LAGB Autumn Meeting, Oxford, 4th–6th September 2003
Education Committee Report
Meetings of the Committee for Linguistics in Education
June 2003
The LAGB representatives attended this meeting with representatives from BAAL and other professional bodies involved in linguistics and education (eg Association for Language Learning, National Association of Teachers of English, United Kingdom Literacy Association).
• DFES currently placing emphasis on subject specialisation rather than cross-curricular themes, and are interested in a role for subject associations. There is a need for subject-specific research for the classroom, and any means of bringing together the teaching professionals and the potential researchers is welcome
• A discussion paper on the Teaching about Grammar (prepared by Ros Fisher of UKLA and Dick Hudson) highlighted issues arising from teachers’ limited knowledge and confidence, teachers’ concern for correctness, and the current aim under the NLS that knowledge about grammar should improve writing (and the limited evidence that this may happen).
• Dick Hudson was appointed Chair of CLIE
A full report on the meeting will shortly appear on the LAGB website (and the minutes on the EC website: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/ec/ectop.htm)
LAGB sessions on education
As usual, the EC organised a discussion session at each of the LAGB meetings:
April 2003: on community languages
September 2003: on A-level English language.
More details are available at www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/dick/ec/ecsessions.htm.
Consultation
(a) The EC was approached by the NLS Initial Teacher Training unit for comments on Language Variation material in preparation. It was useful being able to comment on such material before rather than after publication, although the timescale for consultation was as always very limited.
(b) On behalf of the LAGB, DH submitted a comment on the Government consultation paper on subject specialisms (the consultation period ended in June).
Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
For a full report of the Subject Centre's activities by its administrator, Alison Dickens, click here.
Activities this year have been focussed on the issue of Postgraduate training in Linguistics (including the Government’s White Paper on HE).
Two other events which were run were (a) a workshop on Key Skills in Linguistics and (b) Resources and Techniques for Teaching Linguistics
Projects undertaken: Materials Bank (eg Linguistics quizzes and The Phonetics Book); Good Practice guide; pedagogic research; e-learning.
Future developments include events on: English Language and Linguistics; Teaching Reading and Writing to second language learners; corpora workshop. Suggestions from the LAGB on future activities are welcome.
Sue Barry
September 2003
on behalf of LAGB EC (Dick Hudson, Keith Brown, Billy Clark, Sue Barry)
Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
Annual Report for Linguistics Associations
Summary 2002/3
This year that Subject Centre’s Linguistics activities have had a strong focus on issues in postgraduate training and we have held 3 meetings on this topic which have allowed colleagues to explore key areas of concern and to develop ideas for future initiatives (see below). We have also run our usual selection of workshops which this year have been very well-attended and have covered key skills for Linguistics, resources for teaching (VLEs, concordancing, MCQs) and innovative approaches to module design. Our Specialist Group for Linguistics has met 3 times and we are pleased to welcome new member Billy Clark (Middlesex). This Group, chaired by Keith Brown, is an invaluable source of advice and support and will continue to meet in its current form until the end of 2004. At this time the Subject Centre is likely to be entering the new Academy for Learning being set up under the auspices of HEFCE. We will update everyone on developments on this initiative in due course. Finally the Subject Centre continues to be involved in and to fund projects and Linguistics features in a number of these.
Events
Postgraduate Training in Linguistics
The three meetings that have been held to discuss this issue have covered the following:
1. This meeting addressed two areas:
2. The implications of the Government’s White Paper for HE (what role will there be in the new research structure for small Linguistics units and how will this impact on student numbers and training?).
3. The main focus of this meeting was on how to plan for continuation of the excellent work of the NWCL (currently funded for 3 years under HEFCE’s restructuring and collaboration programme): how to expand the work of NWCL nationally, how to locate appropriate sources of funding. The meeting looked at the possibility of a National Linguistics Centre with regional divisions (possibly NW, NE, SW, SE and London). It also addressed the question of how to make the case for a centrally funded operation looking at why Linguistics might constitute a ‘special case’ for central or inter-institutional funding.
Further notes on this meeting can be found on the Subject Centre’s website: www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk
Since the meeting the Subject Centre has heard that there are discussions underway among northern institutions to work collaboratively in this area and we have offered support (facilitating meetings, disseminating information) to this group and to any others who might wish to take this initiative forward in other regions.
