Effective teaching... in another language
Language staff in Humanities have been working with academics in Denmark to improve their English skills.
Programmes for academics and senior managers have been held both in Southampton and at Aarhus School of Business (part of the University of Aarhus), where the majority of teaching is in the English language. Each person is first assessed, so the course leader knows their experience, language capabilities and expectations, then initial individual learning programmes are drawn up which can be developed as the course progresses. The sessions themselves offer intensive oral work in specialist classroom language skills, delivering lectures and discussion of areas of interest to the individuals such as language and cultural issues around the recruitment and education of overseas students.
Chris Sinclair, Head of English Language at Southampton, devised the programmes and hopes to extend them to other universities and other countries. Chris comments: "We feel there are considerable opportunities to deliver these courses elsewhere and are examining possibilities in Europe and beyond."
Mary Page is among the Southampton staff who have taught the Danish students. "Our aim was to increase their confidence in lecturing in English in the classroom," says Mary. "Their command of the language was already extremely good but they were keen to improve and appreciated our feedback. They were a joy to work with."