CONTENTS Page 3. About the Language Centre and Introduction Page 4. Academic Development & Training for International Students Page 6. Cambridge University Language Programmes Page 8. Advising & Support for Independent Learners Page 10. Development of Online Learning Materials Page 12. Outreach Activity Page 14. Support for University Institutions Page 16. External Profile of the Language Centre Page 19. A.J. Pressland Fund Page 20. Resources & Administration
About the Language Centre With Brexit looming, there is a greater imperative than ever to develop ‘global’ graduates, able to navigate the evolving global societies and economies of the future, both linguistically and interculturally. The Language Centre is dedicated to providing all members of the University community with the essential linguistic and academic literacy skills required for academic success, as international students in Cambridge and for research purposes, including fieldwork. We also respond to ever more diverse demands for the language and cultural skills the University community requires to provide wider (future) opportunities for employability and for personal enrichment. The mission of the Language Centre is to: Increase multilingualism amongst students and staff of the University; promoting, encouraging and supporting the learning of languages for personal, academic and professional purposes. To achieve our mission, the Language Centre aims to: Ensure access to outstanding language teaching and support for language learning for all current members of the University Support the highest levels of academic achievement by students whose first language is not English Exploit the latest technologies and pedagogies to develop bespoke language teaching and learning materials, for use across the University Foster learner autonomy in language learners, whether studying independently and/or attending courses within the University Provide bespoke professional advisory services to support individual language learners Provide high quality learning resources in multiple media, both physical and virtual, in a wide range of languages Collaborate and share expertise with other language learning providers within the University and in other organisations nationally and internationally Promote language learning and access to university language study to students in schools and colleges. Annual Report 2016-17 Demand for Language Centre courses, learner support and resources has remained largely steady this year, but is characterised by further diversification of types provision, particularly targeted at specific cohorts of students in particular disciplines. This reflects a strategic decision to develop bespoke provision to complement our traditional base which welcomes all comers. We have also particularly developed initiatives aimed at researchers requiring language and cultural skills for fieldwork purposes. The overall direction of travel is increasingly focussed on the development of language skills for a range of academic purposes.
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Bespoke provision and support for other institutions
Our focus this year has been on further enhancing the range of bespoke provision that the section offers to Departments/Faculties as well as further strengthening our In-Sessional Support Programme. On the bespoke provision side, in addition to the courses and workshops that we developed last year and which are all continuing on this year, we have also designed and delivered the following new initiatives in 2016-2017 in ADTIS have included: a two-week History of English for the Institute of Continuing Education’s International Summer Programme, on which we also deliver two plenary lectures (The History of English; Dialects of the British Isles); two workshops for the Institute of Criminology – Getting Published and Public Speaking Skills; co-delivery of the Researcher Development Programme’s Writing Retreat for PhD students; a workshop for the Department of Psychology on MPhil Dissertation: Planning, Research and Writing Skills; and for the Centre for South Asian Studies a workshop on Postgraduate Research and Writing Skills. Assessment numbers were slightly down this year on last year’s figures. And we have been continuing our collaboration with the Cambridge Admissions Testing Service (part of Cambridge Assessment) on the development of a new Test of Academic Literacy for PG entry. We have presented at conferences both nationally and internationally on the new test and we have also begun discussions with CUP as to the development of preparatory materials, both for the test but, more importantly, for study through the medium of English. Online developments Over this past year we have designed and developed four new online learning objects: Study Block, Procrastination and Perfectionism; What is Argumentation?; The Language of Argumentation; and Plagiarism and how to avoid it – all of which are available via the Language Centre website. In addition, we were successful in supporting an application to the Teaching and Learning Innovation Fund by DTAL to develop an online essay writing toolkit for Linguistics students, which should go live before MT 2017. General Enrolments on the Pre-Sessional were down this year, with 71 students from 24 countries, on account, we suspect, of difficulties in the processing times at the GAO. Numbers on the In-Sessional were, however, significantly higher.
