LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Building the language base for research: the impact and future of Language-Based Area Studies
Event date: 14 December, 2012
Location: Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre SOAS, London

Training teachers of interpreting
Event date: 9 November, 2011
Location: Room lF1, Language Centre, 2nd Floor, Parkinson Building, University of Leeds

Conducting successful translation classes
Translating can be taught with a number of different methods so as to meet all of the students' needs. This article reviews some of these methods, and highlights ways in which they can be applied in the translation classroom.

Training the trainer: language teaching assistants
Quality requirements mean universities must ensure suitable training for all language teaching staff. Courses for language assistants are most effective when divided into two parts, with a combination of initial intensive input and subsequent reflection on practical experience in the classroom. Foreign language assistants, part-time tutors and postgraduate teaching assistants have differing developmental needs which can be met through modular elements. All assistants can qualify for membership of the Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education via one of two routes.

Training the trainer: staff development for language teaching
Support for the professional development of full-time staff teaching languages in higher education is poor, particularly because universities' initial training programmes tend to be exclusively generic. Furthermore, most academics' expertise is in non-language areas and there is no real culture of language pedagogy. The DELPHI programme offers a completely free online distance-learning programme in language teacher development, suitable for all university teaching contexts.

Post-graduate certificate of education: modern foreign languages
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.

Dictionaries
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.

Education and linguistics
This article considers the relationship between linguistics and education. It outlines the key differences between the two disciplines, briefly summarises the history of linguistics within Education teaching in HE, and lists the ways in which linguistics informs both general educational practice, and the methodology of teaching languages.

Reconceptualising PGCE Modern Foreign Languages: the merits of Mlevel accreditation
The current model of Initial Teacher Training is centrally focused on school experience where the underlying assumption is that effective practice is mainly developed through practice, that is practical teaching experience and that academic considerations are secondary. This paper will draw on recent substantial research into the role of theory in current ITT MFL programmes, in order to explore and chart the policy context for the move to M-Level PGCE MFL courses in the near future. The paper will also consider some of the implications of M-Level accreditation of PGCE in terms of course content and assessment, as well as the relationship between school experience and HE provision. It will further consider some of the principles upon which a more theoretically-orientated course might be conceived.

Bridging the Gap: University of Manchester
The University of Manchester's Bridging the Gap project to help students transition between GCSE, As and A2 level is described. Various forums and committees were set up to identify gaps in their respective syllabuses and events days were run at a Language College to help fill these gaps. Feedback on the events was good and it is hoped that this type of event will encourage more students to take languages at university level.