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jaargang 42, 6 april 2000 English page

First Teaching Course in English May Be the Last TUE’s teacher training service centre (Onderwijs Service Centrum or OSC) are starting a short didactic course for foreign staff lecturing in English. The course will be held for the first time this month, but due to expected AVA cuts, the first course may also be the last. Harry van de Wouw (left) and Mark de Graaf talking to new teachers about practice tutorial methods. Photo by Bram Saeys. Interest in the course already represents more than three times the number of places available. The course was set-up after repeated requests from foreign staff who had difficulty understanding standard Dutch didactic courses. More Foreign Lecturers “In the coming five years many of our lecturers will be leaving as they reach retirement age. Some of them will be replaced by people from our current graduate student population, many of whom lecture in English (40 per cent of all graduate students are non-Dutch). Because of this, we have developed a training course in English for those who do not speak enough Dutch to follow the regular didactic course. But after AVA cuts, we may not be able to continue beyond this first attempt to support foreign teaching staff,” says OSC teaching advisor drs. Harry van de Wouw. The most recent AVA plans are unclear on who is to organise future courses. This may possibly be taken care of by the individual faculties or a new central organisation may be set-up. Whether this will be practical or at all possible is uncertain, says a worried Van de Wouw. The rule at TUE is that all beginning lecturers must attend a basic teaching course of five half-days. The broad range of topics discussed in this time may be tackled more thoroughly in specialised courses later on. “When graduate students start teaching, they tend to emulate their own teachers. Pacing the room, droning on, working out problems on the blackboard, while students faithfully take notes,” says Van de Wouw. “But if you ask people about the times they learnt the most, everyone says it was when they worked something out for themselves.” Active Course The training courses are meant to make new teachers more aware of their own methods and show them how students can be most effectively taught. Experienced teachers help small groups discover the strong and weak points in their approach. The course is very practical and has people trying things out on each other. Teaching advisor dr.ir. Mark de Graaf comments: “We try to get people to take part, rather than sit listening to our wonderful theories. It’s a very active course. I expect the method to work especially well in our new English course. In this way, the fact that not everyone has the same level of proficiency in English becomes less important. It’s about learning to be a good teacher.” Apart from the usual didactic difficulties in getting students to solve problems, real cultural differences in methods of teaching exist. “I spent four years in Jakarta. Many Asian countries have a similar ‘listening culture’,” Van de Wouw continues. “While it might be fine to lecture for hours at an Indonesian university, TUE students are not used to listening for that long and will probably lose their concentration, especially if the lecture is in English. Asian students are also very careful about the questions they ask. In their culture sometimes asking a question can be disrespectful or even show that they are bad students. While here in the Netherlands the exact opposite probably applies.” Enriching “I’ve given this course before elsewhere. Talking to foreign staff about teach-ing was an enriching experience. I trained people from Iran, Africa, South America, Asia – all very different cultures.” The number of lecturers teaching in English at TUE is on the increase. Not only because of increasing numbers of foreign graduate students. TUE also plans to teach the last two years of the new Masters degree courses in English. This will lead to increased exchange of teachers from countries all over the world. Dutch teachers will also have to learn to lecture comfortably and professionally in English. Support for these lecturers is something OSC have also been trying to plan for. “When you teach in English, you find your jokes suffer in translation. You tend to speak more slowly than you would in Dutch, although this last can be positive for others with English as their second language,” Mark de Graaf reflects./.

Flowers for Landlady The Bureau for International Activities have decided to give their landlords and landladies a little something extra each month. Anyone letting rooms or apartments to one or more of TUE’s foreign guests may be chosen as the landlord or landlady of the month. The reward is a bunch of flowers and a 25 guilder gift voucher. BIA will make their choice for the first landlord or landlady of the month known on April 11. BIA have about fifty people who regularly let rooms or apartments to foreign students and staff on their books. Tenants Vestide Soon on Internet All Vestide apartments are to receive a fixed Internet and TUE local net connection before the beginning of the new academic year. The housing corporation announced this to all tenants last weekend. Every Vestide apartment will be linked to TUE through a high speed network. Vestide rents out 1450 units, including Fellowtel. The contract between TUE and the telecom supplier UPC has not yet been signed. The university is still negotiating with UPC about a number of things. For instance, TUE would also like to connect residents of non-Vestide apartments and staff to the net. The contract should be signed within a few weeks. TUreluur Now Open The place formerly known as the skybar (in the main building), was reopened on Thursday March 30. The TUreluur, as the space has now been colloquially named, was opened by ir. Harry Roumen, secretary of the Board of Governors (CvB). In future top people from CvB, faculties and student organisations, may make use of TUreluur. The space is well suited to all kinds of meetings and receptions. Cheops, the architecture student organisation that used to occupy the Skybar, have moved to the cellar of the main building, where the ‘Skybar Underground’ was opened in January. Photo: Bram Saeys

Aid for Turkey Husnu Jegenoglu, architect and lecturer at TUE, was approached late last year by the ‘Utrecht helpt Turkije’ foundation with a request to produce a sketch design for a new school. This primary school will be built in western Turkey, a region where the earthquake of August 17 caused great damage. Many schools were completely destroyed. Children now have classes in tents. TUE are donating time and knowledge to the project. “It’s a good thing for university staff to feel involved in something, and have the chance to put some effort into it. This is a good way for us to use our knowledge in ordinary life and in society,” says Husnu Jegenoglu. Jegenoglu is still looking for ways to involve TUE students in the project. “It’s good for students to see how a Dutch design is translated to Turkish building traditions.” Bike Clear-Up Campaign Next week will see the start of a bike-clear-up-campaign in the TUE bike parking lots. Any bikes no longer being used as means of transport will be labelled. If the owner does not remove the label within one month, the bike will be removed. After another two months the broken machines will be taken to the scrap heap. In these two months it is still possible to get your bike back if you contact the Front Office (5959). This campaign has become necessary because the fifteen bike parking lots on the TUE campus are becoming much too crowded. There are quite a few bikes that are no longer functional but are still taking up space. Head TUimelaar Suspended Tineke Linssen, head of TU day-care centre TUimelaar, was suspended last week. Her job will be filled for the time being by interim manager Annemarie Moons. According to management, this was decided because of a sudden crisis of confidence. On Tuesday afternoon, the management called a meeting to inform parents. The news was totally unexpected. TUimelaar staff have expressed their shock in a letter to CvB. Neither the management or Linssen herself wished to comment on the crisis. The English page in Cursor is written by journalist Paula van de Riet. She can be reached at extension 4441. Email: engcur@stud.tue.nl