Jenny Lewin-Jones - 4 August 2008
Widening access to higher education has implications for modern foreign language learning, teaching and assessment. This paper addresses dilemmas when assessing increasingly diverse cohorts of students. It draws on analysis of questionnaires with 88 students taking free modules at ab initio level at University of Worcester in 2007-08. The aim was to study students’ previous language learning experiences. The paper considers the benefits and drawbacks of a portfolio-based approach to assessment, assessing students with visual impairment and dyslexia, and questions how to encourage students of diverse backgrounds to enter into language learning whilst maintaining rigorous standards of assessment.
- 31 March 2008
This practical guide to marking MFL and EFL students’ written work covers continuous writing and translation. Marking is considered as one stage in an integrated, collaborative process of teaching and learning, requiring awareness of the tutor’s dual role as coach and assessor, and consultation and calibration among tutors. Issues discussed include: How much to mark; making appropriate comments; using symbols for the nature and seriousness of errors; consistency and fairness; giving positive feedback through ticks; converting quantitative scores into marks. The guide concludes with three illustrated case studies: a marked copy of a piece of first-year writing in French; suggested criteria for assessment of Year Abroad projects; a marked copy of a final-year English to French translation. Reference is made to surveys of research findings on marking.
Barry Heselwood - 7 November 2007
This report is from the 2nd meeting of the Phonetic Transcription Group held on 3 May 2007 in the Dept of Linguistics and Phonetics, University of Leeds. Attendees represented a number of different perspectives and specialisms, including general phonetics, clinical phonetics and phonology, corpus linguistics, sociophonetics, English language.
- 1 February 2005
The Bologna process carries out an agreement by European governments to create by 2010, a European Higher Education Area with two main degree cycles, undergraduate and graduate, and a common system of credits and quality assurance. In this climate of review, revision and collaboration, this paper describes a survey of existing practice with regard to expectations of attainment on degree programmes in Europe. It will also outline a proposal for a collaborative project to develop a framework for the self-validation of skill assessment on a language programme.
The concept of validity informed the design of a questionnaire to collect qualitative and quantitative data on the final assessment of students' written English on English language degree programmes across Europe. Analysis of responses from 30 universities in 12 European countries revealed wide variation between different countries, within the same country and, in some cases, within the same degree programme.
As a result of this survey, European partners have been identified to collaborate on the development of a framework for the self-validation of assessments of written English, which can inform the assessment of other skill areas and other languages.
Mike Thacker and Cathy Pyle and Anne Irving - 19 January 2005
This paper describes a programme of university language courses, delivered as a combination of both online and face-to-face teaching. The authors believe that the approach taken can promote learner reflection. Evaluation studies reported a good level of student satisfaction and focus groups indicated an increased quality of student work. Further work to foster greater reflection is discussed.
- 12 January 2005
This paper reports on the introduction of accredited portfolios into an ab initio French language course at the University of Stirling. These were introduced to help students progress from a teacher-led learning environment into one in which a more autonomous approach was required. Student feedback was mainly positive, whilst a slight improvement in grades was also reported. However, some areas of difficulty would benefit from further development.
Jocelyn Wyburd and Elinor Chicken and John Doherty - 11 January 2005
The University of Manchester has hosted a forum for dialogue between tertiary and secondary language teachers to share pedagogic and curricular experiences and realities with the aim of facilitating student progression and bridging the secondary-tertiary 'gaps'. Participants have been surveyed to assess the impact of the dialogue process on them and their practice and to start to identify issues of broader relevance to the sector as a whole. This paper reports the experience of participants and responses to the survey.
Dana Hanesová - 11 January 2005
The author starts her presentation with the historical background and current trends towards the application of the Common European Framework (CEF) in Slovak schools. Giving an example of an English course for Social Sciences, she then describes the specific phases of the application of the CEF.
Nicky Guard and Uwe Richter and Sharon Waller - 21 February 2003
Portfolios have been around for a long time, either as collections of artefacts
in an artist's portfolio or as documentation of teaching practice and staff
development in a teaching or professional portfolio. However portfolios are
finding a wider application as a form of educational assessment, especially
in the USA. Even though they may vary in format, educational portfolios distinguish
themselves from other portfolios by including reflective elements. They are
therefore not merely a collection of best practice or artefacts but are also
intended to document the learning process and involve students in actively reflecting
on their learning. This article begins with a brief introductory overview of
portfolios, followed by a look at the portfolio model which emerged from the
TransLang project. We conclude with a summary of some findings which were common
to our individual case studies elsewhere in this volume.
Kirsten Söntgens - 19 February 2003
A portfolio of independent learning has been introduced to post A-level students at various levels in the three languages of Spanish, French and German at UCE. The Translang Approach has been chosen as a framework for development of transferable skills.
Caroline Clapham - 9 January 2003
This article contains a brief introduction to the main principles which should be followed by the constructors of tests and assessments. It briefly introduces the key concepts of test validity, reliability and washback, and provides guidelines for pre-testing. It gives the addresses of three other language testing web sites and has bibliographical pointers to more detailed discussion of language testing, in particular. A comprehensive glossary of testing terms is also provided.
- 28 November 2002
This entry gives detail of the Post-graduate Certificate of Education in Modern Foreign Languages in Britain.The number and names of leading institutions is listed. The context for the PGCE is given in relation to the main organisation and quality assurance of teacher training courses. The content of the PGCE is described together with a rationale in terms of the National Currciculum for MFLs in Britain. Reference is made to the Standards against which trainees are trained and assessed. Recent trends are set out along with possible future developments. The entry ends with a list of salient documents and publications. Web based sites are listed and details of research into MFLs teacher education.
- 18 October 2002
This article provides an overview of the principles of tandem learning. It then focuses on the types of assessment (self assessment, formal assessment, holistic approach) which can be used to provide a rounded evaluation of tandem interaction.
- 27 September 2002
Dictionaries are of many types and useful to students not only of languages but of all subjects. Their design has undergone major changes in recent years, making them much more soundly based, and user friendly. Alongside this there is increasing research into the dictionary strategies of the user: clearly there is a limit to what the dictionary can do to help the user and good dictionary skills need to be trained, though such training has often been neglected.
Kersti Borjars - 27 September 2002
This document suggests ways of building up the first year of a single honours course in linguistics. It suggests that the year should consist of certain core courses introducing basic concepts relevant to the field, most importantly phonetics, grammar and semantics. In addition, there should be a set of optional courses on aspects of the field which interact with other subject areas (e.g. sociolinguistics and psycholinguistics). The document provides some ideas for text books to be used and also gives some other sources, in particular web-based facilities. The document also contains a brief discussion of assessment.
