Page 7 - ELG1601 Dec Issue 442

December 2016 ELteaching matters Page 7

Teaching excellence in the frame
he UK world of higher
education has been all
Ta-twitter with talk of
the TEF. The Teaching Excel-
lence Framework, to give it its Melanie Butler explains the strange world of
full name, specifically excludes Scoring strengths:
measures of research strength the UK’s Teaching Excellence Framework
which favour better-established results explained
universities, and uses metrics
from student satisfaction sur-
veys, student drop-out rates and o calculate the rankings on the number of areas of
employment rates to rank UK from the British Coun- strength, weighted towards
universities. To make things Tcil we checked all the those with a strength in teach-
even more complicated, older universities listed by name on ing as measured in classroom
and more famous universities are its website. We then removed observation. This left a list of
marked down – handicapped as all those where the language twenty centres.
the best players are in golf – so centre was run by staff from In order to discriminate
the new universities can shine. a private pathway provider more finely between the cen-
The TEF, as you may notice, as they cannot be taken to tres, we then calculated the
doesn’t actually measure teach- reflect the teaching quality total number of individual
ing or even learning, although of the university as a whole. criteria assigned to them in
some universities are reported We also removed foreign uni- the report per strength, sub-
to be working with Cambridge versities such as Girne and tracting a point for any which
English Language Assessment on private universities like BPP had not been met. The num-
ways of measuring learning gain. as they were not included in ber of criteria assigned varied
The results have been modelled in the THE pilot model of TEF. considerably between 22 and
pilot form by the boffins at Times Courtesy Charlotte Earney We also had to exclude any 32 in total. In part this was
Higher Education (THE), and will state university that did not simply because not all crite-
be released in broad bands named appear in the THE model. ria apply to all centres, but
gold, silver and bronze. If and We then used summary more significantly the num-
when the system goes live, it will TOUGH TEF UK students protest against the Teaching Excellence Framework in November statements, the section of ber of criteria can change
be used to set the fees individual the British Council report from one year to another.
universities can charge EU stu- small historic towns or on nice conventional measurement of considered as important sectors where inspectors list areas Since the variation in the
dents: gold at the top, and so on. campuses. The reasons for this university teaching published in in teaching quality: academic of strength awarded and any number of criteria had a sig-
There has even been talk, recently probably have little to do with the UK are the reports on uni- profile, academic manage- needs for improvement in an nificant effect on the result,
played down by the government, how well they actually teach. versity language centres from ment, learner management, area. To achieve a strength in we accordingly gave 40 per
that it would be used to decide What the TEF measures is not the British Council as part of course design and, perhaps an area, a centre must not fail cent of the final total to the
which universities international teaching at all but something the accreditation programme it most important of all, classroom to meet a single criterion and individual criteria, and 60
students could go to. more like ‘student engagement’, runs with English UK. This is observation. Who would come score a strength in at least half per cent, weighted for class-
This is good news, as the uni- how well they support students a small sample, just over forty out top then, and would it match of all the criteria. We then cal- room teaching, to the areas
versities that most international and build student communi- universities, and covers only the TEF bandings? culated the top schools based awarded. n
students want to go to are world- ties, which is hard to do in large one kind of university teaching, As the results in the top twenty
famous ones like Edinburgh, the metropolitan universities with albeit one that is vital to inter- show (see box on right), the answer BC top 20 for teaching:
London School of Economics multiple campuses spread around national students. The metrics to the last question is no. There
and Kings College London – the town. Student engagement is available under ‘teaching and doesn’t appear to be any correla- 1. University of Salford 100 (bronze)
none of which rank very well in a very important indicator, one learning’, however, are impres- tion between what students tell the 2. UCL 99 (silver)
the TEF, though they dominate that is specifically measured in sive, between twenty and thirty TEF and what the British Council 3= Kings College London 96 (bronze)
the international rankings. In US rankings. It may even be a individual criteria, depending on finds inspecting the university’s 3= Sheffield Hallam University 96 (silver)
fact, going by student satisfac- good measure by which to allo- which year the inspection took language centre. What it does tell 5. University of Brighton 87 (silver)
tion surveys, unis in large cities, cate funding. But it is not the place and how many services us, though, provides great insight 6. Brunel University 86.5 (silver)
especially those in London, do same as teaching. are applicable in each case, into what goes on in university lan- 7. Manchester Metropolitan University 79.5 (silver)
