CONTENTS Page 2. About the Language Centre and Introduction Page 3. Academic Development & Training for International Students Page 5. Cambridge University Language Programmes Page 7. Advising & Support for Independent Learners Page 9. Development of Online Learning Materials Page 11. Outreach Activity Page 13. Support for University Institutions Page 15. External Profile of the Language Centre Page 18. A.J. Pressland Fund Page 19. Finance & Administration
Page 1
About the Language Centre We live in a multilingual and multicultural society, both here at Cambridge and beyond the University. Developing the language and intercultural skills for academic, professional and social purposes has never been more important. The Language Centre is dedicated to supporting all members of the University community to develop these skills and we look forward to seeing you soon. What do we do? We deliver a range of general purpose courses as well as many courses specifically designed around academic skills requirements or focussed on needs in particular disciplines. We support the induction and on-going needs of international students in respect of Academic English. We provide personalised language learning advice, as well as opportunities for peer- and native-speaker supported learning. We house an extremely well-stocked l learning centre and resource base, both physical and online. It currently encompasses 170 languages and continually develops in response to learner needs. We develop bespoke online resources to enhance learning opportunities for and beyond our courses. We advise learners and, where relevant, their Departments on language learning needs and levels. We administer funding arrangements and bursaries, as agreed with specific Departments, to ensure targeted access to language learning opportunities. We support learners in choosing short intensive courses abroad and exploring funding opportunities for language study overseas, including our own A.J. Pressland Fund bursaries for students in the sciences. Who for? Our courses, resources and support services are available to Undergraduates and Graduate Students, Academic and non-Academic Staff from all Faculties, Departments and Colleges. Some of our bespoke courses developed for specific Faculties/Departments are available exclusively to specific cohorts of students. Annual Report 2014-15 Demand has continued to grow this year for existing Language Centre courses, learning support and resources and we have continued to diversify our range of services. We have introduced additional languages and levels, new provision for specific groups of learners and institutions across the Collegiate University and a number of new learner support initiatives. The overall direction of travel is increasingly academic and specialised across all areas of activity (see pages 13-14: Support for University Institutions).
Page 2
Having re-branded this area of activity to attempt to rectify the perception that it deals mainly with remedial English as Foreign Language Skills, we took the opportunity to communicate as widely as possible across the Collegiate University the nature of provision we provide, focussing on academic skills in English, in terms of contrastive discourse and rhetoric as well as adapting academic skills to an English-medium/British academic tradition. Feedback has revealed how important this move has been and resulted in new provision tailored to specific groups and institutions. Examples: Homerton and Queen’s Colleges, The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs; the Computer Lab; the Faculty of Education (Kazakh Teachers’ Development Programme); the JBS Doctoral Support Programme; Editing Groups and Writing Skills Summer School or the Researcher Development Programme; Achieving Clarity in Writing for the Centre for Latin American Studies. Numbers were slightly down on this year’s Pre-Sessional (58 as opposed to 72 last year), but numbers on the regular In-Sessional Programme roughly remained constant. We launched the Bespoke Workshops & Training for Colleges and Departments last year and this has led to both an expansion in terms of numbers as well as in the range of our in-sessional provision. The overall number of assessments is slightly down this year, in particular those for the GAO. We will be discussing the possible reasons for this in our meeting with the GAO in October. We have, meanwhile, been working with Cambridge Admissions Testing Service (part of Cambridge Assessment) on the development of a new Academic Literacy Test which could in future be required for eligible international applicants, instead of our own assessments, in addition to tests of English language. We shall be conducting focus groups nationally and internationally in the coming year and the aim is that the new test will have a major impact on international admissions to English medium HE worldwide in due course. Due to breaches of contract by the China UK Development Council, we delivered the last of our teaching on their Cambridge-based courses in Lent term. While this now represents a loss of external income, we are developing new relationships with individual HEIs in other countries and delivered what we hope will be the first of many courses for graduate students of Beijing Foreign Studies University in July 2015.
