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Work And Study Abroad

Work Placements

Index

Introduction and definition Benefits of work placements Responsibility for work placements Code of practice Pre-placement suitability Selection Preparation Training -Language: written -Language: oral Cultural -reactive -proactive Briefings -general and Placement Tutor-led - general and student-led - individual and Placement Tutor-led Placement Types of placement Location Pay Duration Working Hours and Holiday Entitlement Contact Person Supervision Monitoring -mode, frequency and purpose of monitoring Visits Placement tutors -availability -problem solving Post Placement Debriefing Evaluation Assessment and Accreditation Assessment mark Final examination Accommodation Appearance and dress code Assessment -Forms of Assessment: university oriented assignments -Placement reports -Placement performance Assessors References Parents and Parental Involvement Professional Skills Work ethic Interpersonal and social skills Employability and Career Prospects Conclusion

Introduction and definition

There seems to be a wide diverge of opinion as to what constitutes a work placement. Some institutions define teaching assistantships or foreign study as placements. For the purpose of this study, work placements mean business, commercial or industrial work placements.

Benefits of work placements

In all matters relating to work placements, Placement Tutors' and industrial supervisors' main concern should be that students benefit linguistically, academically, professionally, culturally, socially and personally from their placements.

All decisions taken by Placement Tutors and industrial supervisors should be objective, transparent and based on valid criteria.

Without a doubt, work placements greatly benefit all parties concerned:

the sending institutions (SI)
the receiving enterprises (RE)
the participating students (PS)
and the prospective employers (PE)

Since students often comment on the fact that their placements were the best part of their degree programme and as many more students would like to benefit from industrial work placements abroad, universities should be encouraged to initiate, extend and support placement programmes and provide the necessary funding for the implementation of such initiatives.

Such a policy would help create a multilingual, multiskilled, multicultural and mobile European workforce, which would benefit the UK economy at a time of increasing European integration.

Responsibility for work placements

While students may wish to arrange their own placements, it must be the responsibility of universities through Placements Tutors, to authorise such placements or, preferably, find the most suitable placements for their students.

A large number of Quality Assessment Reports (QAR) state that the university in question merely limits itself to general advice on placement procurement, thereby abrogating its duties to its students.

Code of practice

A Code of Practice should be drawn up outlining a University's commitments through its Placement Tutors to the students and students' commitments to the University covering the following headings: university regulations, pre-placement arrangements, guidelines whilst abroad, and procedures on return. I attach Salford's School of Languages Code of Practice on Residence Abroad for illustration purposes.

Pre-placement suitability

It is wrong to assume that all students are suitable for placement. Academic excellence does not necessarily mean suitability for placement.

Based on information provided by commercial and industrial employers in the course of more than twenty years, these are the main criteria for suitability:

Students should

The general consensus among foreign employers is that while they take for granted the existence of language competence and computing skills, they attach perhaps more importance to personal attributes and attitudes to work than academic practitioners might expect. Therefore, linguistic highflyers may not be suitable for placement if they do not fulfil the above criteria.

Selection

There should be a careful selection process taking into account the criteria outlined above,

co-ordinated by Placement Tutors, matching student profiles with company requirements (for Placement Tutors' crucial part in the selection process see also pp 5,6). In carrying out this process, Placement Tutors, if they do not know or teach the prospective placement students, should seek advice from colleagues as to students' suitability for placement.

While students may indicate preferences for types of placement, location, duration etc., such decisions are ultimately the responsibility of the Placement Tutors based on their knowledge both of placement availability, placement types and company requirements, and of student suitability.

Preparation

Studies preceding the placement should involve placement preparation, starting, ideally, at least six months prior to placement in order to minimize culture shock on contact with a foreign business environment.

Students should be prepared mentally, linguistically, culturally and professionally.

Students should be reassured at briefings that, while apprehension before the period of Residence Abroad is natural, foreign work placements are a unique opportunity and not something to be dreaded. Cultural preparation plays an important part here.

