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Thanks for this Anne. I have expressed an opinion on this before. Much as I understand the reasons offered by universities for this, given the particular nature of Chinese, I still find it unacceptable and very shortsighted. The Confucius Institutes are wanting to promote Chinese in schools, and the language is developing rapidly, so it is an anomoly not to plan for this. Why am I putting so much effort into trying to dvelop PGCE places if their pupils will be rejected from HE courses? There is indeed an important ethical issue here. Universities need to look at ways in which differentiation is possible, using different levels of attainment to contribute to a community of practice. This is what I had to do when teaching languages in schools where there would often be a native speaker of the language present as a pupil. The development of greater individualisation is clearly crucial. Perhaps it is a resource issue, in which case we need to support Chinese departments in gaining access to greater resource. I think a meeting with Bill Rammell would be important, at least to draw his attention to the situation. Let me know if I can be of any help. All the best Terry Quoting Anne Martin <[log in to unmask]>: > Some more worrying news about University attitudes to students with GCSE and > A level Chinese > > I am teaching a non native mature student who is taking GCSE Chinese this > year. He already has some A levels and has applied to SOAS and has been given > an unconditional offer to study Chinese. > > At the open day last week an admissions tutor at SOAS was asked by someone > how they viewed students with A level Chinese. The admissions tutor replied > that a student with A level Chinese would probably not be offered a place to > study Chinese at SOAS as their course starts from the beginning and they have > no course for those with A level already. My student who is taking GCSE was > told to ease off on his studies. > > I am appauled by this attitude. > > We in secondary schools are working hard to get our students through GCSE and > A level with good grades to be told this by an admissions tutor at a leading > University. > > I would like to take this up with the Minister for Higher Education Bill > Rammell who spoke at the recent HSBC conference. > What do others think about this ? > > Regards > Anne Martin > > Dr Terry LAMB Director, Initial Teacher Education University of Sheffield President, FIPLV (Fédération Internationale des Professeurs de Langues Vivantes) Convenor, AILA Research Network on Learner Autonomy in Language Learning School of Education The Education Building 388 Glossop Road Sheffield S10 2JA Tel: (+)44 (0)114 222 8118 Fax: (+)44 (0)114 279 8631 http://www.shef.ac.uk/education/staff/academic/lambt.html FIPLV website: http://www.fiplv.org/ AILA SC website: http://lc.ust.hk/~ailasc/