Page 3
ADTIS Pre-Sessional 2015 70
60 50 40 30
20 10 0 2011
2012
2013 2014 Required to attend
ADTIS In-Sessional 2014-15
225 200 175 150 125 100 75 50 25 0
80
2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15
2015
Elective
Half Conditional
Full Conditional
Student Type Post-Doc 2% Other 22%
Other 1% UG 7%
MPhil 40%
MBA 14%
PhD 46%
PG (1-Year) 44%
PhD 24%
School 2%
10%
3%
33%
Arts & Humanities
18%
12%
Biological Sciences Clinical Medicine
34%
Arts & Humanities
13%
Humanities & Social Sciences Physical Sciences
4%
22%
Technology
1400
Biological Sciences
31% Clinical Medicine Humanities & Social Sciences Physical Sciences
18% Technology
English Language Assessments
1200 1000 800 600
400 200 0 2010-11 2011-12 UG ICE Dip.Cert & MSt Erasmus
2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 Visiting Students ICE (International Summer School) GAO
Page 4
We delivered the award-bearing, externally examined Advanced Italian course for the first time this year which now sits alongside our CULP Awards in French, German and Spanish, as well as new provision in Russian through Film and Business German. We delivered Basic Russian split into Basic 1 and Basic 2 for the first time in 2014-15 very successfully. We introduced a pilot short course in Persian attracting 15 participants immediately and now teach at a variety of levels in Arabic, Chinese, French, German, Greek, Italian, Japanese, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swahili. As a result of increasing demand and retention in Russian and Arabic we have developed new higher levels of both to be offered from 2015-16, including a new CULP Award in Advanced Russian course for the first time. We agreed with the Centre for South Asian Studies to develop and offer two Urdu courses from 2015-16, primarily for their MPhil students, but open to the rest of the University too. This follows a model developed originally with Swahili for the Centre for African Studies. We added additional levels to our suite of Academic Reading courses for the Schools of the Humanities and Social Sciences and Arts and Humanities graduate training framework and will be introducing provision in Russian from next year alongside French, German, Italian and Spanish . A positive trend of increased enrolment continues with student numbers up 5% on last year. The introduction of new languages and levels did not have a negative impact on our most popular languages (French, Spanish) and we witnessed another year of steady increase in the number of students taking German. These continued increases are in spite of having completed three years of our four-year phased increase in CULP fees. We have been delighted with the increase in numbers for our CULP Award (advanced level courses certificated by the University) and with the excellent feedback received from our External Examiners: The standard of students’ performance clearly reflects the high quality of the programme. ...an excellent Programme that undeniably enhances the students’ education and experience… Concerning the standards… they are not only comparable with similar programmes in other UK institutions with which I am familiar, but in fact they exceed those.
Page 5
Academic Reading Courses
General Language Courses 1600
350
1400
300
1200
250
Staff
1000 800
PG
600 UG
400
SHSS
150
SAH
100 50
200
0
0 2010-11
80
200
2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
2010-11
2014-15
Students Achieving CULP Award
70%
60
60%
50
Italian
50%
40
German
40%
Spanish
30%
French
20%
30 20
10
2012-13
2013-14
2014-15
Retention Rates
80%
70
2011-12
General Purpose Reading Courses
10%
0 2011-12
2012-13
2013-14
0%
2014-15
2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15
General Language Courses by School
29%
2%
Arts & Humanities
Mother Tongue
Humanities & Social Sciences Physical Sciences Biological Sciences Technology
58%
Other
28%
Clinical Medicine
6%
English Italian Bilingual (English +) French German Chinese Russian Romanian Polish Spanish Portuguese Hungarian Other (less than 1%)
Colleges (2014-15) Trinity College No Affiliation Newnham College St John's College Jesus College King's College
8.9% 6.9% 4.3% 4.1% 3.8% 3.8%
Girton College Not given Selwyn College Darwin College Pembroke College Homerton College
3.2% 3.0% 2.9% 2.9% 2.9% 2.9%
Churchill College Hughes Hall Murray Edwards College Corpus Christi Peterhouse Sidney Sussex
2.5% 2.3% 2.1% 2.0% 2.0% 1.9%
Wolfson College
3.8%
St Edmund's College
2.9%
Magdalene College
1.7%
Queens' College Fitzwilliam College Emmanuel College St Catharine's College
3.4% 3.4% 3.2% 3.2%
Trinity Hall Gonville and Caius College Clare College Christ's College
2.8% 2.7% 2.6% 2.6%
Robinson College Downing College Clare Hall Lucy Cavendish College
1.7% 1.6% 1.0% 0.9%
Page 6