Since many employers attach importance to international work experience, students should be encouraged to seek vacation work abroad in order to improve their language skills, while at the same time gaining useful work experience.

Student anxiety can be reduced if they are encouraged to acquaint themselves with foreign culture through the media such as television, films, newspapers.

Students should become computer-literate. A driving licence, while not essential, can be useful in some placements.

Training

Pre-placement training should cover the following areas:

Language: written

Students should be taught to write CVs and application letters in the target language(s); they should practise completing job application forms; business correspondence and business language should be studied; the register and style of official documents such as contracts of employment, rent agreements, income tax return forms, insurance policies, police registration forms and employment references should be dealt with.

Language: oral

In oral classes, students should carry out role-playing exercises such as telephone conversations; skills and techniques of answering the telephone should be rehearsed. For example, students should practise some of the following phrases in the relevant language(s):

- can I take a message for....
- xyz is at present in a meeting....
- who should I say is calling...
- can xyz ring you back...
- can you hold the line....
- there is no reply at present; would you like xyz to call you back
- xyz is not the right person to talk to in this matter; I'll transfer you to ....

Above all, students should be taught the telephone alphabet of the relevant country. Experience shows that answering the telephone is often one of the first and main tasks students are given in commercial work placements. Telephone practice , therefore, alleviates student anxiety at answering the telephone in the foreign workplace.

Oral classes should further simulate real-life situations such as introductions, official meetings, business lunches, formal occasions, company visits.

There follow some specific examples:

Role plays showing how one introduces oneself to business partners or work colleagues including the practice of handshaking, which on the continent is much more widely practised than in the UK;

role plays simulating business lunches including such aspects as table manners, etiquette, toasting and the use of such important expressions as "bon appetit";

role plays covering aspects of hospitality and entertainment with respect to company visits would include practising the art of small talk, topics of general conversation, offering food and drink, preparing conference rooms.

In all of the above, the use of the formal form of address as well as the appropriate etiquette must be stressed.

Cultural

Students should receive cultural training; this could usefully include both a reactive and a proactive approach.

Reactive

Students should be introduced to foreign business culture via business literature, visits from foreign business representatives and feedback from previous placement students.

Proactive

In role plays, students should practise social norms; these range from handshaking and the presentation and receiving of flowers to the use of body language and variations in eye contact in foreign cultures.

For example, students working in Germany often comment on the fact that Germans shake hands firmly and establish intensive eye contact to the point of staring.

Such information is useful for students about to go and work abroad. Cultural preparation is not only informative and educative, but also immensely enjoyable and of great benefit to students.

Briefing

Briefings should fall into three categories:

-general and Placement Tutor-led
-general and student-led
-individual and Placement Tutor-led

General briefings given by Placement Tutors should contain information about:

types of placement available, i.e. whether in-house or in the field, types of companies, location, periods of employment, conditions of employment, pay, holiday entitlement, income tax, insurance, sickness, travel arrangements, and accommodation;

companies' expectations and prerequisites such as language requirements, computing skills, work experience, driving licence etc.,

and advice on students' expected form of conduct and dress code.

General and student-led briefings

Nothing reassures prospective placement students more than hearing from their predecessors about their placement experience. Consequently, briefing sessions should be organized between past and future placement students for a student-led open session about all aspects relating to placements. Prospective placement students may not need convincing of the benefits of work placements abroad, but many lingering doubts and worries are often dispelled by returning placement students. Quite naturally, prospective placement students attach more credibility to the views expressed by their peers than to the information provided by Placement Tutors.

At individual briefings, students will be informed about their placement. At this briefing, which should be conducted in English but which should be formal and for which students might be expected to dress formally as for a job interview, students will be given specific details about their placement: name of company, type of company, location, type of work, conditions of employment, accommodation etc. Furthermore, students should be given background information about their company in the form of information packs, publicity material, company annual reports etc. Previous students' placement reports also provide valuable additional information. For more up-to-date information, students can be referred to their placement predecessors as well as to the student(s) currently on placement with the company.

