Page 5 - ELG1702 Feb Issue 444

February 2017 ELrankings Page 5

choose a UK university lan- New measures of excellence
f you want to use rankings to

Iguage centre which teaches
pre-sessional courses to interna-
tional students, you may start off Matt Salusbury rakes through the rankings for UK university language centres
with a series of seemingly con-
tradictory lists. and explains why different listings measure very different aspects of learning
We have three tables on this
page, each of which uses a differ-
ent metric to ‘rank’. Table 1 lists not individual departments, but sessionals or run joint ventures. university’s academic research ers’ association Baleap has an language or applied linguistics),
the top UK universities from the we have only included those that The THE ranking is a measure- is a different game to teach- accreditation scheme for English but for those that did, we have
THE World University Rankings. run their own language centres ment of a university’s excellence ing the English and academic language centres, which focuses their ranking in that subject. A
This is a ranking of universities, – not those who contract out pre- and reputation in research. A skills its ‘internationals’ need in in the quality of EAP provision high REF score means there are
preparation for a degree course. in particular. The British Council staff in that university who are
Table 1: UK unis ranked in the THE and Academic high fliers whose pub- publishes its results – see Table 2, strong in these fields, which may
lished work contributes to a high
also impact positively on the
our ranking of British Council-
that have their own language centre score for their university in the ranked UK university language quality of their English language
centres. This is based on the num-
World University Rankings may
centre’s teaching.
ber of ‘area strengths’ in their
or may not have any impact on
Finally, there’s the relatively
the quality of the unit that teaches most recent summary statement new TEF, brought to you by Eng-
Ranking University Accredited by British 2014 REF ranking for academic English. World-class (inspection report summary). land’s Department for Education
Council of BALEAP? which subject? universities can be more selec- Many even opt for ‘double (DfE, many Scottish universities
tive and feel less need to cater
1 University of Oxford not accredited Education 1
for international students without World-class unis can be more selective
2 University of Cambridge Not accredited Linguistics 4= already excellent English. and feel less need to cater for international
It’s noticeable, though, that
3 Imperial College Not accredited No Tesol-related most of the UK’s top twenty students without already excellent English
subject THE-ranked universities do have
4 UCL (University College London, British Council, Baleap No Tesol-related English language provision. Even accreditation’ (see Table 1) – with aren’t yet part of it). It’s based
includes Institute of Education) courses as of 2014 Imperial College, specialising in both the British Council (for its on indicators such as the ‘stu-
science and not offering any arts English teaching in general, with dent experience’ of the university
5 London School of Economics Not accredited didn’t submit for or humanities degree courses, a score, see Table 2) and with and is supposed to reflect teach-
(LSE) Tesol-related subject
has an English language centre. Baleap (focussed on EAP, but ing quality rather than research
6 University of Edinburgh Baleap Education 6=, Universities have no requirement with no score available). excellence. It seems to favour
Linguistics 2 (MSc) to get separate accreditation for As you will notice in Table 1 newer campus universities over
7 KCL (King’s College London) British Council, Baleap Education 2 their English language centres. there is another way of ranking more ancient established universi-
Some, including those at the top a university’s status in language ties and those in bigger cities. So
8 University of Manchester. British Council, Baleap Education 10 of the table, don’t feel the need teaching. The REF – the Research new is TEF that all we have at the
to seek it, and that is their choice. Excellence Framework, which moment is a ‘modelling’ of the top
9 University of Bristol British Council, Baleap Education 5 (MSc)
Many, though, do have an was last carried out in 2014 ten by the THE World University
10 University of Warwick British Council Education 11= accredited language centre. – looks at the quality of post- Rankings, included here (Table
The British Council accredits graduate research in a particular 3). Even among these less-well-
11 University of Glasgow Baleap Education 13 language schools – and also uni- subject. Not all universities with known TEF ranked institutions,
versity language centres – based language centres submitted the top ten all have a language
12 University of Durham Baleap
on the quality of their English research to the REF in a Tesol- centre, and some of those those
13 University of Sheffield British Council, Baleap English language 7 teaching in general. EAP provid- related field (education, English near the top are accredited. n
14 University of St Andrews British Council, Baleap MPhil postgrad cert/
dip courses only
15 QMU, University of London, British Council, Baleap Linguistics 1
(Queen Mary’s University)
16 University of Southampton not accredited Linguistics 3
17 University of York not accredited Education 8 =
18 University of Birmingham British Council Education 4, English
language 8
19 University of Leeds British Council, Baleap Education 15,
linguistics 9
20 Lancaster University no accreditation English language 20

Total
Table 2: UK uni Ranking University language centre points
language 1 University of Brighton 12

centres ranked 2 UCL 11

by BC summary 3 Brunel University, Leeds Met, 10
Leeds Beckett
statement score 4 KCL, Manchester Met, Uclan, Leicester 9
8
Northumbria, Sheffield Hallam, Bristol,
5
Manchester, Salford
Table 3: UK unis ranked in THE modelling of the TEF

Ranking University Language centre accredited
1 Loughborough University yes
2 Aston University yes, Centre for Language
Research at Aston (CLaRA)
3 De Montfort University Centre for English Language British Council
Learning
4 Swansea University English Language Training Ser- British Council,
vices Baleap
5 University of Kent Centre for English and World
Languages
6 Coventry University BES Languages Centre
7 Keele University Language Centre EL Gazette Centre
of Excellence 2016,
British Council
8 University of Surrey School of English and Languages
9 University of Bath Academic
Skills Centre
10 Lancaster University Department of Linguistics and
English Language (pre-sessional)

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