LECTURING AND ASSESSMENT IN HERIOT-WATT UNIVERSITY (EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND)

All of the courses given in the University at undergraduate level rely on lectures given in fifty-minutes periods throughout the three terms in the early years of the courses. Each subject will normally have at least two lecture hours per week with an additional tutorial hour. The latter can consist of small groups with one tutor, or larger groups with several tutors, for example, in mathematics tutorials.

Additionally for many of the science and engineering subjects one or more afternoons per week may be devoted to laboratory work, at which experiments are conducted to back up lectures.

Most subjects are assessed at the end of each term in the first year of a course although the end of session examination contributes most to final achievement. Final examinations are normally held in May of the final year.

It should be noted that each student has a mentor or a tutor who keeps an eye on his progress throughout his university career. He is available to advise the student who experiences difficulties with his academic studies.

Questions:

1) How many terms does the academic year at Heriot-Watt consist of?

2) How long does a lecture last?

3) What other classes do University students have in each subject besides lectures?

4) How and when are many of the subjects assessed?

5) When are final examinations normally held?

6) What are the duties of a tutor?

7) What is the difference between the systems of lecturing and assessment at Heriot-Watt University and at yours?

4. Read the text “Oxford”. Find out the answers to the questions:

1) On what basis are Oxford students selected and why is it said that teaching at Oxford is “pleasantly informal and personal”?

2) What is so dreadful about “Finals”?

3) How is the research done by Oxford post-graduates?

OXFORD

What is it like, being a student at Oxford? Like all British universities, Oxford is a state university, not private one. Students are selected on the basis of their results in the national examinations or the special Oxford entrance examination. There are many applicants, and nobody can get a place by paying a fee. Successful candidates are admitted to a specified college of the university: that will be their home for the next three years (the normal period for an undergraduate degree), and for longer if they are admitted to study for a post-graduate degree. They will be mostly taught by tutors from their own college.

Teaching is pleasantly informal and personal; a typical under-graduate (apart from those in the natural sciences who spend all day in the laboratories) will spend an hour a week with his or her “tutor”, perhaps in the company of one other student. Each of them will have written an essay for the tutor, which serves as the basis-for discussion, argument, the exposition of ideas and academic methods. At the end of the hour the students go away with new essay title and a list of books that might be helpful in preparing for the essay.

Other kinds of teaching such as lectures and seminars are normally optional: popular lecturers can attract audiences from several faculties, while others may find themselves speaking to two or three loyal students, or maybe to none at all. So in theory, if you are good at reading, thinking and writing quickly, you can spend five days out of seven being idle: sleeping, taking part in sports, in student clubs, in acting and singing, in arguing, drinking, having parties. In practice, most students at Oxford are enthusiastic about the academic life, and many of the more conscientious ones work for days at each essay, sometimes sitting up through the night with a wet towel round their heads.

At the end of three years, all students face a dreadful ordeal, “Finals”, the final examinations. The victims are obliged to dress up for the occasion in black and white, an old-fashioned ritual that may help to calm the nerves. They crowd into the huge, bleak examination building and sit for three hours writing what they hope is beautiful prose on half-remembered or strangely forgotten subjects. In the afternoon they assembly for another three hours of writing. After four or five days of this torture they emerge, blinking, into the sunlight, and stagger off for the biggest party of them all.

Postgraduates (often just called graduates) are mostly busy with research for their dissertations, and they spend days in their college libraries or in the richly endowed, fourth hundred-year-old Bodleian library.

5. Match the definitions below with one of the words given

1) Someone in charge of a school.

2) Someone who is still at university studying

for their first degree.

3) Someone who has successfully completed their first degree.

4) Someone responsible for courses in a pri­vate school.

5) Someone in the same class as you at school.

6) Someone who teaches at a college or uni­versity.

7) Someone responsible for teaching a small group of students.

8) Someone with the highest academic posi­tion in a university.

6. Read the following text and find English equivalents of the following words and word combinations in it: радиотехника; преподавательский состав; лабораторное оборудование; жизненная необходимость; возможности; стипендия; курс обучения; изучение иностранных языков; большое внимание; степень; выполнять исследования, в заключение, семестр, общежитие.