Students will then be given the name of the contact person in the company to whom they should address their application, and given advice on how to draft their application.

Unless there are compelling moral, ethical or religious reasons, students should not be allowed to turn down a placement.

A few scenarios come to mind where students might have valid reasons for not accepting a particular placement:

working for a company active in missile manufacture; working for a tobacco company; or working for a company involved in animal experiments. There may be other exceptions, but normally students cannot be allowed to reject placements for reasons such as: too far away from boy/girlfriend; not a nice city to work in; no pubs or night clubs in the vicinity; not enough holidays; having to start work at 7.00 am; previous students did not like it.

Placement Tutors

Placement Tutors play a crucial role as link-persons between the sending institutions, the participating students and the receiving enterprises. Placement Tutors ought to know the students they are placing, from having taught and briefed them, as well as the companies to which they are sending students. Ideally, Placement Tutors should be native speakers of the host country; they ought to have a knowledge of international business and the current economic situation in the host country; they should possess good communication and interpersonal skills; they should, in short, be skilled salespeople.

One of the most frequent complaints made by companies is that in some universities the role of Placement Tutors rotates so frequently or placement responsibility is shared by so many different colleagues that the absence of one contact person with overall responsibility leads to a lack of continuity and ultimately has an adverse effect on the placement programme.

Placement Tutors should visit companies regularly and cultivate close links with their contacts in the receiving enterprises. Close personal contacts and regular visits coupled with cultural sensitivity and business awareness are essential prerequisites for a successful placement programme.

Placement

Types of placement

Placements must be vetted for suitability. They may be in business, commerce, industry, or the media in line with students' course of study. Above all, placements should be structured, challenging and beneficial.

Location

Placements should be in the country in which either the target language is spoken (e.g. France) or in which it is one of the languages spoken (e.g. Belgium for French).

Pay

Students should be remunerated on placement and not be exploited as cheap labour. Their remuneration depends, of course, on national pay structures as well as companies' individual pay arrangements. In Germany, for example, students' pay varies according to whether they are classified as full employees, trainees, placement students, holiday staff or temporary workers.

Students should receive a salary on which they could live abroad without financial help from their parents or loans from their banks.

On principle, unpaid placements ought to be avoided unless there are compensating benefits such as free accommodation, free travel and free meals.

Duration

Neither students nor companies benefit from short placements. As a rule, students normally need between four to six weeks in order to settle into their working environment and adapt to a business routine.

Companies invest in students in the form of induction, training and supervision and may not see a return on their investment if students stay for less than six months. Based on company and student feedback, placements should last not less than four months and should ideally last six months. In fact, recent indications from both students as well as companies suggest that they favour twelve-month placements.

Working Hours and Holiday Entitlement

Students should work hours stipulated by their contract and be entitled to paid holidays and other social benefits according to European Union directives governing conditions of employment.

Contact Persons

It is essential that students have a designated contact person, who will be their initial point of contact in the company and who may or may not be their industrial supervisor.

Supervision

The recipe for a successful placement is proper professional supervision involving both in-house supervision by an industrial supervisor and distance supervision by a Placement Tutor with the two liaising regularly about students' progress.

Monitoring

It is important to monitor student progress on placement. If the supervision mechanism is in place, monitoring student progress follows automatically. Monitoring amounts to a check on the specifics of student progress; for example, to what extent are students meeting set targets or fulfilling their job descriptions.

Mode, frequency and purpose of monitoring

Monitoring is by either visiting students personally (in which case students shall be informed of the visit in advance and should make every attempt to make themselves available) and/or other forms of contact such as by telephone, fax, E-mail and letters.

Visits

These are one of the most important aspects of the placement programme. Practice seems to vary widely between different institutions of HE in the UK; some institutions do not visit their students at all, while others visit them more than once. Insufficient time and inadequate travel funds are usually given as official reasons for not visiting students on placement, while other unofficial reasons such as lack of interest in students while abroad ("out of sight, out of mind") also help to explain why some UK universities fail in their duty to their students, who remain, after all, full members of their university while abroad.

