- 18 June 2004
As we move towards the governments 50% widening participation target, and the financing of Higher Education changes, teaching staff are being given more responsibility for enhancing the employability of their students. The guide is aimed that those involved in preparing their students for the workplace.
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.
Mike Fay - 20 February 2003
This article examines the proposition that one can use the discourse and concepts
of the skills agenda to foster better learning of languages and related studies
on degree courses at British universities. By
skills agenda we
mean the political and intellectual pressures which government agencies exert
on universities to ensure that their students emerge equipped with skills useful
to a knowledge-based economy. As we shall see below, skills agenda is a fuzzy
term which can only be made meaningful by a teaching force as they review the
curriculum. In so doing they will encourage more conscious, strategic behaviour
by learners: knowing what you're doing. But our main proposition is that the
skills agenda contains the seeds of something better than itself: social and
intellectual exchanges by which everybody benefits. We begin by reviewing some
social and economic as well as academic aspects of the study of languages and
related subjects in Britain today; we go on to suggest pointers towards construing
the skills agenda intelligently and humanely; and we conclude by suggesting
that there is a tension between the fundamentally intercultural nature of the
languages degree and our usual habits of organisation.
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.
Penelope Sewell - 17 February 2003
This paper discusses a unit of a BA course at Birkbeck College, London in 'translation from and into French’. It considers what transferable skills and knowledge can be developed through such a course, as well as the many issues that translators have to deal with.
- 17 February 2003
This paper describes an area studies module of an Italian degree programme at the University of Central Lancashire. There is a particular emphasis on transferable skills.
Françoise Close and Mike Fay - 14 February 2003
This study describes an attempt to encourage some advanced learners of French as a foreign language (A-level plus two years) at Anglia Polytechnic University (APU) to develop some strategies and skills applicable both to language learning and to other knowledge domains. We examine what happened during a three-week learning and teaching sequence; we re-examine the principles and assumptions on which the teaching was based; and we draw conclusions pertinent to attempts to achieve similar ends, at APU and perhaps elsewhere. Our title is a wry reference to the stereotype, common within British Higher Education, of foreign language proficiency as a mere skill requiring only low-level cognitive activity.
- 23 October 2002
Introduction to the use of educational technology in higher education in the UK and beyond. This article provides an overview of the available tools and their effective use. It also mediates three major beliefs about the reasons for employing technology-mediated learning - appropriacy for flexible, distance and open learning, widening participation and cost-effectiveness.
Isabelle Perez - 27 September 2002
Interpreting can be taught both as a language exercise and with professional training in mind. This article reviews the modes and types of interpreting, as well as of the institutions and organisations providing interpreting courses.
