Language Survey on HE students choosing a language as an extra-curricular activity

DfES & AULCDepartment 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 extra-curricular activity.

• The institutional survey also includes HEI’s in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales

Institutional Survey #2 : GB + NI HEI’s

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10000

20000

30000

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2003/4 2004/5 2005/6

Degree

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Institutional Survey #3: GB + NI HEI’s

• 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• 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

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2003/04 2004/5 2005/06

Degree

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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

• Bath• Birmingham• Cambridge• Durham• Leeds Metropolitan• Loughborough• Manchester• Portsmouth• Salford• SOAS• York

Information on students

• 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

• French 26%• Spanish 23%• German 11%• Italian 10%• Chinese 5% • Japanese 5%• Russian 5%• Arabic 4%• Portuguese 3%• Dutch 2%

Top 10 languages taken as an extra-curricular activity across Europe: details from ENLU project with English

figures in brackets

• English (French)• Spanish (Spanish)• German (German)• French (Italian)• Italian (Chinese)• Greek (Japanese)• Russian (Russian)• Chinese (Arabic)• Arabic (Portug.)• Japanese (Dutch)

Top 10 languages taken as an extra-curricular activity in English HEI’s: UG only!

• Spanish 25%• French 24%• German 11%• Italian 9%• Chinese 7%• Other 5%• Arabic 5%• Japanese 4%• Russian 3%• Dutch 2%

Most popular levels of languages taken as an extra-curricular activity

• A1 42%• B2 19%• A2 13%• B1 15%• C1 9%• C2 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!

• 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

• C2 28%• C1 16%• A2 16%• A1 16%• B1 14%• B2 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

• 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

• In order of importance:

• 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

• Some help • 36%• A great deal • 28%• Quite a lot • 17%• Of not much help • 9% • No difference • 9%

Planning to work abroad?• 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?

• Necessary • UK-EU: 57%• Other-EU: 77%• Non-EU: 67%• Achievable• UK-EU: 45%• Other-EU: 72%• Non-EU: 83%• Desirable: 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 n.byrne@lse.ac.uk

• 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

• 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:

• 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

• 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?