ADVISING AND SUPPORT FOR INDEPENDENT LANGUAGE LEARNING The number of participants in our pre-booked activities has increased to over 700 this year with participants in our Conversation Exchange programme pushing this figure up over 1,000. This is an impressive learner support outcome for such a small team and is amongst the most productive Advising provisions in the UK, as evidenced from knowledge of other Language Centres and discussion with AULC colleagues at the 2015 conference. This is noteworthy as language advising activities are in decline nationally. The team have developed a range of new learner support initiatives designed to draw more University members into the learning centre resulting in more than 4,400 visits over the last year. We introduced new workshops on specific language learning strategies and drop-in Study Groups for allcomers and for specific cohorts of students according to perceived demand. These are proving to be a popular and valuable addition to our peersupported study initiatives. We have adopted the strategy of offering more workshops and peer-to-peer support opportunities for two reasons: 1. To offer a greater diversity of events for learners to choose from and to facilitate their sharing a greater diversity of ideas with each other. 2. To increase the number of learners we provide for, as we have reached the maximum number of one-to-one appointments that current staffing can provide. The Advising team’s motivation is not to teach learners but to facilitate their independent thinking and strategy-building, and these activities further bolster our achievement of this goal. Individual Learners
Group Support
400
350
350
300 1-1 Appointment
250
250
No. Learners
No. Learners
300
Friends without Frontiers
200 150
Language Study Groups
200
Study Abroad Workshops
150 100
100
Conversation Hours
50
50
-
2013-14
2013-14
2014-15
2014-15
Learner Status 5%
4%
10%
36%
PG
UG Postdoc 45%
Page 7
A new initiative, Friends without Frontiers, provides learners looking for more speaking practice with the opportunity to meet a native speaker of their target language in the learning centre. The volunteers have been numerous in coming forward and this is proving to be a very popular activity with a consistently large take-up. This programme has allowed us to expand into support for speaking in some lesser-studied languages, including Persian and Urdu, benefitting independent learners, students on our own CULP courses and those in the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. Advising support to the CULP team has been further developed this year, with 56% of advising appointments taken up by their students, as well as significant student take-up of reading strategy workshops to complement CULP academic reading courses, and one-to-one learning strategy appointments delivered for the medical students choosing to pursue language learning for their Student Selected Component (SSC) of their degree. We also offer workshops to international students and offer vocal training to ADTIS pre-sessional students. The popularity of our student-driven Conversation Hours programme has continued this year with an expansion of our languages to include English, French, German Spanish and Arabic and an increase in the number of participants increasing by of 17%. We hope to add Chinese and Russian from 2015-16. Our support for students in the sciences has also been further developed with additional workshops and our participation in the long-listing of candidates for the A.J. Pressland Fund bursaries. The project to reorganise and reclassify the resources held in the John Trim Centre was completed. We now have a simple to navigate system for organising all our resources which immensely benefits our users. 519 new resource acquisitions have been added to the John Trim Centre.
Resource Expenditure 23%
55%
Book CD DVD
22%
Page 8
DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE LEARNING MATERIALS We have developed a number of new ‘learning objects’ to support international students: Approaches to Editing, Writing Abstracts, and will soon finalise: Literature Reviews and The Self-Study Toolkit In addition to the Russian, German and Italian resources developed in collaboration with colleagues in MML (see page 13), we have been redeveloping our Chinese resources and are starting work on online resources in Arabic focussing initially on the essentials of Basic Arabic. Working with our Language Advising Team, we have developed a Moodle site with a variety of resources to support students in choosing a short language course abroad. Once publicly released, under a Creative Commons Licence, our online learning resources can be downloaded by individuals and institutions the world over. Our download figures suggest that demand is still very high. There is also evidence than a number of educational institutions across the world are hosting our courseware for their own students.
