You are going to hear Dr Joanne Robinson, the course director of a Language Learning Center, answering questions from reporters from the student newspaper. First look at questions 21 to 26. As you listen to the first part of the talk, answer questions 21 to 26. Write no more than three words or numbers for each answer.
Course Director Welcome to the Language Learning Center. I’m Joanne Robinson. You must be the reporters from The Examiner. Please come in and sit down.
Cheryl: Hello Dr Robinson. Yes, we’re from The Examiner. I’m Cheryl Perkins and this is Don Klim. May I start with a question? Did this college really start with Brazilian students?
Course Director It did. The language Learning Center was founded in 1985 to look after a group of students from Brazil who wanted to study here. Those twenty students soon grew to 60, and, as you can imagine, we had severe accommodation problems.
Don: Somebody said you were in the old amenities block, right near the engineering school.
Course Director: They have a good memory! Yes, we were there, because the university hadn’t believed we would expand so quickly. The problem wasn’t solved until we moved into these new premises in Bancroft House in 1987.
Don: When did you start taking students from other countries?
Course Director: About 1990. We now have students from 13 different countries enrolled, and we expect a large group from Turkey next month.
Cheryl: Yes, we’ve noticed a lot more advertisements for Turkish restaurants in our advertising section. Course Director: Well, 40% of our students come from Turkey, by far the largest single national group, and I believe there’s been an influx to the rest of the university. There are a lot of Turkish students studying hospitality.
Cheryl: Do you offer anything special to the students? Course Director: Yes, we do. There are several things which make us rather different from other language schools. English is certainly not restricted to English for academic purposes here! Sometimes we have extra classes for students who have particular courses in mind, and we have just said goodbye to a group of thirty Indonesian students who were preparing for a university course in agriculture. They came to us for English for farming, and they were with us for a long time. We miss them!
Cheryl: How long do students usually stay at the Language Learning Center?
Course Director: It varies, so I’ll talk about the average. Most of our courses last for five weeks, but to make any real progress a student needs to be here for at least three terms, that’s fifteen weeks. The students do better if they have a little time to settle in at the beginning of the course, and we offer an orientation course that lasts a week. Most students take it. It helps them to settle down, and it gives us plenty of time to test them and place them at the right level.
Don: How many people are in each class?
Course Director: We sometimes go up to 18, but our average class size is 14 students, and some classes have as few as seven participants. It depends on the needs of the group.
Cheryl: You were saying that you miss your students when they go. How do you attract students? I mean, how do they hear about the language Learning Center in the first place?
Course Director: We’re included in the university advertising and marketing, and we have our own website. The thing which works best for us, though, is word of mouth. Students who leave us often send us their friends. In fact, a student who arrived today was carrying a photograph for me of a former student and his baby!
Cheryl: It sounds like a nice place to be!
Course Director: It is! A lot of our students make lasting friendships while they’re here.
Narrator: Now look at questions 27 to 31. As the talk continues, answer questions 27 to 31.
Cheryl: Making friends with other students sounds special enough! I’d like to emphasise that in the student newspaper.
Course Director: We do try to get our students to be part of the wider university.
Don: How do you do that? Do you encourage them to join the Sports Center, for instance?
Course Director: Indeed we do! The Sports Center is always looking for active participants, particularly in soccer. Oh, and something else. You might like to mention that we don’t teach just English here. I mean, we’re a language center, not an English language center. You may learn Spanish, Mandarin, and Russian here, and we can sometimes offer other languages. This means we can have some students who are native speakers of those languages as conversation partners for English-speaking students. Cheryl: Who can do those courses?
Course Director At this time, any native speaker of English.
Cheryl: What about the people who are learning English? Can they do a non-English language course? Course Director At this time, only if they’ve almost finished their English language course. You see, we try very hard to involve students who are native speakers of English as conversation leaders and we encourage our students to join groups on the campus. For instance, if they enjoy music, there is an active jazz group available to everyone, and that’s a lot of fun. On the other hand, elementary students can’t go to the drama group, their English just isn’t ready for that sort of activity, but the university choir welcomes all the singers it can find. They often do large productions that need a lot of voices.
Cheryl: I imagine the special conversation groups are open to all your students …
Course Director: I wish they were. I’m sorry to say they’re a special service we provide for elementary students only. Is there anything else I can tell you? (pause) I’d be really pleased if you could write about the courses we offer in foreign languages.
Cheryl: I think our readers would be very interested in that. Thank you for your time. Dr Robinson.
Don: Yes, thank you very much.
Course Director: Goodbye. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about the center. It’s always good to let the rest of the students at the university know what goes on in our classrooms, and outside them! After all, many of our students leave us and then study for degrees in various disciplines on this campus.