not score as well as those in As far as we know, the only divided into five areas normally guage departments. n 8. University of Leeds 78.5 (gold)
9. University of Dundee 77.5 (silver)
Which unis do well – and why? 11. Leeds Beckett University 74 (bronze)
10. University of Sheffield 77 (gold)
12. University of Bristol 70.5 (bronze)
13. Swansea University 69.5 (gold)
14= University of Leicester 69 (silver)
niversity language cen- over half of all centres received universities accredited by the language centres mirrors the 14= Northumbria University 69 (silver)
tres make up the most an area of strength in three or British Council make it into this quality in the rest of the univer- 16. Canterbury Christ Church 67 (bronze)
Uconsistent of the accred- more of the areas which come list. Overall, metropolitan uni- sity, except perhaps for modern 17 Teeside University 66.5 (silver)
ited sectors, judged by the under this standard, including a versities predominate, which foreign languages, with which 18. Anglia Ruskin 66 (silver)
strengths awarded across all five strength in classroom teaching. is perhaps to do with the rela- many of them are also involved. 19. University of Central Lancashire 65.5 (bronze)
of the standards inspected by the The top universities in the areas of tive ease of attracting skilled The fact is that teachers in lan-
British Council. It is also excels teaching and learning are not nec- staff, especially during the peak guage centres, though some of Unplaced: University of Birmingham scored highly on areas of
at classroom teaching, with essarily the top-scoring ones in the summer season. It is clear from them are notable research aca- strength, with four out of five including teaching observation, so
over 50 per cent of all universi- scheme. The top university in the conversations with them that uni- demics in their own right, almost it would certainly be in the top twenty, but the full reports has
ties achieving a strength in this EL Gazette rankings is Brighton, versities outside the main centres all started out as teachers in class- not been published so we cannot give a precise score.
compared to just 20 per cent of which does not quite match the for English language teaching rooms in schools. They have
accredited centres overall. five areas of strength awarded to have problems recruiting quali- been trained to teach, something Gold, silver and bronze refer to the new UK university fees
The fact that universities excel the top four in our teaching excel- fied staff. It is equally true that which is no longer in fashion in banding system (see left).
at classroom teaching is more of lence list – but is close behind. the fastest-growing markets for the UK schools system, let alone
a surprise than you might expect: However, the universities which language teaching in the last dec- in universities. n
the criteria for classroom teaching do well overall in the British ade have been in major university
are designed to cover every kind Council inspections are the most hub towns, notably Leeds, Man-
of English course, from a sum- likely to top the teaching list. All chester and Edinburgh.
mer school for eight year-olds to but two of our teaching excellence Partly because of this, metro-
academic English programmes centres rank in the top 20 per cent politan universities make up the
for post-graduates. Some of the in the country. majority of the sector. None of Can you prove it?
areas covered, such as teaching So what do the best university the ancient universities opt to
pronunciation using the Interna- language centres for teaching be inspected, unless you count
tional Phonetic Alphabet, are not have in common? Well it cer- Dundee on the grounds that it
well-suited to university courses tainly isn’t their banding on the used to be part of St Andrews.
designed to teach academic writ- TEF. Or even their rankings on Dundee is also the only Scot- Then we’ll print it.
ing skills. There are even stories the REF – though most of them tish university in the scheme and
of academics threatening to operate in universities that offer there are only two from Wales.
mutiny over criteria they feel do masters in fields related to lan- There is also a dearth of accred-
not conform to the latest research guage teaching. As in the TEF, ited campus universities.
evidence, but the sector has one a post-1992 university is just It is the quality of the teachers
main advantage: it attracts the as likely to make it to the top that makes university language
most highly qualified and experi- as a Russell Group member or centres stand out, due in part to Get your story heard!
enced English language teachers a world-ranking university. This the fact that they pay more than
in the country, and this shows is equally true at the bottom. twice as much per hour as their
not only in their academic pro- Salford and UCL may rank one FE or private language schools
file, an area in which many gain and two for teaching but the two peers. Only the boarding school
a strength, but in their classroom lowest-performing universities, language centres can compete
teaching. Nottingham Trent and Warwick, in terms of teaching, and indeed
The universities are consistent score no points in teaching at all. beat the universities hands down
not only in their classroom teach- Student dissatisfaction with when it comes to the area of care EL Gazette
ing but in the number of strengths London universities is not of under-18s.
awarded under the standards reflected in their teaching results, This does not mean, of course, www.elgazette.com
for teaching and learning. Just as all but one of the capital’s that the teaching quality in the

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