Courseware Downloads 361,296
293,103
181,676
2012-2013
2013-2014
Russian 45,559
2014-15
New Testament Greek 276
Chinese 129,210
German 116,908
French 3,178
Italian 687
Page 9
MATERIALS DEVELOPED IN 2014-15
Russian materials developed in partnership with the Department of Slavonic Studies
Updated Just In Time Grammar resource developed in partnership with the Department of German and Dutch
New French Versification materials developed with the Department of French to support undergraduate teaching in MML.
New online learning materials developed to support students engaged on our own Academic Development & Training for International Students programme.
Page 10
OUTREACH ACTIVITIES We completed our existing Widening Participation Fund 3-year project this year with events held in Cambridge for 3 different cohorts (KS3, KS4 and Sixth formers) to motivate continuity in language learning and promote Cambridge as a destination to aspire to. We drew supplementary funding from Routes into Languages East of England to offer more places than would otherwise have been possible. Feedback has continued to demonstrate the particularly striking impact on the lower age groups. Led by colleagues in MML, an additional event was held in Hereford as a pilot for the new project starting in 2015-16. We are very grateful to Downing and Magdalene Colleges for letting us hold the Cambridge events in such fantastic surroundings. We were successful in our joint bid with the Faculties of MML and AMES to run a new 3-year project building on the previous one, running 2015-1018. It will include both Cambridge- and regionally-based activities. 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 continue to participate in the planning of Routes into Languages activities in the East of England as members of the project board and have contributed to events organised by partners, including the UEA language teachers’ network meeting on new school curricula and qualifications at which we contributed a keynote talk. The Director was the after dinner speaker at the annual Oliver Prior Society weekend conference for language teachers, at Downing College. The OPS is run by the Faculty of MML.
Outreach Event Attendance 2014-15: Pupils
Outreach Event Attendance 2014-15: Schools Y12 Events
Y12 Regional Events
Y10 Events
Y8/9 Events
Y12 Events
Y12 Regional Events
Y10 Events
Y8/9 Events
76
14 18
133 60
12
2
109
Page 11
Impact: Y12 Events (Regional) Before 40%
Impact: Y12 Events (Cambridge)
After
Before 67%
After
49%
43%
24%
21%
29% 6%
Intend to study languages at university
Intend to apply to Cambridge
Intend to study languages at university
Intend to apply to Cambridge
Impact: Y10 Events Before
After
51% 40% 35% 24% 12%
11%
Intend to study languages Intend to study languages Intend to study languages at AS at A2 at University
Impact: Y18/9 Events Before
After
83% 70% 49%
19%
46%
15%
Intend to study languages Intend to study languages Intend to study languages at GCSE at A Level at University
Page 12
SUPPORT FOR UNIVERSITY INSTITUTIONS The Schools of the Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS) and Arts and Humanities (SAH) have agreed to provide us with recurrent funding to deliver the framework of language training for their graduate students which we first developed in 2013-14. The framework extends to specific language provision for SHSS Area studies centres MPhil students and we will launch Urdu courses for the Centre for South Asian Studies in 2015-16 as a result, building on the model for Swahili for the Centre for African Studies launched in 2013-14. We also continue to administer a bursary scheme for SHSS/SAH PhD students to access language courses which fall outside of the framework. Our support for the Graduate Admissions Office in respect of the Language Condition of entry for international students was scrutinised as part of a successful Home Office Audit of the University’s procedures. We also carry out assessments for the Institute of Continuing Education (Dip/ Cert; MST; PG Medical Certificate), the International Student Team (ERASMUS; Visiting Students) and Clinical Schools (Medical Elective). We are delivering workshops on academic literacy and proofreading skills for international graduate students in Homerton College and are developing provision for Queens’ College graduate students as well. We have also delivered an English programme for the volunteers at the Office of Postdoctoral Affairs, which will continue in 2015. We are continuing to collaborate with the Researcher Development Programme in the provision of Editing Groups for both native and non-native PhD students as well as contributing to their annual