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Specific purposes provision We agreed to deliver courses in Brazilian Portuguese for the MPhil in Latin American Studies, opening these up to other graduate students in SAH and SHSS. We added these to the established suite of Academic Reading courses and rebranded this provision as Languages for Academic Purposes (LAP). The newly offered Brazilian Portuguese attracted 20 graduate students. 8 from the Centre for Latin-American Studies (CLAS), 4 from the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the others from disciplines across the two Schools. We also continue to provide access to courses as required by a range of MPhil programmes in the Faculties of History, Divinity and for CLAS. We diversified our approach to delivering courses explicitly for the Clinical Schools, to fit changes in their organisation of placement blocks and self-selected components, attracting the largest number of enrolments to date, across a wide range of languages. We have been successfully delivering a co-taught IB Tripos module in German Lieder (with focus on Winterreise) for the Faculty of Music for several years. As a result of a review of Tripos, we are planning to replace this with a co-taught paper on Italian Opera (with focus on Don Giovanni) from 2017-18. General Enrolment numbers were down slightly reflecting national fluctuations. We have split the Basic courses into 2 levels: Basic 1 and 2 in French, Italian, German and Spanish. This was done to allow more time for the development of listening/speaking skills and the feedback from students is overwhelmingly positive. We have also introduced post-advanced level courses in French, Spanish and German. These courses are contentbased and use poetry, literature and film as a means to improve already sound language skills. In the academic 2017/18 we will introduce Turkish at Basic 1 and 2 levels for the first time. These courses are offered in conjunction with the Faculty of History and are supported by the Yunus Emre Turkish Cultural Centre in London. We ran successful courses leading to CULP Awards (certificated by the University) in advanced French, German, Spanish and Russian. We have discovered that the achievement of these Awards is no longer included on University transcripts and have made representation for this to be revisited. We continue to receive excellent feedback from our External Examiners.
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ADVISING AND SUPPORT FOR INDEPENDENT LANGUAGE LEARNING
Advising and Support for Independent Language Learning A: Developments in Advising for Language Learning Strategy Use We deepened our support for language study for academic purposes, such as research in the field. Following initial interest from the Department of Geography in support for researchers preparing for fieldwork abroad, a further ten Departments joined the project, with one-to-one and group support from our language advisers, learning twenty-five languages. In addition to the Study Group, a network of learners, facilitated by volunteer native speakers was developed, e.g. a fieldworker was successfully connected with a Javanese native speaker. A study of learner needs in developing proficiency and enjoyment in listening led to the creation of listening strategy workshops. These delivered research-informed practical advice for learners to develop their own strategies further. Feedback from high-functioning autistic spectrum and dyslexic learners was particularly positive, given their learning difficulties with sound. B: Learner-driven Conversation Activities The Conversation Hours, Conversation Exchange Scheme and Friends without Frontiers speaking practice sessions grew further, supporting many current and former students of CULP and ADTIS as well as our other learners. These peer-to-peer activities are some of the most valued by learners. C: The John Trim Centre The resource collection expanded further, prioritising coverage of particular languages in line with learner requests and trends, such as an increasing interest in African languages. In terms of rare accessions, we have researched and obtained some of the few resources in the world for languages such as MalinkÊ, Maasai and Tamil. In addition to the acquisition of physical Tamil resources, a Moodle site was set up to support a series of pilot lessons, following the Language Centre’s receipt of a philanthropic donation. In 2016-17 the JTC launched a film lending scheme for the first time.
