SUBJECT CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES, LINGUISTICS AND AREA STUDIES

MEETING OF THE ADVISORY BOARD

26 May 2004

Present
Richard Towell (Chair)			Liz Ashurst (Minutes)
David Bickerton 				Keith Brown
Nick Byrne					Billy Clark
Esther Daborn				Anne Davidson Lund
Jude Davies					Alison Dickens
Dawn Ebbrell					Michael Hughes
Louise Haywood				Professor Michael Kelly		
Terry Lamb					Peredur Lynch
Jonathan Rayner				Professor Roger Woods
Vicky Wright					John Canning
Angela Gallagher-Brett			Alison Piper

1.	Apologies for absence
Cigdem Balim-Harding			Neil Bermel	
Richard Ellis					Derrik Ferney
Chris Flood					Cecilia Garrido
Andy Gillett					Barry Jackson
Martina Lauster				Penny Sewell
Rhys Williams				Sharon Wood

2.	Minutes of the last meeting and matters arising
The minutes were agreed to be an accurate record of the previous meeting.  
3. Setting the Agenda publication
Since this was a publication which could be purchased from CILT publications, it was not possible to make this available online.

National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC)
TL commended the website for this organisation and it was agreed that there should be a link to it from the Subject Centre website.  
Action SC team

3.	Report on activity since the last meeting
EJA discussed the report on recent activity, which had formed part of the papers for the meeting.  The following comments were made in response to the report.  

Area Studies
RT noted that there had been an encouraging amount of activity in Area Studies and he hoped that the SC would be able to sustain this.

DfES research project
It was reported that the DfES was considering how best to disseminate the work of this project.  The Subject Centre had administered the project, the research being carried out by Hilary Footitt of UCML.  
NB Since the meeting, the project has been completed and the DfES are hoping to publish the report in February/March.  

Subject Centre/CILT conference: Navigating the New Landscape for Languages
At the time of the meeting, there had been 120 registrations for the conference though it was hoped that 200 would register by the time the conference took place.  Recruitment was healthy.  A full conference programme was posted on the Subject Centre website.  A conference dinner would be held on the Wednesday evening.  

Mini projects 
Mini-projects, funded in the areas of LWULT languages and pedagogical research had proved to be very successful; some useful deliverables had been produced.  

E learning
TL reported that the project ‘rethinking pedagogical models for e learning’ had produced a questionnaire and he requested that completed questionnaires be returned.  Area Studies and Linguistics were included in the questionnaire.  He reported that is would be sent round on the BAAL and LAGB mailing lists.  

Activity in Scotland
ED commended the event organised by the team at Scottish CILT in March looking at languages in Higher Education.  She requested that her thanks be passed onto Dick Johnstone and the team at SCILT.

4.	Evaluation of the Subject Centre
The Subject Centre evaluator, Dr Alison Piper, presented the report, which had formed part of the papers for the meeting.  She thanked all those who had made contributions or helped with the report.  She had investigated the Subject Centre’s strategic aim 3 as the focus of her evaluation.  This states that the Subject Centre aims

‘to be a catalyst in raising the level of learning and teaching across the board, in spreading good practices and new ideas, in contributing to policy formation, and in stimulating leading edge developments’

AP commented that it was difficult to look at ‘raising the level’ as improvement could not easily be measured and suggested as one of her recommendations in the report that the aim should be to ‘enhance learning and teaching’.  It was agreed that this change should be made.

AP also noted that the Subject Centre appears to be very successful but asked whether it was addressing the ‘nitty gritty’ issues of learning and teaching, government priorities or pedagogical issues in sufficient depth.  It could well be on these issues that the Subject Centre is judged.  However, she commented that the Centre was very good at engaging with people and bringing them together.  

RT commented that the report was extremely helpful and it documented well the considerable success of the Subject Centre.  

MHK also commended the report.  He noted that the Subject Centre team were aware of the government agendas which were being sent onto the LTSN but felt that the Centre needed to respond first and foremost to the needs of its own community and the steer given to it by members of the Advisory Board.  Some of the concerns of the community had seemed so urgent that it felt appropriate to prioritise these.  

He noted that the Subject Centre had done some work on employability though some of the other government agendas may have received less attention.  

It was agreed that the Subject Centre must continue to focus on quality enhancement rather than assurance and on providing information on policy rather than lobbying directly.  ADL noted that CILT also had to play the role of information provider (e.g. statistical data) rather than lobby group.  

