2. Aims and Objectives
All degree-courses teach (or should teach) a set of intellectual skills which are the hallmark of the graduate - to conceptualise, to define problems and formulate hypotheses, to assemble and evaluate evidence, to draw valid conclusions. The discipline around which a language degree is constructed may vary from one course to another but the intellectual training given will be the same, and universities have long argued that that training provides the indispensable basis for a wide range of careers.
During the 1990s, numerous studies set out to provide lists of the attributes that employers expect to find in graduates. The starting point for one of the most thorough of those studies was that "employers and their representatives consistently say that, to succeed at work, most people in future must develop a range of personal and intellectual attributes beyond those traditionally made explicit in programmes of study in higher education institutions." It went on to identify those attributes as:
| personal: | intellect (including analysis, critique, synthesis and problem-solving ability) knowledge (especially understanding basic principles) willingness and ability to learn flexibility and adaptability to respond to change self-regulatory skills (such as self-discipline, time-keeping and planning) self-motivation and self-assurance |
| interactive: | interpersonal skills, team-working, communication skills |
L. Harvey, S. Moon, V. Geall (1997), Graduates' Work: organisational change and students' attributes, London: Centre for Research into Quality, pp. 5, 65-79
The QA exercise in 1995-96 revealed that language departments were well aware of the need for courses that not only developed knowledge of a defined academic area but also enabled the students to build up the range of skills they would need in their future careers. In the statement of aims and objectives that each department was required to put at the head of its self-assessment document, there was in the great majority of cases a clear expression of what the courses offered as regards academic knowledge and transferable skills. Academic objectives were generally defined in terms of an understanding of the culture, literature, politics, business sector, etc., as appropriate, of one or more countries. Intellectual skills were listed: 'to carry out independent research', 'to solve problems by marshalling the relevant evidence, sifting and evaluating it', 'to construct a coherent and rigorous argument'. Transferable skills of use in the world of work were identified: 'the ability to work independently and to show intellectual and personal initiative', 'organisational abilities, team-work, time-management, presentation skills', 'the management of interpersonal relationships'.
The aims of each course necessarily included the acquisition of a knowledge of the relevant language or languages. The linguistic objectives, however, were far from clear in very many cases, being expressed in ambitious but ill-defined terms. Students were expected to achieve 'a high level of accuracy and fluency' in the spoken and written language, 'a firm grasp of formal linguistic structures', 'a high standard, productive and receptive, spoken and written' in the language. It was a small minority of statements that identified the specific linguistic skills around which the language-teaching programme was constructed.
In the few cases in which residence abroad was mentioned at all, it was presented as supporting the overall aims of the course, but the objectives were usually defined in terms of the language programme and the development of personal qualities: 'confidence and self-reliance', 'responsibility, initiative and adaptability', 'resilience and independence by immersion in an unfamiliar environment'. It may be that residence abroad was assumed to be a continuation of the same learning and teaching process as that applied in the rest of the course but in a different location and therefore not to be considered separately. A more realistic view might be that residence abroad is held to be somewhat anomalous, an extra element that cannot be dealt with in the same way as the rest of the course.
As their reports indicate, the QA assessors certainly found that, in many cases, the vagueness surrounding the objectives of the period of residence abroad was translated in practice into activities that did not necessarily keep the students moving forward academically, a lack of concern for structured learning (both linguistic and intercultural) and a failure to take proper account of the outcomes of the residence abroad. Yet the NRAD survey revealed, on the part of the staff who filled in the questionnaires, a positive and apparently confident set of assumptions concerning residence abroad. In response to the question 'What do you and your colleagues see as the principal purposes of student residence abroad?', the answers were clear enough:
| Very important | Important | Not important | Not at all important | No reply | |
| Improved proficiency in target language | 90% | 4% | 4% | 2% | 0% |
| Improved insight into society, institutions, way of life | 67.8% | 26.8% | 1.8% | 1.8% | 1.8% |
| Improved knowledge of the artistic culture (literature, theatre, cinema, museums, etc.) | 27.5% | 39.1% | 24.6% | 5.8% | 3% |
| Increased personal maturity and independence | 55.6% | 33.3% | 7.9% | 0% | 3.2% |
| Increased employment skills or personal transferable skills | 55.7% | 31.2% | 8.2% | 1.6% | 3.3% |
The figures show clearly that the majority view across the sector is that students are sent abroad to improve their linguistic proficiency, to increase their understanding of the foreign culture and the mentality that underlies it and to develop personal qualities that will stand them in good stead in a future career. That being so, the course as a whole needs to be devised and organised in such a way that the period of residence abroad forms part of a continuous process devoted to achieving those aims. That may require some radical thought.
LARA's consideration of the period of residence abroad starts from the premise that it must be integrated as completely as possible with the rest of the course. That assumes that its aims and objectives are clearly understood. Any consideration of the aims and objectives of the period abroad must, in its turn, start from a clear understanding of the aims and objectives of the course as a whole. Once it is well established not only what academic area the students will be required to cover but what linguistic, intellectual and transferable skills they are expected to have acquired by the end of the course, it is then possible to tackle a series of key questions relating to the period of residence abroad:
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