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DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE LEARNING MATERIALS Five new learning objects to support international students have been developed and are now available to Cambridge students: Argumentation, Avoiding Plagiarism, Study-Block and Prevarication, What is Argumentation and Language of Argumentation. In collaboration with the Department of Theoretical and Applied Linguistics (MML) we are developing an innovative Online essay writing toolkit for Linguistics students. This toolkit is expected to be released for the academic year 2018/19. Eight intermediate level learning objects to support Russian students, developed in association with the Department of Slavonic Studies (MML), are now available. Four more are under development. In collaboration with the Italian Department (MML) we have built a learning resource based on an interview with the Italian author Andrea Camilleri. We expect to build similar video based resources for other languages and topics in the future. A new Chinese online resource to accompany the CULP Basic 2 course has been completed and tested. This completes the revamp of our basic level Chinese courses. We are currently converting a number of older resources into up-to-date formats. A typical example are the translation practice resources originally developed by the German Department (MML) and the conversion of video-based resources from Flash to HTML 5 video format. Working with colleagues from Tsinghua and Zhengzhou Universities we are researching the development of innovative Chinese reading resources, utilising a new Chinese Language Knowledge Base. Based on this work we hope to release a set of reading and grammar resources in 2018.
Most of our online-learning materials are made available as open courseware under a Commons Creative License. The figures below represent downloads of these materials from our Open Courseware Site, they do not include access to these materials directly on our own servers (restricted to Raven access). Language
Downloads
German Chinese Russian French Italian Arabic Others
27 553 11 966 3 564 3 499 1 627 1 048 1 069
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MATERIALS DEVELOPED IN 2016-17
New Chinese Basic 2 course.
Intermediate Russian resources developed in partnership with the Department of Slavonic Studies.
Chinese reading materials (pre-release).
New learning objects developed to support students on our Academic Development and Training for International Students.
Italian materials developed in partnership with the Department of Italian
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OUTREACH ACTIVITIES We have delivered the second year of the whynotlangs@cam2 collaborative MML/AMES/Language Centre project, which we lead. We took responsibility for all the administration of events in Cambridge, while MML colleagues ran the events in Manchester and Sheffield. An event planned for Newcastle did not run as the host school pulled out at short notice, following a problematic Ofsted inspection outcome. Sessions for all the events were delivered by a variety of staff from the Language Centre, MML and AMES. Feedback has continued to demonstrate the particularly striking impact on the lower age groups. During 2016-17, the Language Centre has worked with the Faculties of MML and AMES to set up a Languages Outreach Steering Group to facilitate greater collaboration and sharing of good practice, contacts and external communications. The Language Centre has supported both Faculties in the appointment of a Languages Outreach coordinator, by investing in the post for an initial period. We have contributed in various ways to a number of other outreach activities organised by Colleges and, once again, to the FAMES Sutton Trust summer school. We also provided support to MML on a Languages and Careers event hosted at Magdalene College in March.
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THE LANGUAGE CENTRE’S SERVICE TO THE WIDER UNIVERSITY The Language Centre has been developing numerous initiatives, resources and types of provision on behalf of other institutions across the University, as reported in previous sections. This is very much in line with our strategic priorities to embed the Centre and its expertise further within the Collegiate University. The Centre is also increasingly active in other cross-University activities and governance, as outlined below. International Admissions Dr Karen Ottewell, ADTIS Director, on behalf of the Language Centre, liaises closely with the Board of Graduate Studies on graduate admissions matters in relation to the University’s Language Condition for international students. She and the ADTIS team conduct supplementary assessments for admissions processes for the GAO as well as for the Institute of Continuing Education (Dip/Cert; MST; PG Medical Certificate; ISP), the International Student Team (ERASMUS; Visiting Students) and Clinical Schools (Medical Elective). She has also continued to support the international undergraduate admissions procedures in China, providing consultancy on the English language element of the Ameson Scholastic Test which is used to pre-select students for interview by the Cambridge interviewing team. Membership of Boards and Committees Jocelyn Wyburd, Director, was elected to the University’s Council from January 2017. She is also a member of the Council Committee for the Supervision of the Students’ Unions, the University’s Prevent Committee, the Standing Committee for Appointments in the UAS, and the Council’s Divestment Working Group. In 2016-17 she stood down from the University’s Health & Safety Executive Committee.