Ideally, all students should be visited at least once on placement. Visits are invaluable. Other forms of contact are no substitute. Certain issues can best be discussed and problems resolved on the spot and in a face-to-face meeting between students, industrial supervisors and Placement Tutors.

In order for students to comment on their placements without inhibition, they should have the opportunity to talk to their Placement Tutors in private. Similarly, Placement Tutors ought to discuss students' progress with their industrial supervisors without the students in attendance.

It is important to keep records of visits to students. This serves two functions: (i) as record for future assessment and reference purposes and (ii) as documentary evidence in case of student or company complaints.

The purpose of visits is threefold:

(i) for students to provide a progress report on their placement, to raise problematic issues, and to seek advice and help;

(ii) for companies to provide a progress report on placement students, to raise problematic issues, and to discuss future placement arrangements;

(iii) for Placement Tutors to monitor student progress, to assess the value of the placement, to discuss problematic issues with both students and company representatives, to offer advice to both students and companies, and to consider, in the light of the above, future placement implications.

Regular visits to companies help to assure Placement Tutors of the value of specific placements and of the degree of supervision provided by the receiving companies.

A record of visits to students on placement should contain the following information:

date, time and place of visit;
student details: name, type of course or degree programme, level of foreign language;
placement details: name of company, type of company, location, dates of placement, department, name of supervisor;
names of persons visited: student(s), industrial supervisor(s), contact person(s) head of department, head of personnel, colleagues;
record of discussion with industrial supervisors covering (i) student performance on placement, their linguistic progress, their specific skills (e.g. computing, translating, team working), enthusiasm and application, their punctuality and reliability, their interaction with other colleagues, their integration into a business environment, their general conduct, appearance and dress code, as well as (ii) other extracurricular factors which might affect their work (e.g. accommodation, personal problems);
record of discussion with students covering

(i) the specifics of the placement: type of work and activity, relationship with colleagues, work atmosphere, linguistic progress, pay, working hours, holiday entitlement, development of specific skills, insight into business practice, amount of supervision and guidance provided by the employer; the overall value of the placement: benefits and drawbacks;

(ii) extracurricular aspects such as accommodation, rent, transport, personal safety, insurance;

(iii) social and cultural issues such as social life, making friends, meeting people, entertainment;

(iv) academic matters such as progress of dissertation, learning logs, work diaries, placement reports and other assignments;

(v) any personal and medical issues.

It is essential that the Visit Record lists any actions to be taken and that the results are specified in subsequent reports.

Placement visits are a considerable strain on a department's financial resources.

The cost for a department for one round of visits varies, of course, widely, depending on the number of students, the languages on offer, the countries involved, the places to be visited, the geographical location of the placements, the exchange rate, the living costs in different countries and the time spent on visits.

A conservative estimate for a 'typical' department for one round of visits excluding Central and Latin America, Francophone Africa and French-speaking Canada would be between 7 and 10 K.

Placement Tutors: availability

While Placement Tutors usually have other commitments such as teaching, other administration and research and therefore cannot be expected to be permanently on call, they should make themselves available at specific times to deal with placement issues. In their absence, a delegated person should be authorised to deal with all matters relating to placements. Any reasonable queries from students must be acknowledged promptly and answered by the relevant authority. Accusations have been levelled at some universities that students' letters have not been answered, their faxes ignored and their telephone calls not returned. In order to avoid such situations, students should be notified when Placement Tutors are available and when their queries will be dealt with. Availability, transparency and accountability are the key words here at a time when students are 'paying customers'.

Problem-solving

Placement Tutors must be prepared to act as trouble-shooters should genuine problems occur. These can often best be resolved on the spot, but as Placement Tutors cannot usually fly out to problem cases at short notice, these will normally have to be dealt with from a distance via telephone calls, E-mail etc.