Writings Skills Summer School. In addition, we continue to offer individual presentation skills training as part of the Judge Business School’s Doctoral Support Programme and we have two new programmes lined up for 2015-2015: one with the Faculty of Education (9month language enhancement programme for a group of 20 Kazakh teachers) and Achieving Clarity in Writing for Latin American Studies. We have continued to support the Colleges with 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. Collaboration with the Clinical Schools to increase access to language courses within the framework of their Self Selected Components resulted in record numbers taking up the opportunity in a diverse set of languages and learning pathways. This programme is being further reviewed for 2015-16. 2014-15 was the first year of a 3-year programme of development of Russian online materials in association with the Department of Slavonic Studies, enabled by a philanthropic donation. The first resources will be released to students during 2015-16. Following the completion of the new version of Just in Time German Grammar, developed with colleagues in the Department of German and Dutch, we are now collaborating with the Department of Italian on a new Just in Time Italian Grammar resource.
Page 13
We also developed a learning object on French Versification for the Department of French to support undergraduate teaching. CULP language Coordinators have been appointed as ‘second assessors’ to the Department of Engineering Language Unit as part of their review of quality assurance procedures, and feedback on this scheme has been very positive. We participated fully in the School of Arts and Humanities Review of arrangements for Language Teaching in MML, AMES, Classics and the Language Centre. A wide range of staff provided input to the review process, while the Director was a member of the working group. We continued to support the Institute for Continuing Education in its provision of language courses to the wider public and have worked towards offering a pilot weekend course in Polish in 2015-16 and a new weekly course in Brazilian Portuguese in the run-up to the Rio Olympics. The significant expansion of learning support activities delivered by the Advising team have reached out to a consistently wide range of departmental language learners and encouraged them to increase their use of the learning centre and resources. These expanded activities include new learning workshops, study group development, a volunteer scheme for regular conversation practice, and the introduction of a new Arabic conversation hour. Postgraduate students from the Faculty of History and the Clinical School are two examples of the team’s closer collaborations. As part of work with Trinity College to support their students with their study abroad bursary applications, the Advising team have developed the first Language Centre Moodle site that will be used not only by Trinity students but any learners across the University who would like information and encouragement to attend a short intensive course abroad.
Page 14
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 from 2014-15: 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; A collaboration with CUP Moscow to support the group of 20 elite Russian universities taking part in the Russian government’s 5-100-2020 programme. In addition to Centre-wide activity, individual members of staff are regularly engaged with international conferences and projects within their specific disciplines: Karen Ottewell, ADTIS Director ‘Rhetorical Diversity and the Implications for Teaching Academic English’, CAES Conference, Hong Kong University with Professor Lu (Tsinghua) and Dr Li (Hong Kong PolyU); requested to submit a paper to be published in the Asian Journal of Applied Linguistics ‘The Cambridge Approach’, MISiS University (Moscow) (Plenary) ‘Cultural Modes of Argumentation’, MISiS University (Moscow) ‘Using technology in English language learning’, MISiS University (Moscow) 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 Nebojša Radić, CULP Director ‘’Academic Reading for Post-graduates.’ Conference ICT for Language Learning, Florence (Italy), 2014. ‘Criss-crossing the Language Boundaries: an Expression of the Pluringual Self,’ Symposium on Self-Translation. University of Vitoria-Gastheiz (Spain) 2015. Christoph Zähner, Deputy Director 'The Chinese-English Contrastive Language Knowledge Base and Its Applications' 13th China National Conference, Chinese Computational Linguistic and Natural Language Processing Conference, 2014, Wuhan, China Advisor to 'Automatic Generation of Personalized Language-Learning Exercises on Mobile Devices' project, City University of Hong Kong
