and po l i t ica l science and a general course on the evolution of contemporary Europe. In the second year, in addition to the main subjects, students examine in detail the pol i t ics of France and Germany. In the final year business economics is studied together with the workings of the Common Market and the pol i t ica l aspects of European integration since 1945. Although this is not a sandwich course, students are expected to spend time abroad during vacations.

Contact; Professor D. L. Coombes, Department of European Studies, Loughborough

Unit Courses in Arts Subjects

In 1969 tne Classics Department at University College, London adopted the unit course degree structure-the f i r s t department in the Arts Faculty to do so (apart from Geography, which belongs also to the Faculty of Science, and was already offering i ts course-unit degree for both B.Sc. and B.A.). Two main reasons for making the change were the opportunities i t created to spread the examinations (previously al l taken in the student's third year) and to adopt more f lex ib le degree programmes. Students now follow a university syllabus for some course units (special subjects, for instance, which are offered in the third year are s t i l l taught on an intercol legiate basis) and a college syllabus for others. Students share with their tutor the responsibi l i ty for deciding on their choice of course units. Although the system allows for many options, some basic courses in language and | i terature are obligatory. Tutors are concerned to ensure that each student's total course wi l l be a reasonable and ba|anced one. Both staff and students report themselves as generally satisfied with the way the course unit structure has worked out, and agree that i t provides more opportunity than a jo in t honours system for a broadly- based university education. Examination results have indicated l i t t l e difference in the overall standards reached by students as compared with their performance under the old degree structure.

C~ontact: Professor E. W. Handley, Professor of Greek, University College London

47

2. Teaching Metods

Group Studies and Texts in Language Learn i~

Language courses are often defined largely in terms of the f ina l examination papers, in which students are required to translate from and into the foreign languageo to wr i te proses, and to take an oral examination. A typical approach to teaching language in preparation for these examinations is through the weekly produc- t ion and correction of t ranslat ions and prose exercises. Final results and examiners j reports have indicated some deficiencies in this approach, and in pa r t i cu la r the fa i l u re of a nun~er of students to acquire e i ther the necessary language s k i l l s or the a b i l i t y to read and study l i t e r a t u r e c r i t i c a l l y .

To meet these snortcomings the Language Centre and the Department of French at Birkbeck College, London, have, since 1966, adopted a less conventional approach involving students act ively in the learning process and concentrating on the development of an under- standing of what language is and how i t may be used. Each week, for three hours in the f i r s t year and one hour in the second year, students learn to understand and use the language by a d i rec t and intensive study of spoken and wr i t ten texts in French. The sessions are reinforced by small group discussions of fundamental questions related to the aims, object ives, methods and techniques of language learning. These small group studies and discussions, in which stu- dents share experience and understanding, are sometimes tape-re- corded, transcribed and used as a basis for fur ther discussion and course development. I t is planned to make videotape recordings of small groups at work. Two teachers are usually present at each group session.

Since the introduct ion of this a l te rnat ive approach, the students' standards of performance in the language have improved s i gn i f i can t l y in re la t ion both to previous year groups at Birkbeck and to examina- t ion performance in London University as a whole.

Contact: Dr. N. Blanc or Mr. O. Uteri, Department of Applied Linguist ics or Mrs. Madeleine Le Cunff, Department of French, Birkbeck College, London

3. Teaching and Learning Resources

Videotapes f o r Independent Learning

The use of videotape recordings at Brunel University has incr~ -~d considerably over the past t~o or three years. TI1ere are now over 500 catalogued, which include Open U~iversii~vi BBC Further Education 'O f f -A i r ' recordings, and progranmnes purchased from other univers i t ies in addit ion to ~runel's own productions. Coverage includes Biology, Biochemistry, Building Technology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Education, Engineering, Industr ia l Training, Languages, Law, MathemaLic Physics and the Social Sciences. The major i ty of these tapes are made avai lable in the Library for independent use. Supplementary material is provided for a number of them, usually in the form of booklets

4 c~

containing fu r ther explanat ion, questions and answers. The video- tapes are stored and indexed aJong s im i la r l ines to the book co l lec t ion . Users take them from the shelves and thread them oi~ to open deck players in simply constructed booths. There are seven players in f a i r l y constant use in the L ibrary , including the la tes t Videocassette Recorders, at present. I t is proposed to instal about 40 more when the new Library is completed later this year. There a:'e in addition 22 playback machines on portable t ro l l ies ava~lab ; , in the laboratories.

Contact: !Ir. G.H. Noordhof, Director, Brunel University Televis~orJ Service

4. Learnin~ Skills

The Post A-Level Spanish (Palspan) Project

This co-operative project, based on the Department of Spanish, Queen Mary College, and the Language Centre, University of Essex was funded by tne Department of Education and Science (on the recommendation of the Committee on Research and Development in Modern Languages). The aim of the three-year project (ending in ]972) was to widen the available range of language learning act ivi t ies in undergraduate Spanish courses.

[he Project team of two co-d i rectors and three research assistants evolved and carr ied out a 3-stage working plan. The f i r s t stage was to devise a d iagnost ic test ba t te ry to help pinpo%nt the l i n g u i s t i c strengths and weaknesses of students enter ing advanced courses. The tes t ba t te ry was t r i ed out in many co-operat ing Spanish Departments in un ive rs i t i es and other i n s t i t u t i o n s , and revised and re- tested before the f i na l format was published. Copies, under the t i t l e 'Spanish Prof ic iency Test Ba t t e r y ' , are now ava i lab le from the Mater ia ls Development Uni t , Micklegate House, Micklegate, York YOl ]JZ. The second stage was the construc- t ion , on the basis of the f indings in the f i r s t stage, of appropri- ate remedial teaching mater ia ls in preparat ion fo r s t ~ e three. The task in th is f i na l stage was to provide a range of l i n g u i s t i c a c t i v i t i e s aimed to take the student beyond conventional grammatical exercises to the po in t where he or she can become sens i t ive to s t y l i s t i c , contextual and regional va r i e t i es of the Spanish language. The book resu l t ing from th is work w i l l be published by the Longman Group during 1973/74 in the form of eleven thematic un i ts , each containing texts from a va r i e t y of sources a l l over the Spanish- speaking wor]d. Each tex t w i l l have accompanying exercise mater ia l and each un i t w i l l have a pa ra l l e l tape of approximately twenty minutes in length.

Contact: the Co-Directors of the Pro jec t , Miss L. Ingamelis, Spanish Department, Queen Mary College, Un ivers i ty of London, or Mr. P. Standish, French Department, Un ivers i ty of S t i r l i n g .

49

G e~!~r~ f ~ C~%er!!is t ry Studer, ts

At the Univers i ty of Nottingham, s ta f f from the Department of Chemistry and from the Language Centre are preparing a course in German for chemistry students. The research pro jec t , which is supported by the Off ice for Sc i en t i f i c and Technica] Informa- t i on , seeks to impart techniques of sentence analysis and information r e t r i e v a l which w i l l lead tQ quicker comprehension of meaning and f a c i l i t a t e the t rans la t ion of key sect ions, where necessary. In order to prepare the course material an analys is , both manual and by computer, of chemical German has been made. The course consists of 9 hours in the language laboratory and about 16 hours of wr i t ten consol ldat ion. In addit ion to the language laboratory version the course w i l l be produced in a for'~J su i tab le for se l f i n s t r uc t i on .

Contact: Dr. i4. F. A. Dove, DepartJl)ent of Chemistry or Mr. W. G~a~rg , Di rector , Language Centre, Univers i ty oF Nottir~gham.