WELCOME TO Language Futures :

Languages in Higher Education 2012

5th & 6th July 2012Edinburgh

#LLASconf2012

A ‘REALIE’ USEFUL EXPERIENCE: THE EMPLOYABILITY BENEFITS OF WORK AND STUDY ABROADAlison Dickens (LLAS) & Jaine Beswick (University of Southampton)Language Futures, 5-6 July University of Edinburgh

REALIE PROJECT

• Residence and Employment Abroad Leading to International Employability

• Higher Education Academy Teaching Development Grant (Departmental)

• February 2012 – April 2013

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PROJECT AIMS

To address issues of the employability value of the YA by:

•Developing long-term work placements with employers

•Working with HEI partners to add work placement options to study placements

•Encouraging students to make better use of the employability skills they acquire on their year abroad

•Ensuring YA employability is allied to other university employability initiatives

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THE ML YEAR ABROAD:

• Study placements in Erasmus-linked universities

• British Council teaching assistantships

• Work placements

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WORK PLACEMENTS BY YEARAcademic Year

French German Spanish Portuguese Italian Totals

2008-2009

4 2 1 0 0 7

2009-2010

2 4 2 0 0 8

2010-2011

5 2 7 1 0 15

2011-2012

11 3 6 2 1 23

UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES 1:

Student engagement:

•Informants on experiences of the YA (6 student internships term-time)

•Creators of resources/networks for future students (1 student intern summer)

•Co-organisers of/presenters at employability event (Nov 2012)

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UNDERLYING PRINCIPLES 2:

Benefit of output beyond own HEI:

•Dissemination to other HEIs

•Resources added to existing websites e.g. www.studyinglanguages.com or www.thirdyearabroad.com

• Re-use of materials/ideas in other institutions

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MAIN AREAS OF ACTIVITY:

• Academic staff – collecting/evaluating/following up on work placement information

• Students – collecting feedback and creating resources

• Working with Faculty Employability representative – linking generic and subject-specific support

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YA EMPLOYABIITY WORKING GROUP:• Project Director/Assistant Director

• Student Interns

• ML Staff Representatives

• Faculty Employability Representative

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PROJECT TASKS:

• Evaluation of student expectations of the YA – year 1

• Evaluation of student engagement and development of employability skills on the YA

• Enhancement of YA support – e-briefings, resources (insider guides), peer-support

• Development of YA employability strategy

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YA EMPLOYMENT STRATEGY:

• Long-term internships – established relationships with employers abroad and potential for further employment after graduation

• More systematic collation, evaluation and dissemination of work placement opportunities

• Early engagement of students in employability benefits and options for year abroad

• Support for international vacation employment (work placement agreements)

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STUDENT QUESTIONNAIRE:

• Designed by the students

• Covers all three types of YA experience

• Includes simple employability and language skills evaluation

• Covers French, German, Spanish, Italian

• 63 questionnaires collected

• The final report to be submitted 05 July

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QUESTIONNAIRES

Assistant Internship Erasmus

France 10 5 7

Spain 4 2 7

Germany/Austria

3 2 6

Italy 1 5

Portugal 2 6

Latin America 2 1

Totals 20 11 32

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Some findings so far…

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WORK PLACEMENTS:

Q: How do you think your internship has affected your career prospects?

A: Improved them a million times – now I have something to talk about in interviews!!

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WORK PLACEMENTS:

Q: Did you know of the company that you did your internship with before you applied? If yes, how?

A: Through a girl from school.    

Q: What did you do to get the job?A: Emailed proprietor and took it from there

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WORK PLACEMENTS:

Q: Please give any general tips relating to your Year Abroad placement or any other type of work you have done that you feel others may find useful.

A: Amazing internship – an experience that every student should benefit from. Learnt so much about working life and skills

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BC ASSISTANTSHIPS:

Q: What is the most valuable skill you gained?A: Confidence A: Independence

Q: How has your experience influenced your career plans?

A: I would like a job where I have contact with people

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ERASMUS STUDY PLACEMENTS:

Q: Did you do any work on your year abroad or during your holidays from university?