Page 15
EXTERNAL PROFILE OF THE LANGUAGE CENTRE NATIONAL The Language Centre organised the Annual Conference and AGM of the Association of University Language Centres in the UK & Ireland (AULC) in January 2015, holding the event in Downing College. The Vice Chancellor formally opened the proceedings and was subsequently cited by participants throughout the event. We raised c. ÂŁ15K in sponsorship from a variety of institutions to meet the costs of the conference and received superb feedback on its success in all respects. There were numerous inputs to the conference by Language Centre staff, raising the profile of our pedagogic practice and research-led initiatives. In addition, numerous members of staff were engaged with activity of national significance throughout the year: Jocelyn Wyburd, Director Jocelyn is in her second year as Chair of the University Council of Modern Languages. She has participated in a variety of activities including for the All Party Parliamentary Group on Languages, the British Academy and The Guardian, including as a member of a high level policy round table. She has coordinated numerous responses to policy developments, particularly in relation to education and qualifications policies affecting languages and a review of British Academy priorities. She has given numerous talks setting the context of languages in HE in wider educational and national policy contexts. She liaises regularly with HEFCE in relation to support for languages in English HE and cross-sectoral initiatives. She has been quoted in the press, including The Times Higher, The Guardian and in specialist journals from language-related bodies. She is also in her second year as Chair of the National Advisory Board for the HEFCE funded demand-raising programme of university outreach with schools: Routes into Languages, on behalf of which she also attends meetings of the HEFCE steering group. Jocelyn was the external member of the steering group reviewing governance and organisation of the Department of Languages and Linguistic Science at the University of York and subsequently of the Implementation Group to take forward the recommendations. Jocelyn Is on the Board of the University of London Institute in Paris, attending meetings in London and Paris and was a member of the AHRC Open World Research Initiative Expressions of Interest shortlisting panel (December 2014). Jocelyn was also external assessor as part of the process of approval of new degree programmes combining languages and linguistics at the University of Warwick.
Page 16
Jackie Bow, French Teacher/Coordinator (CULP) ‘French for Medical Students,’ at the Languages for Specific Purposes Conference in Manchester, 2015. Emma Furuta, Language Adviser ‘Supporting learners to exploit their diversity: listening strategy development’, AULC parallel session, January 2015. Karen Ottewell, ADTIS Director ‘English Language Entrance Requirements: What should we be testing?’, University of St. Andrews annual EAP Conference. ‘What studying in English actually means’, at the inaugural meeting of the internationalisation strand of the International Alliance of Research Universities, held at the University of Oxford. ‘Is language a barrier to attainment?’, invited as a plenary speaker at the University of the Arts’ annual staff conference and on the strength of which has been invited to act as a consultant in the matter for UAL;. ‘Rhetorical Diversity and the Implications for Language Teaching’, University of Cambridge: AULC Conference. Nebojša Radić, CULP Director ‘Designing a VLE for an Academic Reading Courses.’ Presentation at AULC Conference, Downing College, Cambridge 2015. External Examiners Pedro Barriuso-Algar (Spanish Teacher/Coordinator, CULP) is external examiner at the University of Brighton. Karen Ottewell (ADTIS Director) recently completed a four-year term at the University of Winchester and is staying on at Winchester’s request as a critical friend. Karen has also recently been appointed External Examiner for the Foundation Programme at the University of St. Andrews. Nebojša Radić (CULP Director) is external Examiner in Italian at the University of Bath Centre for Foreign Languages. Vera Tsareva-Brauner (Russian Teacher/Coordinator, CULP) is external examiner at Keele University.
Page 17
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 2014, 53 students applied to the fund and a total of £10,625 was awarded to 19 applicants (average award: £559). In 2015, 65 valid applications were received and a total of £10,300 was awarded to 21 applicants (average award: £490).