Jocelyn is also ex officio a member of the Council of the School of Arts & Humanities, the Faculty Boards of MML and AMES and the Engineering Department Language Unit’s Management Committee. Dr Karen Ottewell, ADTIS Director, was nominated as Pro-Proctor from October 2017, as which she will serve for three years. In the first two of these three years, she will be a member of the Board of Scrutiny and the Board of Examinations.
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Nebojša Radić, CULP Director, and Alex Drury, Language Centre Administrator until March 2017, were members of the School of Arts and Humanities Language Teaching Review working group. Other roles Jackie Bow, Pedro Barriuso-Algar, Paul Hoegger and Hazel Zheng (CULP Coordinators) continue to act as ‘second assessors’ for the Engineering Language Unit’s courses in French, Spanish, German and Chinese respectively. Jocelyn Wyburd continues to act as Academic Director for the Institute of Continuing Education’s language courses for the wider public.
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EXTERNAL PROFILE OF THE LANGUAGE CENTRE: INTERNATIONAL The Language Centre is regularly asked to collaborate with or provide consultation to a range of HEIs internationally, including in 2016-17:
A joint research project on the Rhetorical Diversity and the Implications for Teaching Academic English together with Tsinghua University (Beijing) and Hong Kong Polytechnic University; joint article on research so far published in the Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics (Vol. 3 No.1, 2016), pp.101-113. A collaboration with CUP Moscow to support the group of 20 elite Russian universities taking part in the Russian government’s 5-1002020 programme.
Individual members of staff are regularly engaged with international conferences and projects within their specific disciplines: Karen Ottewell, ADTIS Director ‘Encouraging better preparation. A new Test of Academic Literacy for entry onto postgraduate EMI courses’, ALTE 6th International Conference, Bologna, Italy. ‘Postgraduate EAL Writing – and the overlooked influence of Rhetorical Transfer’, CAES (Centre for Advanced English Study) Conference, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong. ‘Encouraging better preparation. A new Test of Academic Literacy for entry onto postgraduate EMI courses’, CAES (Centre for Advanced English Study) Conference, Hong Kong University, Hong Kong. ‘PG Entry Requirements to HE. What should we be testing? – A system for assessing Academic Literacy’, 3rd International Conference on ESP/EAP/EMI in the Context of Higher Education Internationalisation, MISiS, Moscow, Russia. Consultancy provided to the Cambridge Colleges with respect to the use of the AMESON Scholastic Test for UG entry: this involves consultancy on the nature of the English test and also joining the International UG interview team for the Cambridge Colleges in Shanghai in October to carry out speaking assessments New test of Academic Literacy: development of a new test of Academic Literacy for international students entering Anglophone graduate studies, with the Assessment Testing Service (Cambridge English Language Assessment) on the development of a new test of Academic Literacies for international students entering Anglophone graduate studies. Trials of the test have been conducted in collaboration with a number of Universities internationally.