A: I looked for work; I found a job in a pub but decided not to take it because I thought it would be too much (work)

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ERASMUS STUDY PLACEMENTS:

Q: Were you involved in any voluntary work during your year abroad? Please give details.

A: Yes – I volunteered at a children’s home every week for 3 hours. We did activities with them such as cooking, sports, excursions. It was kind of like an after school club. It was fun!!

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ERASMUS STUDY PLACEMENTS:

Q: If you were to do the year abroad again, would you complete the same university placement or would you choose something different? Please give reasons.

A: I would try to get a job placement in order to gain work experience.

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OUTSIDE THE EU:

Q: Were you involved in any voluntary work during your YA?

A: I volunteered at some schools, primary and secondary, and taught classes to a range of children

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GENERAL COMMENTS

• Almost all very positive about the experience although some would change from Erasmus to work placement

• Work placements seen as attractive financially but often pay much less than Assistantships

• Work placements generally involve longer working days and do affect students’ social life

• Erasmus often seen as not compatible with working

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GENERAL COMMENTS:

• Work placements left less time for working on YA projects but can produce very good work valued by employers

• Adapting to work ethic variable (often culturally specific, e.g. timekeeping in Italy/Portugal, longer days/lunch breaks in France)

• Work placements led to real-world achievements –relaunching a drivers’ club, project research used as market research by employer

• Placements found through word of mouth (students, friends, family)

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WORK PLACE SKILLS

• Students were asked to rate themselves on 10 employability skills (see questionnaire)

• Areas such as Team Work, Commercial Awareness, Drive & Initiative tended to score more highly on work placements

• Analysing and Investigating most closely linked with YA project work rather than paid work

• Verbal communication scored highly no matter what kind of placement but more variation for written skills (most high ratings for Erasmus, variable for work placements)

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LANGUAGE SKILLS

• Generally all students felt that their listening and speaking skills had improved the most

• Intercultural communication skills were mentioned including how English was used in an international context

• Confidence in speaking was also widely reported

• Writing was generally least improved and in work placements was generally least improved unless the student had specific written tasks to perform, then it improved the most!

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DISSEMINATION TO DATE:

• Networking and Developmental Day, HEA, University of York, 2nd May 2012

• The Year Abroad: Maximising and promoting its real value, University of Strathclyde Workshop (LLAS/HEA event), 23rd May

• The Year Abroad: Maximising and promoting its real value, University of Strathclyde Workshop (LLAS/HEA event), 23rd May

• Article in Liaison 2012

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NEXT STEPS:

• Student Interns final report

• Summer Intern: development of resources

• Employability forum (November)

• Collation and analysis of work placement information and follow up where appropriate

• E-briefings for Year 2 students

• Expectation questionnaires for Year 1 students

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Thank youContact

a.m.dickens@soton.ac.uk

j.beswick@soton.ac.uk

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WELCOME TO Language Futures :

Languages in Higher Education 2012

5th & 6th July 2012Edinburgh

#LLASconf2012

Telling Stories: Using Virtual Learning Spaces to Enhance the Year Abroad Experience

Cathy Hampton & David Lees

Who are the stakeholders?

Students of French in France: English language assistants University Students (Erasmus programme) Paid work

Students of French in Germany and Italy Usually university students (Erasmus programme)

Who are the stakeholders?

French department lecteur team Correct formative work produced by students during their year

abroad

Final-year language teaching team Help students to use French materials gathered once they return

Careers department Help students to make the most of their newly-acquired

experiences

The current picture: formal learning tasks and the year abroad

3 formative essays (students choose their own titles)

2-3 dossiers of French language resources to be used in final-year language classes (students choose dossier topics)

(none of these exercises is summative)

Improving the year abroad with a VLE

ADVANTAGES Dedicated French year abroad online

space Ease of electronic submission and

feedback for formative tasks Peer learning environment Dossier / portfolio building environment

Creating the French Year Abroad page Key themes: Accessibility, relevance, collaboration Lack of previous VLE system at Warwick posed initial

barrier Solution: warm introduction,

clear expectations

Submission and feedback area Aim to facilitate submission of year abroad essays

(previously posted to dept.) Capacity for online feedback through voice email Opportunity to gain feedback from students

on submission/

feedback process

Collaborative area Aim to maximise interaction between dept. and YA

students Activities included Voice Board, Voice Email and forum

(most popular; more in common with familiar Sitebuilder forum)