2014
2015
50% 40%
40% 2014 applications
30% 20% 10%
2014 awards made
0%
2015 applications
30% 20% 10%
2015 awards made
0%
French 21%
5%
German
French
29%
Hindi
42%
Italian 16%
German Russian
43%
Japanese
Spanish 14%
Polish
6%
5% 5% 5%
Spanish
9%
10%
10% 32%
14%
PhD
PhD
UG1
21%
UG2
9%
29%
32%
UG1 UG2
UG3 (returning) 5%
Swahili
UG3 (returning)
UG4 (returning) 38%
UG5 (returning)
Page 18
FINANCE & ADMINISTRATION Staffing We reviewed our CULP staffing requirements in light of the increase in numbers of courses and languages delivered and made new appointments of salaried staff (in place of hourly paid worker arrangements) in German, Japanese and Portuguese. We also made a new appointment in French following a resignation. We have recruited new teachers to deliver Urdu, Persian and Hebrew for our introductory courses in these languages. In addition to extensive contribution as presenters at the Annual Conference of the AULC in Cambridge by numerous members of Language Centre staff, there has been increasing take-up of opportunities to attend other networking events and workshops, including one on Spanish teaching held in Durham, attended by our full Spanish team (3 staff) and one in Manchester on Languages for Specific Purposes that was attended by the French and Russian Coordinators. Following the retirement of our Resource Library and Media Assistant and in anticipation of the return (part time) from maternity leave of our Information Assistant (Reception) we have recruited to a new full time ‘combined’ post of Information and Resources Assistant. Estate The team has worked with the Estate Management Maintenance department over the last year on some small but significant improvements to our facilities, from the installation of much needed bicycle racks for our students and visitors to the development of plans to improve the working environment for our Reception team and protect our IT network. We have also continued with our scheduled replacement of carpets and organised the installation of effective hand-driers in all washrooms to cut paper waste and, in the longterm, cost. 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. General Administration In addition to coordinating Language Centre outreach projects and providing support to the Faculties of Modern & Medieval Languages and Asian & Middle Eastern Studies with new joint outreach activity, the Administration team coordinated the hosting of the national conference for Association of University Language Centres (AULC) in January 2015. This included the creation of a framework sponsorship scheme which has been adopted by subsequent host institutions.
Page 19
The team also supported the recruitment five new posts across the Language Centre and continued with improvements to administrative processes including consistent communications around course enrolment. Finance 2014-15 was the penultimate year of our plan to increase CULP fees to a market rate (equivalent to comparator Universities) and we are pleased to note that the CULP budget has reached a breakeven point this year. This allows us to proceed with plans to recruit permanent staff to meet the needs of the programme from 2015-16 and beyond. 2015-16 will be the final year of significant fee increase after which we look forward to maintaining CULP fees in line with inflation. The team also agreed effective enrolment arrangements for our courses with Faculties/Departments where students are required to complete a CULP course. LANGUAGE CENTRE FINANCIAL STATEMENT 2014-15 ADMIN Income/Funds Allocated Expenditure section surplus / (deficit) JTC/ADVICE Income/Funds Allocated Expenditure section surplus / (deficit) ADTIS Income/Funds Allocated Expenditure section surplus / (deficit) CULP Income/Funds Allocated Expenditure section surplus / (deficit) TECHNICAL Income/Funds Allocated Expenditure section surplus / (deficit)
271,309 271,883 (574) 137,672 137,671 0
£2,998 reallocated as overhead to ADTIS and CULP
395,898 394,908 990
Inc. £34,569 overhead charges
403,057 402,402 655
Inc. £42,759 overhead charges
384,822 384,822 0
£40,953 reallocated as overhead to ADTIS and CULP
TOTAL INCOME / FUNDS ALLOCATED IN YEAR)
1,592,759
TOTAL EXPENDITURE
1,591,687
surplus / (deficit) on year Available Funds not allocated in 2014-15 Reserves invested long-term General Donation Fund Capital Pressland Fund Capital (not spendable)
£33,377 reallocated as overhead to ADTIS and CULP (planned overspend on equipment)
1,072 190,148 419,957 13,146 460,256
Not invested Spendable Capital Spendable Capital Restricted Capital - not available for expenditure
Page 20