Department of Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies
Staff/Student Liaison Committee Meeting - Formal Minutes
Date: Tuesday 17 May 2016
Time: 10.30-12.30
Room: VWB 6.01
1. Membership, introductions and apologies
Introductions were made and apologies were given as below.
Apologies: Benjamin Cox (SR), Safia Shakarchi (SR), Nathaniel Ileto (SR), Paige Cornwell (SR), Amy Davies (SR)
Present: AbdoolKarim Vakil (Chair), Cathy Bremner (SR), Hannah Marshall (HM), João Silvestre (JS), Frederico
Bonaddio (FB)
Absent: Aaran Kotecha (SR), Joanna Woollcombe-Gosson (SR), Annabelle Dufour (SR)
2. Departmental Actions / Items to Report
a. Review of the informal social lunch event
Positive feedback was received. A very good turnout was reported for the event and it was pointed out how
helpful it had been for staff and students to meet informally.
It was pointed out that the Dean for Education had supplied a £300 catering fund for the lunch. It was
suggested by Chair that an email of thanks be sent signed by staff and students. SR agreed this would be
appropriate.
AP: Chair to send the email.
b. Joint SSLCs with other language courses
FB said the possibility of holding joint SSLCs with other language courses had been raised to allow students
on joint programmes (ie. French and Spanish etc.) to attend and raise any issues affecting them.
SR and Chair stated they felt this might not be the best option as there was a risk of course specific issues
being diluted and students might feel they lose ownership if too many courses were covered by one SSLC.
AP: The decision to proceed or not should be made in consultation with students as it is their forum. This
will be raised again next year.
c. Spanish staff representation at SSLCs
Chair noted that in semester 2 there had been no representation of staff from the Spanish side of the
department in the SSLC. Chair thanked FB for attending this SSLC to address this.
AP: It would be useful to ensure a member of the Spanish staff were present at next year’s SSLCs.
d. Student Chair
Chair noted that Benjy Cox (SR) had be proposed and formally accepted as Student Chair for this year but
for practical reasons (attending model UN and then and exam clash) had prevented him from attending two
of the three SSLCs this year.
Chair said this raised the issue of how Student Chair would work and how information from the SSLCs
would be passed on to staff.
AP: SSLC to consider the practicalities of a Student Chair next year.
e. Official thanks to SRs
Chair would like to formally thank all SRs for their contribution to the SSLC during the past year.
f. Communication
Need for better structure for dealing with all comments – it was stated that even when issues raised by
students have been addressed or were based on misconceptions some students raised the issues again,
suggesting they were not aware they had been resolved already.
Chair said emails had not proved effective in communicating with students. SR suggested using Facebook,
FB suggested handouts and better communication of ‘you said we did’ via KEATS and/or slides at the start of
classes.
AP: At next meeting discuss with SRs how communication with students could be improved.
3. Issues raised by Student Representatives (including reported from informal lunch event)
a. Informal SSLCs
SR mentioned the informal SSLC event had been very useful and students had reported back saying they
had found it helpful and enjoyable to meet staff and fellow SPLAS students socially.
Chair raised several points to consider:
- How would feedback from informal SSLCs be recorded and reported?
- Comments made about specific modules should not be made public out of respect for the teaching
staff – Chair suggested a balanced response would be to make comments available to student reps
only.
- Students gave very positive feedback for individual staff at the informal event. Students should be
encouraged to formalize this by nominating staff for awards.
AP: Request for cross-department social events for staff and students to be developed next year.
b. Feedback on points raised in SSLC and informal event
Chair: all feedback has been passed on to tutors. Issues regarding language teaching have been passed on
to Antonia who will follow up all SSLC points – including oral retakes. Antonia has responded to every point
with a yes or no outcome.
c. Marking in SPLAS vs. other language departments
Students had raised concerns over the robustness of marking standards compared to other departments:
why are all essays over 15% not double-marked as in French?
Chair wishes to make students aware that this is a misconception, SPLAS students don’t have any essays at
15% so all essays are subject to the College’s marking criteria with regard to double marking so there is no
cause for concern.
d. Change of format for exams
Students were worried about a change of format. Chair and FB confirm there has been no change to the
format of exams.
e. In-class translation test for translation into Portuguese
Students raised the fact they felt unprepared for the in class translation test as this was not something
they’d done before. They also complained that later classes were given an advantage as they knew what to
expect.
FB said he was not in favour of in-class exams.
AP: FB to make a note of this.
JS recognized that due to a change of staff there had not been time to allocate 3-4 teaching sessions
however he wished to point out that exercises had been available on KEATS for practice and that students
had been practicing these skills in class even though it was not formally labelled as such. Comment:
students think they’re not prepared when they are.
AP: FB wants to investigate how to alleviate students’ anxiety around this kind of issue.
f. Choice of topics for essays in grammar for 4th year essay questions
Students had issues with the topics saying there were too may political subjects and felt they were being
marked down for lack of knowledge when they should have been tested on language alone.
Antonia replied there were a choice of topics including, but not limited to political issues and reassured
students they were graded by their use of language.
g. Opportunities to practice language
Some students expressed their wish for more opportunities to gain language practice.
Chair: such opportunities already exist: buddy scheme for Erasmus students. This needs to be
communicated more clearly to students.
AP: Chair to find out who runs it and to convey this to students so mora can take advantage of it next year.
4. AOB
a. Spanish Language staff – it was mentioned by Chair that Spanish Language tutors are to be invited to
future SSLC’s.
b. Non-attendees – It was noted that all but one SR and finalists were not available due to the timing of
the SSLC, due to clashes with exams and revision.
AP: The timing slots for next year’s SSLCs have been adjusted to reflect the feedback from previous SSLC.
Action Points:
Action
Inform the teaching team to upload the PowerPoint
presentations of lectures for 4AASA047 on to KEATs.
Check if moving 4AASA047 to a later time is possible
according to timetable via Timetabling exercise.
Check to see if course packs for core text that is not widely
accessible is possible to be printed for students.
Who
Chair
Smaller groups and more grammar content for Spanish
Grammar, level 5. Share with Marivi and Antonia.
Raise too many deadlines too close together in level 5 with
Catarina Fouto as Exam Sub board Chair.
Music show/festival invitees to be confirmed with SR.
Timing of future SSLC’s need to be reconsidered in 2016/7 to
accommodate Finalists and SR.
ZC
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Chair/ZC
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When