12. Specialists in disciplines other than Languages
Early in the LARA Project, it became clear that, although the project was primarily concerned with students on specialist language degrees, much of its work would be relevant to any student spending an extended period of residence abroad and to the staff who support and prepare them.
The NRAD survey was largely aimed at departments of languages but asked for information on modules that formed part of other degree courses and which included a minimum three-week period of residence abroad. In this way, some data were gathered on students from other disciplines, and although not enough information was returned to justify talking with any real confidence about broad trends, nevertheless the answers received from such respondents make interesting reading. For example, asked who provided academic/intercultural/linguistic preparation specifically for residence abroad, many respondents said that it was part of the content of language modules provided by the Languages Department or Language Centre. Asked about the principal purpose of residence abroad, most responded that they considered transferable and employment skills to be most important. These were often ranked above knowledge of the target language, which was sometimes ranked lowest of all. For a full analysis of the responses from staff in disciplines other than languages, click here.
Early in year two of the project, a focus-group was set up to discuss topics of particular relevance to those preparing specialists in other disciplines for periods of residence abroad. Another issue of interest to this group was how to encourage residence abroad generally, especially amongst students on Institution-Wide Language Programmes. Among the many topics discussed were:
Many of the ideas that resulted from these discussions were synthesised into a simulation game - The Residence Abroad for All Game.
Some interesting practice has been developed in a number of HEIs.
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The University of Greenwich has a 12-week, 15-credit module, the European Contextual Studies Unit, which is aimed at students undertaking international placements as part of their course of study. There are six tutorials which concentrate specifically on preparation for work/study abroad and six others on background topics. The module was devised by the Languages Unit in close collaboration with the Careers Advisory Service. Making the Most of the Experience Abroad is a materials pack which has been devised by the Careers Service at the University of Leeds. It suggests a variety of group activities to use with students preparing for a period abroad, with a particular emphasis on the development of key and transferable skills. The Prospects website (http://www.prospects.csu.ac.uk/pd/) is a good source of information for both staff and students. Put together by the Higher Education Careers Information service, it contains information on work placements, on the career benefits of short-term experience abroad and much more. The University of Sheffield, a member of the Interculture Project consortium, has been working on the use of diaries during residence abroad and is developing a diary for Engineering students on work-placements. For further details of this work and the use of diaries more generally, see the project website at: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/users/interculture/ The work-placement preparation module for Engineering students at the University of Sheffield Language Centre has a website (http://www.shef.ac.uk/~mltc/llpe/llpe.html). There are tasks and materials (including role-plays) in four languages: French, German, Spanish and English. There are several FDTL projects which deal directly or indirectly with work placements. They include EQUIPE (Educational Quality in Placements in Engineering), SIP (Sociologists in Placements) and MaPPiT (Mapping the Placement Process with IT). Further details can be found on the FDTL website (http://www.ncteam.ac.uk/fdtl.html). |
One of the first outcomes of the focus-group was a workshop held at the University of Abertay for a mixed group of language specialist staff and staff from other disciplines as disparate as Nursing and Law. One of the main points raised at this meeting was the difficulty many disciplines experience in persuading students to take part in exchange programmes and the gap between the number of incoming and outgoing students in UK universities. Both linguists and non-linguists felt it would be valuable to draw up and publicise a list of the benefits of residence abroad. For students of languages, this could be useful in helping them to assess their residence abroad experience and to identify the kinds of transferable skills they had acquired in the process. For other disciplines, it could help in the promotion of exchange schemes and to redress the imbalance between incoming and outgoing students on such schemes. From the original list which was drawn up during the day, LARA has developed a more comprehensive list of the value added by residence abroad.