The Students View

Feedback from November 2011

UAB Idiomes Barcelona actively seeks feedback from our users to ensure quality and to make sure that our courses and service match your needs. We get feedback through the online questionnaires which we ask our students to complete during and after their course. The November 2011 survey of foreign language courses (English, French and German) at our centre, asked students to rate us and say which aspects were most important to them. 212 students out of a total of 531 (40%) participated. As a language teaching centre our main interest is the teaching activity. Below you can see the ratings for five key aspects of teaching. How would you rate the following aspects on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = very unsatisfactory and 5 = highly satisfactory)? Questions Teachers teaching activity Clarity and systematisation of class explanations Class dynamism and pleasant atmosphere Systems for oral error correction Systems for written error correction Rating 4.41 4.39 4.40 4.22 4.23

We also wanted to know our students impressions of the balance of different activities in class. In the results below, 2 would be the optimum scores. So, it is clear that our students are happy with the balance of activities in class and would like a bit more of everything, rather than less! Do you think that the time dedicated to the following classroom activities was not enough, enough or too much? Questions Activities to improve spoken expression Activities to improve oral comprehension Activities to improve written expression Activities to improve written comprehension Activities to improve knowledge of grammar Activities to broaden vocabulary Activities to improve pronunciation Our students gave the following ratings for general aspects of our service: How would you rate the following aspects on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 = very unsatisfactory and 5 = highly satisfactory)? Questions Service received from the administrative and management staff at UAB Idiomes The pre-registration and registration procedures for classroom-based courses The welcome offered by the centre Classroom facilities Average 4.26 4.21 4.21 3.98 Average 1.90 1.88 1.82 1.94 1.91 1.96 1.90

All staff have access to the survey results and are aware of their importance. We have been reminded of the importance of areas like error correction and listening comprehension, the need to explain the value of different activities such as group and pair work and that not everyone was aware of the services we offer. Two examples of this from the November survey are the th possibility of doing Language Exchanges via our Facebook page or by signing up on one of the Exchange sheets on the 4 floor, and that UAB Idiomes students have access to the UAB network of libraries and lending services. We have also acted on feedback about the furniture and are renewing the chairs in the classrooms. Thank you to all those students who took part in the survey. We value your opinions and suggestions and if you would like to contact us, the Students Guide explains how to do this. We look forward to hearing from you!