Genuine problems include accidents, illness, family bereavement, personal safety, rape, and racism and sexism at work as well as outside work.

Accommodation

It helps if the receiving companies are able to find accommodation for placement students. Often current placement students pass their accommodation on to their successors. If companies are not prepared to find accommodation, Placement Tutors will give advice, guidance and assistance on accommodation. However, in the last instance it is the students' responsibility to make their own accommodation arrangements.

Parents and parental involvement

While it is understandable that parents are worried about their sons' or daughters' stay abroad, Placement Tutors should be wary of entering into discussions with students' parents about issues concerning placements. Legally, students are not minors and, therefore, all communication with their parents should normally be channelled through the students.

Unless there are exceptional circumstances, placement issues concerning students may, in the interests of confidentiality, only be discussed with the students themselves, and not with a third party, even if related to them.

Parental concern can take some of the following forms:

that their son/daughter has not written to them yet; unhappy that their son/daughter is not leading a full social life (e.g. absence of pubs, bars, night clubs), concerned that their son/daughter is feeling rather isolated and has not made any friends (e.g. no contact to colleagues outside work, no socialising). Such concern can sometimes lead parents to request a change of placement.

Obviously, Placement Tutors cannot simply switch students from one placement to another for the reasons given above. Firstly, there is no guarantee that another placement would not produce similar problems; secondly, such reshuffling would disrupt existing placement arrangements, and thirdly, such precipitate actions would affect the university's credibility with the industrial employer and could well jeopardize future placements. Moreover, as part of their pre-placement cultural training, students would have been informed about the differences between the UK and continental Europe with regard to business practices, relationships with colleagues and socialising outside work.

Assessment

As Residence Abroad often makes up a quarter of a student's degree programme, this part of their studies ought, therefore, to be subject to formal assessment. More and more universities in the UK are now assessing Student Residence Abroad in some form or other, and in many institutions Residence Abroad is now credit-bearing in modular degrees.

Forms of assessment: university-oriented assignments

Students could be set assignments such as projects, case studies, learning logs, work diaries, placement reports.

For assessment purposes, I shall concentrate on the placement report as it is perhaps the most suitable assignment and as many of the assessment criteria will also apply to the other written assignments. The placement report must be written in the language of the country concerned; there should be a minimum and a maximum length; it must be word-processed or typed, and two copies should be submitted: one to be marked and one as source of information for future students.

Placement Reports benefit from being divided into three sections.

Section A would provide the factual background to the placement such as (i) dates of placement, name of company including brief background/history of the company, department, job description, type of work, supervisor, work atmosphere, colleagues, conditions, working hours, salary, holiday entitlement;

(ii) accommodation, rent; (iii) social life and cultural aspects; and (iv) recommendation for future students.

Section B covers aims and objectives. Students should state the aims and objectives they have set themselves, describe the methods used to achieve them, and evaluate each aim and objective.

The aims and objectives would be chosen from the following areas:

(i) Language (e.g. communication skills, writing skills, reading and listing skills);

(ii) personal development (e.g. building up confidence, taking initiative, team working, taking responsibility, resolving problems, greater independence, increased maturity);

(iii) professional development (e.g. collating data, mastering different software packages, attending training courses, gaining professional qualifications, improving translation techniques, practising marketing skills);

(iv) social development (e.g. meeting people, making friends, socialising, contact with colleagues, joining clubs and societies); and

(v) cultural/political development (e.g. the study of the French theatre, Spanish business culture, problems of German reunification, Italian newspapers, Portugal's relations with its former African colonies).

Section C gives an overall evaluation of the placement in relation to the students' aims and objectives.

The following scheme might usefully be adopted for the assessment of placement reports:

Content: 60% of the marks to be awarded for content (20% for Section A, 30% for Section B and 10% for Section C).

In Section B (aims and objectives) content is assessed in terms of students' ability: to set clear and appropriate aims and objectives and methods for achieving them; to show the application of analytical skills in setting, seeking to achieve and evaluating the aims and objectives; to display an awareness of personal qualities; to demonstrate initiative including the ability to identify and take advantage of opportunities; and to reflect on activities, developments and experiences in a positive and meaningful way.