Dossier area : Mahara Multi-media area for creation of

electronic language

dossiers Barrier: How to encourage

students to use the dossier

area/Mahara Initial usage slow Produced series of

‘How to’ guides for students

to increase up-take

Mock dossier pages in Mahara

Responses from the Stakeholders

The formative essay: lecteur involvement

Using the site is ‘as easy as abc’ (Ornella, lectrice)

‘I think that giving positive comments, even when the copy is very bad, is a good thing. French teachers and lecturers don’t do the same.’ (Aurore)

‘it’s clearer for the students when we mark [the essays] electronically’ (Aurore, lectrice)

Lecteur involvement

I think that a system of colours could be adopted in the process of marking itself. It could be a good idea to underline or to write in red for example the mistakes or things which are not correct and another colour to focus on good and positive aspects of the essay. (Ornella)

Many students don't use prepositions properly and get mixed up. I think you should add this section. (Jen)

The formative essay: student responses to feedback mechanism ‘The comments in the margins electronically are

much better than the hand marked essays from first and second year and you can keep on refering [sic] to it as it is on the computer.’ (Clare)

‘The online upload was quick and easy. It was useful having an electronic version of the feedback for future reference because papers can easily get lost when moving from country to country.’ (Louise)

The formative essay: student responses to feedback ‘The detail of feedback for generally satisfactory

[sic], but it's not always useful just knowing what is wrong when you don't know how to make it right.’ (Matthew)

‘maybe it (Mahara) could be used as a space for new language skills too. Link an article, comment on vocab and different idiomatic contructions and share these with others so people can learn from each other.’ (Matthew)

Sharing good practice: the forum

Sharing good practice: the forum

‘I think a lesson plan swap section is essential. I think there should also be separate sections for things like Finance, Health and Leisure as these are the areas where people are likely to have questions or experiences to share.’ (Sophie)

‘I think bouncing ideas off other people doing the same thing and finding out what works for other people is invaluable.’ Sophie, participant

Building dossiers and portfolios

Building dossiers: Mahara

ref

Reflections leading to essays

‘I do like the dossiers being online, as it makes me much more inclined to do it. If i had to print everything off, put it in a folder I would find it very frustrating.’ (Matthew)

‘I do keep a collection of articles, postcards, photos etc but I would prefer to relect on them as physical objects at the end rather than keep a blog or so.’ (Clare)

‘Chosing [sic] the titles was hard but at the same time the complete liberty was wonderful and I actually ended up writing and researching topics which originally I would never had contemplated if the titles had been given to me, and therefore I discovered more about France.’ (Clare)

Skills Building

What next?

Year abroad as language training Help students improve (stimulate language production and feed

forward)

Year abroad as open space learning: Student as researcher Anything possible: learning outcomes to be defined by student Scaffold open-ended tasks

Year abroad as skills building What should I record? What is relevant experience?

Open-space learning

Experiential / Constructivist

Collaborative

Transgressive

Productive

Nicholas Monk, Carol ChilingtonRutter, Jonothan Neelands andJonathan Heron,

Open-space Learning: A Study in Transdisciplinary Pedagogy (London: Bloomsbury, 2011)

Can Mahara / moodle create open-space learners? Creative, open-ended space. Here’s a list

of what students would like to do:Video diaryDesign resource pack for future studentsBlogPress summary / book review

How can we help them?

Seed the forum to maintain regular student interaction: regular postgraduate oversight of site

Ensure all students are aware of Mahara’s role

‘Mahara was initially confusing for me. I think the problem was that I didn't really get the concept of the site.’ Louise, participant

Mahara: a commonplace book for the digital age?

http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/reading/commonplace.html

Helping students produce their commonplace book in Mahara Categorising material

What questions might I ask myself next year?Collect questions: from job advertisements,

exam papers, etc… what paths of knowledge can I plot?

Tagging and editing Organising material by key words Providing scaffolds and templates

WELCOME TO Language Futures :

Languages in Higher Education 2012

5th & 6th July 2012Edinburgh

#LLASconf2012