It could be said that residence abroad is out of step with many of the changes taking place in HE at the present time. National policies have been framed to encourage what are sometimes called 'non-standard' students or 'students from groups traditionally under-represented in higher education' and HEIs are making efforts to adjust their courses, facilities and systems to take greater account of the special needs of such students - part-timers, students with family commitments, students with a disability. Language departments can contribute as much as any other as far as the home-based parts of a course are concerned but the period abroad poses serious problems which may raise questions of academic standards and require the input of significant resources and staff-time.

The NRAD survey revealed that some HEIs follow a strict line when it comes to taking account of special circumstances:

"Where students are unable or unwilling to fulfil the residence abroad requirements, they complete in three years but are awarded an unclassified degree."

"In these cases, the student is required to change to a degree course where the year abroad is not a compulsory element."

"Normally, if a student cannot complete the period of residence abroad, s/he is obliged to change to a different degree programme, such as BA in Combined Studies."

In such cases, the modern language degree with a full period abroad is presumably seen as one end of a spectrum of courses in which the language element is of decreasing importance.

Most HEIs, however, adopt a more flexible approach and are prepared to consider alternative arrangements for students with particular needs or commitments.

Part-time students

The number of part-time students has been rising and HEIs are required by the funding council to meet specified recruitment targets. It goes against the current ethos of the HE system if a language degree is designed to maximise the opportunities for part-time students to progress at their own rate while at the home institution but requires a substantial block of time to be spent abroad. But language departments cannot reasonably argue that only a period abroad can provide the linguistic exposure and intercultural learning necessary to enable the student to reach the acknowledged standard of an honours degree and then offer an alternative structure with no period abroad, purporting to bring the student to the same standard.

A report on part-time study in languages published in 1989 started from the principle that "it is important not to weaken the case for the vital role of a period of study or work abroad in reinforcing student performance in key areas" but concluded that "too entrenched a position clearly prevents part-timers from undertaking language study at degree level" and suggested a range of alternatives to a full period abroad - short courses abroad, immersion courses in the home institution or with a local group of institutions, language weekends at HEIs or foreign institutes in the UK, provision of self-study packages including audio, video and CALL materials. That range of options does not seem to have been improved upon.(H.A.Footitt and J.G.Harris (1989), Learning Strategies for the Part-time Study of Modern Languages to Degree Level, London: CNAA, pp. 3-10)

Offering opportunities to part-time students inevitably involves compromise. Many HEIs are prepared to grant partial exemption from the full period abroad, usually involving attendance at one or two 3 or 4-week courses in relevant countries during the summer vacations. Since such courses are invariably run specifically for foreign students, they do not provide the quality of experience that could be expected of a study-placement during the normal academic year. The question of funding may well arise for what is ultimately a compulsory activity outside the normal university year, and some departments have earmarked funds to pay for or subsidise such courses. A short work-placement might be preferable in many ways, especially if paid, but the chances of finding a properly supervised placement at what are normally the peak holiday periods for companies are not great.

The question of accreditation also arises. If a degree-course has been constructed on the principle that the student's work in each of four years contributes to a pattern of progressive learning and if each year's work is accredited after assessment, the case of the part-time student exempted from the full period abroad ought to be the subject of a separate regulation indicating the number of credits that such students are required to accumulate for the award of a degree.

Family commitments

Students with commitments that make it impossible for them to complete the full period abroad fall largely into the same category as part-timers. The general practice is to require them to complete one or two periods abroad during the vacations.

Disability

The funding councils have been allocating funds to make university facilities and systems more accessible for students with a range of disabilities. The numbers of such students have been rising and will presumably continue to do so, including in language departments. Residence abroad can raise difficult problems but it is noteworthy that the attitude, still found as recently as ten years ago, that students with disabilities would simply not be able to go abroad, has now virtually disappeared (though there is still a tendency in some quarters to assume that the student or her or his family will make the necessary arrangements). A good deal of experience has been built up but, since the number of students in any one HEI is small and the range of disabilities wide (visual, aural, mobility, medical, etc.), it has developed piecemeal and there is inevitably much reinventing of the wheel.

There is as yet no central agency to which students with disabilities or their tutors can go for up-to-date information on the facilities and support-systems available in individual HEIs abroad. However, a number of useful initiatives have been launched to assemble data and provide advice, and the specialist agencies in the UK (RNIB, RNID, etc.) are able to help within their area of expertise.

Native speakers

Although they do not count as students with special needs, native speakers of the language being studied represent a group for which special arrangements may have to be made. There is a natural tendency to assume that, if the primary objective of the period abroad is to improve linguistic competence, the native speaker need not complete that part of the course. The situation, however, is rarely absolutely straightforward. The period abroad may be based on work-experience or specialised study for which linguistic competence alone cannot be a substitute. The concept of the native speaker itself needs to be approached with caution. A student brought up by German-speaking parents but born and educated in Peru might possibly claim native competence as regards the language but could not be said to have the cultural knowledge that would normally be expected of a native speaker. Conversely, a British student brought up in Spain and educated in the Spanish school-system might very well satisfy both criteria. It is therefore important to ensure that any definition of a native speaker includes a level of cultural knowledge related to the country in question commensurate with extensive residence there.

The NRAD questionnaire asked whether native-speakers could be exempted from the period abroad. Of the 31.3% of respondents who said it was possible, 47% indicated that the exemption could be total and 53% that some alternative was available. The alternatives vary according to the type of course. Students required to complete a work-placement may take up a placement in the UK; those studying another language in addition to their own spend twice the normal period in that country; where the period abroad is one semester, the student is required to take further modules at the home institution equivalent in credit-points to the period abroad. In some HEIs, native speakers exempted from the period abroad are excluded from the normal language modules, which could be seen as a soft option, and have to take other modules instead.