Transcript Language Survey on HE students choosing a language as an extra-curricular activity DfES & AULC Department for Education & Skills Association of University Language.

Language Survey on HE students choosing a
language as an extra-curricular activity
DfES & AULC
Department for Education & Skills
Association of University Language Centres
Nick Byrne & Jason Abbott
Institutional Survey #1
• The aim of the institutional survey:
• To find out the number of students at HE
institutions who were taking a language either
as an assessed part of their degree (under
50%) or taking a language as an extracurricular activity.
• The institutional survey also includes HEI’s in
Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales
Institutional Survey #2 : GB + NI HEI’s
70000
60000
50000
Degree
40000
Extra-Cur
30000
Total
20000
10000
0
2003/4 2004/5 2005/6
Institutional Survey #3: GB + NI HEI’s
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2003/04 (42 institutions)
Degree module: 27986 Extra-Cur: 25516
Total: 53502
2004/05 (40 institutions)
Degree module: 22123 Extra-Cur: 30538
Total: 52661
2005/06 (66 institutions)
Degree module: 38194 Extra-Cur: 30402
Total: 68596
Institutional Survey #4
• English HEI’s only
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2003/04 (37 institutions)
Degree: 23691 Extra-Cur: 23193 Total: 46884
2004/05 (37 institutions)
Degree: 20115 Extra-Cur: 27965 Total: 48080
2005/06 (59 institutions)
Degree: 35977 Extra-Cur: 27540 Total: 63517
43% take a language as an extra-curricular activity
57% take a language as an assessed module
Institutional Survey #5: English HEI’s
70000
60000
50000
40000
Degree
30000
Extra-Cur
Total
20000
10000
0
2003/04 2004/5 2005/06
Student Survey #1
• Reasons why students choose a language as an
extra-curricular activity…
• Details about the students…
• Which languages they learn…
• Which languages they already know…
• Which levels…
• Motivation…
• Why extra-curricular and not as a degree option…
• Their future career…
• EU language goals…
11 universities took part in academic year
2005/06
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Bath
Birmingham
Cambridge
Durham
Leeds Metropolitan
Loughborough
Manchester
Portsmouth
Salford
SOAS
York
Information on students
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497 replies
Female 61%
Male 39%
Post-Graduate 30%
Undergraduate 70%
UK: 325
Other EU: 64
Non-EU: 73
No response: 35
Top 10 languages taken as an extra-curricular activity in
across UG & PG in English HEI’s
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French
Spanish
German
Italian
Chinese
Japanese
Russian
Arabic
Portuguese
Dutch
26%
23%
11%
10%
5%
5%
5%
4%
3%
2%
Top 10 languages taken as an extra-curricular activity
across Europe: details from ENLU project with English
figures in brackets
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English
Spanish
German
French
Italian
Greek
Russian
Chinese
Arabic
Japanese
(French)
(Spanish)
(German)
(Italian)
(Chinese)
(Japanese)
(Russian)
(Arabic)
(Portug.)
(Dutch)
Top 10 languages taken as an extra-curricular activity in
English HEI’s: UG only!
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Spanish
French
German
Italian
Chinese
Other
Arabic
Japanese
Russian
Dutch
25%
24%
11%
9%
7%
5%
5%
4%
3%
2%
Most popular levels of languages taken as an
extra-curricular activity
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A1
B2
A2
B1
C1
C2
42%
19%
13%
15%
9%
3%
Students were asked what other languages they already knew or
had learnt previously. Note: English was given by students who do
not have it as their mother-tongue!
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French
26%
German
25%
English
17%
Spanish
7%
Chinese & Italian 4%
Greek & Russian 2%
Arabic, Dutch, Hindi,
Polish, Portuguese,
Punjabi, Urdu
1%
Levels of languages known or learnt previously
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C2
C1
A2
A1
B1
B2
28%
16%
16%
16%
14%
10%
Other languages mentioned
Azari Bahasa Bulgarian
Burmese Cantonese
Czech Farsi Flemish
Filipino Gujarati Hebrew
Hungarian Irish Korean
Kurdish Latvian
Letzeburgisch
Lithuanian Malay Maori
Norwegian Slovene
Swedish Turkish
Future Careers #1
• Education: 14%
• Civil Service, Government:
11%
• Bank, Accounting & Finance:
8%
• Business: 7%
• Academia, Research: 7%
• Computing: 5%
• Engineering: 5%
• Health, Medicine: 5%
• NGO: 5%
• Media: 4%
Future Careers #2
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Arts: 2%
Interpreter/Translator: 2%
Law: 2%
Marketing/PR: 2%
Advertising: 1%
Psychology: 1%
Publishing: 1%
Retail: 1%
Telecommunications: 1%
Not specified “other”: 9%
Don’t know/unsure: 7%
Reasons to learn
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In order of
importance:
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Career
Personal reasons
Qualification
Holiday
Spoken by family
Residence abroad
More reasons #1
• A language comes
with a culture so I
get to learn a
different culture as
well
• Am taking a
placement in China
next year
• Better chance of
getting a first or 2:1
More reasons #2
• Matter of principle,
improve my
grammar skills – I
had a 1970’s
English education!
• Have invested a lot
of time in learning
French so would be
a shame to just
forget it
Usefulness of a knowledge of languages
in career goals
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Some help
36%
A great deal
28%
Quite a lot
17%
Of not much help
9%
No difference
9%
Planning to work abroad?