Key Skills in Linguistics
This workshop looked at the key skills agenda within the context of Linguistics and included four complementary sessions which explored the following issues:
Four excellent papers were delivered that helped to demonstrate that when viewed in an integrated and subject-specific way, key skills can constitute a very valuable addition to the curriculum in HE. Speakers were:
Henry Macintosh (Centre for the Development of Education and Lifelong Learning, Nottingham);
Roz Ivanic (Lancaster);
Ros Mitchell (Southampton);
Dick Hudson (UCL).
Some of the papers from this event will shortly be published (in hard copy and in electronic form) by the Subject Centre.
Resources and Techniques for Teaching Linguistics
This event provided a showcase for a variety of materials and methods for teaching Linguistics which included:
Feedback from this event indicated that colleagues greatly appreciated the opportunity to attend an event that focussed on the teaching of Linguistics and many indicated that they had encountered new ideas that they would incorporate into their teaching or discuss with colleagues.
Projects
Materials Bank: The Phonetics Book
This project, which actually took place in 2002/3, has continued and it now contains a number of substantial items for Linguistics which can be downloaded and freely used from: http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/resources/bankcontents.aspx
Included in the Bank are the Linguistics Quizzes (see above) and the Phonetics Book which is an electronic manual, designed by Rodney Ball (Southampton), for teaching Phonetics to students of modern languages. The book is accompanied by sound files and can be downloaded in its latest (not final) version from the Bank at the above address.
More resources are constantly being added and any offerings will be gratefully received.
Good Practice Guide
This guide, which contains articles on the content and teaching of the disciplines we cover, is continuing to expand and is receiving very positive feedback from our constituency. Keith Brown remains as Linguistics editor and has identified a number of topics for new articles to be commissioned and published over the coming year.
Pedagogic Research:
The Subject Centre has funded a number of small projects which are focussing on issues of pedagogy.
‘Teachers into Researchers’ is an Applied Linguistics project led by the University of Bristol: view http://www.lang.ltsn.ac.uk/prf.aspx#ling1 for details. All projects are due to complete this summer and there will be a Subject Centre workshop to disseminate the results in 2003/4. All project reports will also be available on our website.
E-Learning:
The Subject Centre has recently funded a substantial research project into models of e-learning in Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies. A call for bids was issued earlier this year and the funding has now been allocated to the University of Sheffield (School of Languages and Linguistics). Initial discussions with the project leader (Danielle Barbereau) have indicated that Sheffield is well-placed to undertake this work with a strong track record in Languages, Linguistics, American Studies and South-East Asian Studies. In addition the city of Sheffield is engaged in some significant e-learning activities. There is much scope for collaboration, therefore, by colleagues within the institution, in the city and in the region.
Plans for 2003/4
For next year we will continue to support the initiatives with which we have been engaged this year (postgraduate training, materials collection, project funding and dissemination, commissioning articles). The events that we hope to run next year will be:
We will continue to support initiatives in the field of postgraduate Linguistics training and will report developments as they occur via our usual channels.
We are also hoping to continue our meetings on key issues for Linguistics and there will be at least one of these in the coming year (the topic, of which, has yet to be finalised).
Subject Centre Conference 2004
The Subject Centre will be holding its bi-annual conference at SOAS in London in early July 2004. A call for papers will be issued shortly and we hope to have contributions from Linguistics in the form of keynote speakers and presentations.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank everyone who has contributed to our activities: Specialist Group members, Subject Associations, speakers at our events, contributors to the Good Practice Guide and Materials Bank, participants in our activities and especially to Keith Brown who has helped us so much over the last 3 years. We look forward to continuing our partnership with Linguistics colleagues and to a lively and interesting 2003/4.
Subject Centre Contact Details
Linguistics Co-ordinator/ Materials Bank Developer
Alison Dickens a.m.dickens@soton.ac.uk
Linguistics Specialist Group Chair
Keith Brown ekb1002@cam.ac.uk
Subject Centre General Enquiries/Event registration
Sue Nash llas@soton.ac.uk
Website
Address
Subject Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
School of Modern Languages
University of Southampton
Highfield
Southampton SO17 1BJ
Tel: +44 (0)23 8059 4814 Fax: +44 (0)23 8059 4815