Language: 30% of the marks to be awarded for language. Students will be assessed for appropriateness of register and style and for linguistic accuracy.

Presentation: 10% of the marks to be awarded for presentation. Students will be assessed for the way their report is set out; for their use of titles, subtitles, tables, charts, graphs, diagrams where appropriate, and for their appendices, bibliography and acknowledgements.

Forms of assessment: placement-oriented, assessing language proficiency:

Students' progress in the foreign language by means of continuous assessments, interviews during placement visits, interviews on students' return (see also under Debriefing p.12) and by means of written tests;

Placement performance

Most importantly, students should be assessed on their actual placement performance, for which their progress in the foreign language, professional development, work ethic, integration into business culture, interpersonal and social skills, and appearance and dress code have to be taken into account.

Professional skills

Computing skills and other transferable skills acquired on placement.

Work ethic

Students' attitude to work, their application and commitment in the form of punctuality, reliability, and whether they showed initiative and were prepared to take on responsibility;

Interpersonal and social skills

Students' communicative ability, their interpersonal skills, their awareness of social norms and forms of etiquette in business surroundings as well as in social settings;

Appearance and dress code

Students' adherence to a company's code of practice with regard to appearance and dress code.

Assessors

The assessment must be arrived at by the Placement Tutors in conjunction with the industrial supervisors. It is vital that the receiving enterprises have some input into the assessment process; the employers' business perspective will complement the academic practitioners' criteria and help to provide a more balanced overall assessment of student placement performance.

Evidence from a number of UK universities shows that whereas industrial supervisors will often attach more importance to students' business skills, Placement Tutors are inclined to set more store by students' language proficiency.

Post Placement

Debriefing

Students should be formally debriefed during their first period of study back at university. At the debriefing, students will have an opportunity to give their own assessment of their placement. At the same time they may be given an indication of their placement performance together with feedback relating to any other assignments, which might contribute to the overall assessment of their period of Residence Abroad. The debriefing session is a form for students to air, in confidence, views, which they might otherwise have been unwilling to express in writing.

At the debriefing, students could also produce an oral presentation about their company, which could count towards their assessments. It is important that the debriefing be conducted only by the relevant Placement Tutors and not by colleagues with no experience of placement matters.

Evaluation

Placement Tutors need to evaluate placements on the basis of student as well as company experience. Repeated complaints from students about particular placements may convince Placement Tutors of the unsuitability of such placements. Similarly, repeated complaints from companies about students will convince Placement Tutors of the need to select students with different profiles for such placements.

Assessment and accreditation

It is essential that student performance on work placements be assessed and be credit-bearing in modular degree programmes, and it is equally essential that industrial supervisors have an input into the assessment.

Assessment mark

The assessment should comprise marks for placement performance, written assignments, and oral presentations given either at debriefing or as part of the Final Oral Examination. The placement performance should carry at least 50% of the final mark and should include both in-house performance on placement as well as conduct in relation to the state of accommodation at handover, payment of rent, telephone bills etc.

Final Examination

Placements ought to be a topic of discussion in the Final Oral Examination, at which industrial supervisors may wish to be present as observers or as examiners, if university regulations allow, thereby adding a business perspective to the formal nature of the Oral Examination.

References

References from industrial employers form impressive supporting evidence in students' job applications.

Employability and career prospects

Students can benefit greatly in the job market by reference on their CVs to having undertaken a placement with prestigious multinational companies. Surveys into Modern Languages student employment patterns carried out at Salford over the past five years demonstrate that their placement record was the deciding factor in a majority of students being offered their first full-time jobs.

Conclusion

Evidence shows that the main benefits to students of industrial work placements abroad are greater employability and enhanced career prospects, which highlights the value of such placements as part of modern languages degree programmes at UK universities.

Dr Uwe Zemke
University of Salford
November 1999

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