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UK-EU students
Don’t know: 31%
No: 19%
Yes: 50%
Other-EU students
Don’t know: 14%
No: 3%
Yes: 83%
Non-EU students
Don’t know: 22%
No: 0%
Yes: 78%
EU goal of mother-tongue plus 2?
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Necessary
UK-EU:
Other-EU:
Non-EU:
Achievable
UK-EU:
Other-EU:
Non-EU:
Desirable:
57%
77%
67%
45%
72%
83%
99%
Why not a degree module?
• Too much work in
main subject and/or
did not want a heavy
workload and/or too
much pressure: 65%
• Not allowed: 20%
• Clashes: 8%
• Fear of gaining a
lower grade in main
subject: 7%
Reasons to be cheerful #1
• After graduation being
able to speak a multitude
of languages greatly
improves your chances of
being chosen over other
candidates
• …is completely different
from my degree subject so
makes a nice change once
a week
Reasons to be cheerful #2
• I think it has helped
me both in
understanding my
own language and
how I use it, and it
also is very different
from what I do from
day to day, so I think it
stretches me in a way
that my other studies
do not
Reasons to be cheerful #3
• It is a very crucial
point in terms of
staying competitive,
especially the rapid
spread of
globalisation.
English may no
longer be the only
international
language
Reasons to be cheerful #4
• Studying foreign languages is something I
consider imperative…helps you to open your
mind and become more acquainted with a
variety of different cultures…it's especially
important for the British to learn at least one
foreign language, because it will open their
minds and make them realise that it isn't fair
to expect foreigners always to speak English
without bothering to make an effort and learn
another language themselves!
Issues re: Institutional survey #1
• Timing of survey: End of Autumn Term
too early for many universities which
have two enrolment periods. Best to
send questionnaire in February.
• Follow-up phone calls will be always
necessary. About 50% of HEI’s respond
within 2 weeks. The rest can take much
longer – up to 6 weeks.
Issues re: Institutional survey #2
• We should try and benchmark the 59 English
universities featured this year
• AULC will always gather data for Irish
(Northern Ireland & Republic of Ireland),
Scottish & Welsh universities
• Some respondents have now put systems
into place so that they will be able to respond
to this questionnaire on an annual basis
• Simplicity of the questions was appreciated
Issues re: Student survey #1
• Relationship will have to be built up with
targeted universities to ensure that surveys
are quickly and efficiently distributed
• Spring Term is preferred by administrative
staff
• How should results be presented?
• Should we work within a 3 or 5 year
framework for collating results?
Issues re: Student survey #2
• Positive feedback from people taking
part
• They understand why data need to be
gathered
• They would like to know what “happens”
to the data
• Interest in comparative information with
other EU countries
Contacts etc
• For further details contact
[email protected]
• www.lse.ac.uk/languageswww.lse.ac.uk/
languages
• www.aulc.org
Taskforce 2: Information on the number of
students studying languages in higher
education for less than 50% of their degree,
or as an extra curricular activity.
ENLU TF2
• Need to know how
many students are
learning a language
as a small part of
their degree…
• …or outside of their
degree
ENLU TF2
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Which languages?
Which levels?
How many credits?
Contact time?
Cost?
ENLU TF2
• Austria Belgium
Bulgaria Czech
Republic Denmark
Estonia Finland France
Germany Greece
Iceland Ireland Italy
Latvia Netherlands
Poland Portugal
Romania Slovakia
Spain Sweden
Switzerland UK
ENLU TF2
• Institutions surveyed
had a total of
730,000 students
• Average size of
institution was
20,285
• Replies mainly from
Language Centres
ENLU TF2
• 33% of all possible
students took a
language as an
assessed part of
their degree
• 11% of all possible
students took a
language outside of
their degree
ENLU TF2
• Good news!
• Around 42% of all
students surveyed
are learning,
improving or
studying a language
in some way at
university
ENLU TF2
• Top 1O languages as part
of degree
• English
• French
• Swedish
• Spanish
• German
• Russian
• Italian
• Dutch
• Portuguese
• Polish
ENLU TF2
• Top 10 languages outside
of degree
• English
• Spanish
• German
• French
• Italian
• Greek
• Russian
• Chinese
• Arabic
• Japanese
ENLU TF2
• Other facts:
• Percentage of
degree = 16%
• Appx. 10 credits
• 4 euro per hour
• 60 hours course
duration
ENLU TF2
• Levels:
• English: C1/2, 10%
fewer at B1/2
• French: B1- C1
• German: B1/2
• Spanish: A2 - C1
• Italian: A1- B2
ENLU TF2
• Levels:
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Non- EU languages
Arabic: A1/2
Chinese: A1/2
Japanese: A1/2
Russian: A1- C1
ENLU TF2
• Recommendations
• Developing systems so
that accurate information
can be efficiently gathered
and made accessible to all
• The need for monitoring
growth and shrinkage of
languages studied
• The need for monitoring
the pattern of language
levels chosen
ENLU TF2
• The need for
monitoring the
balance between
languages taught as
part of degree and
those taught outside
of degree
• The need to monitor
new patterns in
providing language
services
ENLU TF2
• The need to monitor
the reasons why
students for choose
languages either as
part of a degree or
taught outside of
degree
• The need to extend
the survey by
collaborating with
other pan-European
organisations
The HELP Observatory
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What sort of information is needed?
Who should collate it and how?
How often? In what format?
Who decides “what’s hot and what’s not”?
Where does the information go?
How can we monitor?
What “power” could/should it have?