Nebojša Radić, CULP Director Member of the Scientific Committee, Society and Languages in the Third Millennium conference RUDN University, Moscow, Russia Member of the Scientific and Organisation Committees, Culture and/or Science conference, University of Belgrade, Serbia Member of the International Board, ‘Interkulturalnost’ (Literature, culture and theory journal), Novi Sad, Serbia
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Editor of the Language section, ‘Ljudi govore’ (Literature journal), Toronto, Canada. Taught online course on English Academic Writing to students of the Law Faculty of the RUDN University, Moscow. ‘Language Teaching Preparation,’ paper delivered at ICT in Language Teaching and Learning Conference, Florence, Italy “Language and Identity,’ invited plenary talk at the Society and Languages in the Third Millennium conference, RUDN University, Moscow, Russia ‘Views on a Modern Teacher,’ written and delivered with Professor Nataliya Belenkova at the Society and Languages in the Third Millennium conference, RUDN, Moscow, Russia. ‘Literary Re-writing and Self-translation,’ paper delivered at the Culture and/or Science conference, University of Belgrade, Serbia
Jocelyn Wyburd, Director: Chair of the Quality Review Group for the Department of Languages & Applied Linguistics, University of Limerick, Ireland Strategically important languages for the UK, and provision across education sectors. Comparative seminar (UK/France) on Strategically Important Languages. Sorbonne University. Paris 2016 Christoph Zähner, Deputy Director Continued collaboration with Tsinghua and Zhangzhou Universities on the development of an integrated Chinese grammar module to support reading Chinese text. EXTERNAL PROFILE OF THE LANGUAGE CENTRE: NATIONAL Numerous members of staff were engaged with activity of national significance throughout the year, including: Jocelyn Wyburd, Director Completed a third year as Chair of the University Council of Modern Languages (UCML), representing the HE languages sector as a whole Appointed Trustee Director of the Institute of Linguists Educational Trust Appointed Member of the Advisory Board, Creative Multilingualism, AHRC OWRI funded major project led out of Oxford University Appointed Member of the Advisory Board, British Academy Flagship Skills Project Continues as a Member of the Board of the University of London Institute in Paris, attending meetings in London and Paris. Was the external member of the appointment panel for a Head of Modern Languages Programmes at the University of Oxford Language Centre.
Nebojsa Radic Member of the Executive Committee of the Language Learning Frameworks nation-wide project supported by a British Academy grant.
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Vera Tsareva-Brauner (CULP Russian Coordinator) Member of the Slavic Languages Working Group (Language Learning Frameworks nation-wide project). Jackie Bow (CULP French and Assessment Coordinator) Became member of UKALTA (UK Association for Language testing and Assessment).
Paul Hoegger (CULP German Coordinator) Member of the jury for a translation competition of the DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst). In charge of awarding the prizes for the category undergraduates (Institute of Modern Languages Research, London). National conference/workshop presentations and publications: Karen Ottewell, ADTIS Director ‘Postgraduate EAL Writing – and the overlooked influence of Rhetorical Transfer’, EATAW (European Association of Teachers of Academic Writing) Conference, Royal Holloway, UK. ‘Encouraging better preparation. A new Test of Academic Literacy for entry onto postgraduate EMI courses’, CfP BAAL (British Association of Applied Linguists): Testing, Evaluation & Assessment SIG, Northampton, UK (delivered by Jocelyn Wyburd) Ottewell, K. & Lim, W.M. (2016). ‘PhD: Been there, done that – so why do a second, (professional) doctorate?’ In: Burnard. P et. Al (eds) Transformative Doctoral Research Practices for Professionals. Sense Publishers: Rotterdam, 29-43. Jocelyn Wyburd, Director Encouraging better preparation: a new Test of Academic Literacy for entry onto postgraduate EMI course on behalf of Dr Karen Ottewell (University of Cambridge Language Centre). “Innovations in English for Academic Purposes (EAP) assessment. BAAL Testing, Evaluation and Assessment SIG. University of Northampton 2017. Wyburd, J (2017) Transnational graduates and employability: challenges for HE languages departments. In Alvarez-Mayo, C, Gallagher Brett, A & Michel, F (Eds) (2017) “Innovative language teaching and learning at university: enhancing employability”. Research-publishing.net. https://research-publishing.net/content.php? doi=10.14705/rpnet.2017.innoconf2016.9781908416506 Wyburd, J (2016) Opinion: Brexit and the importance of languages for Britain #3. University of Cambridge. http://www.cam.ac.uk/news/ opinion-brexit-and-the-importance-of-languages-for-britain-3 . Also published in the Cambridge Independent Newspaper 20/10/2016. Wyburd, J (2016) Learning without EU: Jocelyn Wyburd predicts the fate of UK languages education post Brexit. The Linguist 55.5 pps 1113. CiOL. http://thelinguist.uberflip.com/t/34433-the-linguist
