Undergraduate Study

(View the Complete Prospectus [PDF format])

Courses - UCL Division of Psychology & Language Sciences
Undergraduate Studies
Entrance Requirements
How to Apply
Accommodation
Academic Staff and their Research Interests

Undergraduate Programmes

Short Courses

Summer Course in Phonetics

Teaching aims for undergraduate programmes

Information for current students

Phonetics & Linguistics at UCL

Phonetics at University College London reaches back to 1866, when Alexander Melville Bell gave lectures on speech; he was assisted by his son Alexander Graham Bell, then a student at the College, and later to find fame as the inventor of the telephone.

The department is pre-eminent in the United Kingdom and the world, offering undergraduate and graduate courses across the full range of the language sciences. The department has been highly rated for the quality of its teaching in the last official assessment (see www.qaa.ac.uk/revreps/subjrev/All/q226-96.htm), and has also been awarded the top rating for research quality in the most recent (2001) official survey of British universities. Apart from our breadth of coverage we are particularly distinguished in four areas:

theoretical linguistics, especially the study of syntax
cognitive pragmatics, developed within the relevance-theoretic framework
experimental phonetics, particularly speech perception, speech technology, speech and language pathology, and speech and hearing science
articulatory phonetics, especially the study and description of English pronunciation.

Research
The department has achieved a consistently excellent research rating, and the excellence of our teaching is enhanced by the research carried out in the department. Active researchers tend to be enthusiastic teachers because they are committed to the work they are discussing, and students all have a good deal of personal contact with people who are making world-class contributions to research in the subjects that they are studying. Our courses are informed by the latest work and ideas and lecturers commonly make references to their own current research in undergraduate teaching throughout the degree programme.

Publications

Work by members of the department appears in a wide range of books and international learned journals and conference proceedings; there were well over a hundred entries in the most recent annual list of staff publications. A more immediate record of ongoing work appears in the department's own two annual publications:

Speech, Hearing and Language: Work in Progress
UCL Working Papers in Linguistics

For the research interests of members of staff visit the About Us pages.

Undergraduate Studies

The department prepares students for the BA (Honours) degree in Linguistics or Italian and Linguistics; or the BSc in Speech Communication. (Please note that if you wish to obtain the certificate to practise as a speech and language therapist you must apply for the B620 BSc Speech Sciences programme, based in the Division of Psychology and Language Sciences)

Course Units
Teaching for all undergraduate degrees in the department is run on the course-unit system. In this system each student follows an approved combination of courses which make up his/her individual degree programme. Each course has a value in a university-wide credit system of course units (abbreviated to CU). Most courses in this department are valued at 0.5 CU (equivalent to 7.5 ECTS). A half-unit course normally involves about twenty to twenty-five contact hours. One CU is considered to be one quarter of a normal year's work.

To obtain a degree a student must have passed a total of eleven CUs for students on a three-year degree programme, as well as satisfying the requirements for the particular degree. Students select their courses after consultation with the departmental tutors and often with the staff members running the particular course. Subject to the approval of the student's tutor, credit may also be gained for courses taken in other UCL departments or other colleges in the University of London.

Teaching
Teaching is mainly carried out by means of lectures and classes (tutorials) though some courses are taught through workshops or practical classes. Each lecture is normally supplemented by a tutorial back-up class, in which a group of five to 12 students meets with a member of staff to follow up issues covered in the lecture or to set and return coursework (written assignments involving essay-writing, problem-solving and so on).

Assessment
Each course is assessed and examined separately, often by a combination of the following:

Essay(s)
Exercises
Exam(s)

Performance in a course is always assessed in the same academic year in which it is studied.

Facilities
Computing
The department has extensive computer facilities, including a network of PCs available for student use.

Apart from the computers available within the Department of Phonetics and Linguistics, students also have access to computers provided by the College. UCL has recently installed new computing facilities and a fast data communications network.

There are 'open access' rooms for students around the campus, each equipped with IBM-compatible PCs and workstations supported by the Computer Centre. These are all single-user systems with their own display screens, keyboards and processors linked via the network to a large filestore for the secure storage of users' programmes and data.

A wide range of software is available on the systems including packages for wordprocessing, electronic mail, graphics, databases, statistical analysis and several programming languages.

Libraries
The College is situated in an area exceptionally well-supplied with libraries. In addition to UCL's own extensive Library, including the specialised collection in the Department of Human Communication Science, we are close to those of the University of London (at Senate House), the School of Oriental and African Studies, the British Library, and the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital (which holds a large collection of titles on normal and disordered speech, hearing and language, available to students).

We also offer, for sale, copies of our own inhouse recordings to teachers from other institutions and to students so that they can continue their listening practice at home.

Entrance Requirements

For the BA Linguistics programme we welcome applications from those with science, arts or mixed GCE A and AS levels, and from both mature students and those still at school. We particularly welcome applications from candidates whose GCE A level studies have covered a wide range of subjects. We normally look for three GCE A levels at grades BBB (to include a modern European language for RQ31 Italian and Linguistics) plus a pass in a further subject at AS level or equivalent, but we can sometimes be persuaded at interview to lower these requirements. We value previous experience and are prepared to be flexible for mature students, and in certain other cases. Applications from ACCESS course students are welcomed.

For the BSc Speech Communication and BSc Speech Sciences programmes the usual entry requirement is three GCE A levels at grades BBB; GCE A level Biology or another science, while not a requirement, is preferred. In addition, a pass in a further AS level subject, or its equivalent, is required as is at least one science subject and a foreign language at GCSE level.

International Baccalaureate candidates are required to hold a Diploma with 30 to 32 points.

All students whom we believe to be capable of benefiting from one of our degree programmes are invited to the College for interview, provided that they live within reasonable travelling distance. This gives an opportunity for an informal interview with one or more members of staff and a chance to see something of the department, to meet current students and to ask questions about the degree programmes, the department and the College.

Successful applicants normally receive an offer within a few days of the interview. Successful overseas applicants will receive an offer as soon as we obtain a copy of their application form from UCAS.

Accommodation

UCL guarantees accommodation to all full-time, single, first-year undergraduates provided that they hold UCL as their firm choice through UCAS, return the accommodation application form by 31 May and have not previously attended a university in London.

For more information on accommodation at UCL, please visit the UCL Accommodation pages.

For More Information

Download the complete Undergraduate Prospectus (in PDF format), visit the UCL website, or contact the department:

Departmental Secretary
Division of Psychology and Language Sciences
University College London
Chandler House
2 Wakefield Street
London WC1N 1PF
United Kingdom

Email: s.anyadi@.ucl.ac.uk

International Students should visit UCL's pages for International Students.