Status: Closed — this petition is no longer accepting signatures.
Final supporters
A new requirement for postgraduate students taking a language unit this year is that they have to write an essay worth 30% of the unit. This essay is either based on the 'Language Acquisition Seminars' or a translation project in the language you are taking.
The Language Acquisition seminar series was not clearly added to the timetabling of the course units at and before enrolment, therefore not all students can attend the seminars. In theory this means that those who cannot attend the seminars are restricted to doing the translation.
As you may be aware, almost all the students taking these language units have started from scratch, which technically means that an in depth translation is out of the question also. This leaves students with no option but to be forced to write an essay on a subject that they not only have no information about but that is irrelevant to the assessment of course itself. Is it fair that instead of being entirely assessed on the language you chose to study you are being assessed on a hardly relevant essay you have to write on for example the 'use of language in law'? Is an essay a fair way to assess learning a language?
If you are in favour of removing the essay component from the assessment of your language unit I urge you to sign this petition.
Say no to essays for language units.
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Updates
November 8, 2010
The department is hiding behind their desk and refusing to acknowledge that this essay requirement is complete nonsense. I have been fighting to get a real answer from the faculty coordinators but they keep dodging the fact that they are testing our ability to write academic papers instead of our actual language skills.
November 8, 2010
The administration thought they could bury this garbage requirement without anyone noticing but the surge in support proves they were dead wrong. This momentum shows exactly how fed up we are with their lazy and irrelevant assessment policies.
6 Comments
complete waste of time. let us focus on learning the language instead of busy work.
seriously how are we supposed to do an in depth translation when we only learned the alphabet like 2 months ago???
This is ridiculous. I picked this unit to learn the language not to write papers on law or whatever. Focus on our actual skills!
agree 100%. not fair to judge language skills based on an essay.
I have work during the seminars so this is literally impossible for me. totally unfair requirement.
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Status: Closed — this petition is no longer accepting signatures.
Final supporters
A new requirement for postgraduate students taking a language unit this year is that they have to write an essay worth 30% of the unit. This essay is either based on the 'Language Acquisition Seminars' or a translation project in the language you are taking.
The Language Acquisition seminar series was not clearly added to the timetabling of the course units at and before enrolment, therefore not all students can attend the seminars. In theory this means that those who cannot attend the seminars are restricted to doing the translation.
As you may be aware, almost all the students taking these language units have started from scratch, which technically means that an in depth translation is out of the question also. This leaves students with no option but to be forced to write an essay on a subject that they not only have no information about but that is irrelevant to the assessment of course itself. Is it fair that instead of being entirely assessed on the language you chose to study you are being assessed on a hardly relevant essay you have to write on for example the 'use of language in law'? Is an essay a fair way to assess learning a language?
If you are in favour of removing the essay component from the assessment of your language unit I urge you to sign this petition.
Say no to essays for language units.
Updates
November 8, 2010
The department is hiding behind their desk and refusing to acknowledge that this essay requirement is complete nonsense. I have been fighting to get a real answer from the faculty coordinators but they keep dodging the fact that they are testing our ability to write academic papers instead of our actual language skills.
November 8, 2010
The administration thought they could bury this garbage requirement without anyone noticing but the surge in support proves they were dead wrong. This momentum shows exactly how fed up we are with their lazy and irrelevant assessment policies.
6 Comments
Why do they keep adding stuff like this halfway through?? just let us stick to the syllabus we signed up for.
complete waste of time. let us focus on learning the language instead of busy work.
seriously how are we supposed to do an in depth translation when we only learned the alphabet like 2 months ago???
This is ridiculous. I picked this unit to learn the language not to write papers on law or whatever. Focus on our actual skills!
agree 100%. not fair to judge language skills based on an essay.
I have work during the seminars so this is literally impossible for me. totally unfair requirement.
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Why do they keep adding stuff like this halfway through?? just let us stick to the syllabus we signed up for.