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RESOURCES & ADMINISTRATION Staffing changes John Anderson, Computer Officer has continued to be seconded to the Department of Biochemistry. Catherine Cossio, Information and Resources Assistant, went on maternity leave and gave birth to a son. Her post is being covered by Monica Boria. Alex Drury, Administrator, left to join the Faculty of Music and has been replaced by Jo Farmer-Eynon, who joined us from the UAS. Zoe Mavridi, CULP Administrator, left the Centre for a new role in Cambridge Assessment, and Bagir Agajevs was appointed to replace her. Eva Sinfield, CULP German Teacher, will retire in September 2017. Nikola Baumgarten has been appointed to replace her. Sudharsan Sridharan joined the Language Centre as a Worker to deliver Tamil tutoring. Jan Wong, Web and Online Learning Manager, retired. Continuing professional development Our commitment to continuing professional development included the following: Dr Karen Ottewell, ADTIS Director, has completed the 2nd year of her Ed.D. Dr Kate Daniels, ADTIS teacher, has successfully completed the Undergraduate Certificate in Coaching (through ICE) Ruth Hatcher, CULP Spanish teacher, has successfully completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, through ICE Numerous members of Language Centre staff attended the Annual Conference of the Association of University Language Centres (AULC) in Belfast in January 2017. Five CULP staff attended the biennial AULC Languages for Specific Purposes conference in Cambridge in September 2016. Nebojsa Radic, CULP Director is completing his PhD in creative writing and self-translation (expected by November 2017). External Examiners Pedro Barriuso-Algar (Spanish Teacher/Coordinator, CULP) is external examiner at the University of Brighton and also Examiner Cambridge Professional Development Qualifications (CIE) Karen Ottewell (ADTIS Director) has completed her second year as External Examiner for the Foundation Programme (January Intake) at the University of St. Andrews, and this year she was also appointed as External for their In-Sessional Programme. Vera Tsareva-Brauner (Russian Teacher/Coordinator, CULP) is external examiner at Keele University and at Westminster University, City University London.
Christoph Zähner (Deputy Director), External project assessor for the University of Hong Kong.
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Estate The team has worked with the Estate Management Maintenance Section over the last year on a number of improvements to our facilities, both essential and desirable. Our major project this year was the installation of a new, more environmentally friendly and energy-efficient lighting system on the Gallery. The new lighting system also brings significant benefits in terms of staff wellbeing during the summer months as it attracts far fewer insects than the previous system.
General Administration The team continued to coordinate the delivery of outreach projects by the Language Centre and partners in the MML and AMES. We provided bursary administration for both the A.J. Pressland Fund and the AHSS Language Bursary scheme. Language Centre Committee of Management The Committee has met termly and supported all aspects of the Language Centre’s business, including through a sub-group administering the A.J. Pressland Fund and allocating bursaries. The LCCM derives its membership from all Schools of the University, from the Colleges (a representative of the Senior Tutors’ Committee) and from CUSU. The Committee of Management looks forward to welcoming Professor Ann Copestake, Computer Laboratory, as its new Chair from 2017-18 and thanks the outgoing Chair, Professor Chris Young, for his service. LANGUAGE CENTRE FINANCIAL STATEMENT 2016-17
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A.J. PRESSLAND FUND The A.J. Pressland Fund offers bursaries of up to £1,000 to support language study abroad for students within the Schools of Biological Science, Clinical Medicine, Physical Science and Technology. Returning students planning to study a language overseas for up to 4 weeks during the Long Vacation may apply for funds to support course fees, accommodation and travel as required. In 2016, 70 students applied to the fund and a total of £10,300 was awarded to 15 applicants (average award: £687). In 2017, 46 valid applications were received and a total of £10,750 was awarded to 14 applicants (average award: £827).
2016
2017
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