1. The Background
Thirty-five years ago, it was already normal practice for students studying for a degree in modern languages to spend a year abroad, either in one country, for those studying one language, or two for those studying for a joint language degree. In the great majority of cases, they were free to register at a continental university of their choice, appropriate to the language they were studying, but, although there was an expectation that they would participate in the academic life of "their" institution, they were required neither to attend classes or take exams, nor to submit any work for assessment or accreditation for their home university.
Indeed, both before the students left and after they returned there was a certain level of confusion as to what was the purpose of the period abroad. For many, the absence of a requirement to do any academic work left them unclear as to what exactly they were supposed to do. Many returned having had a splendid time but one which did not necessarily involve much in the way of formal study or even much contact with the indigenous population. Others had a perfectly wretched time: isolated, miserable, homesick with no clear indication from their home university as to what they were expected to do there. If guidelines were given, they tended to be vague, along the lines of "integrate yourself into French/German/Italian society" or "take every opportunity to speak in the target language". Unclear as to how they should go about this, they tended to gravitate for company towards other "ex-pats", came back home as often as they could and ended their year abroad at the earliest possible opportunity.
Since then, and especially over the past decade, the nature and purpose of the period abroad has been the subject of much debate within British universities and a perceptible shift has occurred towards a more formal and integrated structure for this part of the degree programme.
The reports on individual institutions arising out of the 1995-96 QA exercise produced a mixed picture as regards assessment and accreditation. At one end of the spectrum, it was rare for the staff of an institution to oppose the concept of assessment for the period abroad, "believing this would be detrimental to the nurturing of independence and self-reliance." Some departments had been slow in appreciating the need for a proper system of assessment; some had set up assessment systems but gave relatively little credit in terms of the degree as a whole. There were on the positive side a significant number of HEIs that had tackled the problems constructively and earned commendation from the assessors.
There was still a noticeable reluctance on the part of departments to give full credit for the outcomes of the period abroad. Only a small minority had adopted the practice of allocating 120 credits and, of those, many weighted the period abroad credits at less than those for the rest of the course. The problem was considered worthy of general comment:
"It is also rare for the assessment of the period abroad to make a significant contribution to a student's degree classification" (French Overview Report).
"In most institutions, there was little evidence of assessment of the period abroad contributing significantly to a student's degree classification, although an increasing number of programmes are introducing some form of credit rating" (German Overview Report).
The NRAD survey carried out in 1997 provided a good deal of detail about the current state of assessment and accreditation practice. The question on how the activities and academic work undertaken by the students while abroad were assessed produced the following pattern:
A = Not assessed; B = Assessed by host while abroad; C = Assessed by home institution while abroad; D = Assessed on return; E = Combination
| A | B | C | D | E | N/A | |
| 1.Keep journal, log or diary | 14.3% | 1.8% | 8.9% | 14.3% | 1.8% | 58.9% |
| 2.Work [x] hours per week in host company | 17.4% | 26.1% | 4.3% | 1.5% | 8.7% | 42% |
| 3.Work [x] hours per week in school(s) | 20.6% | 19.1% | 0% | 1.5% | 8.8% | 50% |
| 4.Attend prescribed courses for foreigners in local HEI | 11.8% | 44.1% | 0% | 0% | 1.5% | 42.6% |
| 5.Attend prescribed courses for locals in host HEI | 6.4% | 47.6% | 1.6% | 0% | 7.9% | 36.5% |
| 6.Attend courses of their choice in host/local HEI | 15.9% | 37.7% | 0% | 1.5% | 8.7% | 36.2% |
| 7.Assignments in the host HEI | 2.8% | 42.2% | 1.4% | 0% | 11.3% | 42.3% |
| 8.Locally managed joint projects | 2% | 8.2% | 0% | 0% | 2% | 87.8% |
| 9.Assignments for the home institution | 0% | 3.3% | 11.7% | 16.7% | 8.3% | 60% |
| 10.Dissertation in English | 1.7% | 3.3% | 6.7% | 23.3% | 1.7% | 63.3% |
| 11.Dissertation in target language | 0% | 1.7% | 1.7% | 29.3% | 5.2% | 62.1% |
| 12.Research/info gathering for rest of course | 25.8% | 1.5% | 4.5% | 16.7% | 9.1% | 42.4% |
| 13.Reading for the rest of the course | 27.9% | 0% | 0% | 16.2% | 7.4% | 48.5% |
| 14.Language work for the British Institute | 0% | 8.3% | 0% | 4.2% | 0% | 87.5% |
| 15.Project (as described above) | 1.9% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 17.3% | 5.8% | 71.2% |
| 16.Other (as described above) | 1.9% | 1.9% | 1.9% | 11.5% | 0% | 82.8% |
The replies to other key questions were:
Is this work accredited in your own institution?
Yes 69.4%; No 30.6%
Does progression to the rest of the course depend on it?
Yes 59.3%; No 40.7%
Do these credits count towards the final degree?
Yes 57.9%; No 42.1%
We may conclude that, of the four categories of assessment and accreditation that can be put into operation, namely
the first has all but disappeared. A significant shift is taking place from the second to the third, which may now be considered the majority position. The fourth is still very much the exception.
In general, although some residual feeling that assessment of the period abroad places too much of a burden on the students occasionally manifests itself, the case for assessing the period abroad in some way is no longer in doubt in the HE sector. It is not possible in the present climate to justify, either academically or economically, a "period of study" where there is no guarantee that any formal studying takes place at all, however much valuable informal learning may occur. Those who would argue that assessing the period abroad puts too much pressure on the students would surely not support dropping assessment in the other years of the course for the same reason. Similarly, we cannot really justify a four-year course of study in which 25% of the time is spent on unsupervised, unassessed and unaccredited activities, however valuable.