NB noted that there was such a wealth of information on the Subject Centre website that it might be helpful to group related resources together in the form of a ‘toolkit’ that staff could download from the website and use for staff development workshops in their institutions.  This would help to provide development for groups such as hourly paid staff.  The SC agreed to build this into their planning for the following year.  
Action SC team

Pedagogic research
DB commented that a key message of the report was the difficulty in establishing that the Subject Centre was having an impact on learning and teaching in its subject areas.  He also noted that the Academy should be promoting a commitment to research into pedagogy.  

MHK noted that the HEFCE consultation document on the RAE was looking at how panels could be configured to promote subject specific pedagogic research with the education sub panel looking at more generic issues.  RT also noted that pedagogic research needed to be recognised as having credibility by the RAE sub panels.  He suggested that the Academy might pursue AP’s recommendation that mechanisms be established ‘whereby expert and less experienced colleagues have to work together’ on pedagogical research projects.  

AP noted that it would be helpful for the SC to display a robust research methodology and commended the idea of a workshop on research methods held at the start of the pedagogic research projects term.  

TL noted that there was sometimes a misunderstanding as to what constituted pedagogic research and that it would be important to pursue links with the Education Subject Centre.  

Regional events
In response to the recommendation that ways be investigated to increase the provision of regional events, it was noted that areas such as the Midlands were not necessarily covered.  It was hoped that the Workshops to Go initiative might help to address this.  ADL noted that CILT were consolidating their regional presence and building up the Comenius networks.  

Area Studies
JD commented that a dedicated Academic Coordinator for Area Studies was essential to maintain the momentum in this area of the Centre’s work.  

Encouraging ‘resistant or detached groups’ to engage with the Centre
AD noted that there is a tension between this and responding to requests from the Academy to focus on certain aspects of government policy.  She pointed out that the Linguistics Specialist Group aims to organise events that will resonate with its community e.g. postgraduate research training.  It was suggested that the SC might organise ‘tester events’ at Subject Association conferences.  MHK noted that these needed to be promoted as a central and high quality feature of the conference as there was a danger that they would be sidelined.  

Widening participation
This was a key government priority which it would be useful to engage with.  It was agreed that it would be helpful for the Subject Centre to map cross-sectoral initiatives currently taking place.  

AP was thanked for her report, which was endorsed and commended by Board members.

5.	Social and political reasons for studying languages: discussion
AGB and AD led a brainstorming session where they asked Advisory Board members to provide social and political reasons for studying languages.  These were to form part of the research project being carried out by AGB into the reasons given for studying languages.

NB Since the meeting, this project has been completed and the findings of the research have been published in the report, ‘Seven hundred reasons for studying languages’.  All board members should have received a copy.  

6.	Subject Centre activity 2004-5
Events
A discussion document outlining some proposals for Subject Centre activity had been sent to board members.  There was some discussion on the proposals.

NB noted that AULC were interested in doing some work on assessment and that perhaps this could be done jointly with the SC.  

RT noted it might be useful to look at the links between the ELP and the Languages Ladder

JD stated that an event on globalisation would be useful and would bring all the parts of the Subject Centre together.  

Journal
There was some discussion as to whether the Subject Centre should produce a learning and teaching journal in our subject areas.  An e journal was suggested as a means of raising the profile of the Good Practice Guide.  Each volume could cover a different theme.  

RT noted that producing such a journal was a time-consuming exercise and would need to be of high quality and cutting edge if it was going to be done at all.  KB suggested that the Subject Centre might produce a Year Book, which represented the range of Subject Centre activity (e.g. workshop reports, articles from the Good Practice Guide, statistical data).  The Subject Centre agreed to include this in their plans for the coming year.  

7.	Update on progress in setting up the HE Academy and accreditation issues
Board members had been sent the consultation document ‘Towards a framework of professional teaching standards’.  There was some feeling among members that the framework was rather sketchy but if a more detailed framework were established, it could restrain creativity and innovation.  

MHK pointed out that it might be possible for attendance at Subject Centre events to be used by staff to meet the criteria for accreditation.  However, there was general feeling among Board members that the Subject Centre should not be drawn into any ‘policing’ role.  It was suggested that the role of the Subject Centre should continue to be one of providing subject specific support to staff particularly after they have completed their initial PG certificate in their own institution.  

8.	Any other business and date of the next meeting
It was agreed that the next meeting should be in January/February 2005.