Dear Colleagues,

I agree with Michael that students have to regard using the self-access
facilities as something worth their while, and making the Self-access
Centre an attractive place which offers meaningful activities is certainly
a good thing.  It seems to me that, on the whole, those centres who have
employed a language adviser in the SMILE meaning of the word are doing
quite well on that front. 

At Greenwich we are also trying this, and our language centre manager cum
language adviser, Kathryn Aldridge-Morris, has worked incredibly hard to
turn the centre into a buzzing and lively place with a "European" feel.
This is partly due to the fact that she employs and trains 'linguist'
students to help her staff the centre. This means that students who use the
centre can check on the timetable which language the individual members of
staff offer, and then turn up at the appropriate time. Ad hoc conversation
classes have sprung up that way.

On a more general level, however, I think it is the overall policy, both
within the university as well as the language department/subject group
which determines the success of a self-access centre. Don't you agree that
the activities the students work on while they are in the centre have got
to be properly integrated into the language curriculum? We do this through
a portfolio: the students put all their regular self-access work into this
portfolio, and this is then assessed at several intervals during the
semester, and then overall at the end. The assessment may be the 'stick'
which is necessary to get the students into the centre (apart from other
incentives); the 'carrot' is that they develop a certain self-discipline
with increasing success in their language learning (well, most of them). As
you all know, it is pretty difficult to train non-linguist language
learners in the art of language learning, and the language centre plays a
vital part in the students discovering for themselves what works best for
them. In my opinion, a certain flexibility and variety of tasks is
therefore an important part of good portfolio design.

So, this was my twopennies worth of debate contribution. Any further
comments from anyone?

May I use this opportunity to tell you all that I am actually not working
at the University of Greenwich any longer? I am sending this email from my
home address as the mail facilities at my new place of work have not yet
been set up properly (but I ought to be contactable by email shortly).
Plese refer to my new contact details further below.

Yours, und hoffentlich bis bald

Brigitte Dold

Diplomatic Service Language Centre
The Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Cromwell House
Dean Stanley Street
London SW1P 3JH
Tel: 0171 276 6957
email: [log in to unmask]


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