Student Handbook - The School of Language, Linguistics and Film

• Interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity, and give clear detailed
presentations on a range of relevant subjects, expanding and supporting ideas with
subsidiary points and relevant examples
• Produce clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects; synthesise and evaluate
information and arguments from a number of sources and explain a viewpoint on a
topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options
• Write an essay with a relatively high degree of grammatical control which develops
an argument systematically, using a limited number of cohesive devices to produce
clear, coherent discourse
Stage 5: At this stage students are expected to:
• Understand and recognise a wide range of idiomatic expressions and colloquialisms
and a wide range of demanding, longer texts, and recognise implicit meaning
• Express him/herself fluently and spontaneously without much obvious searching for
expressions, and give detailed presentations on complex subjects, integrating subthemes
• Use language flexibly and effectively for social and academic purposes
• Produce clear, well-structured, detailed text showing a high degree of grammatical
accuracy, on complex subjects, underlining the relevant issues, showing controlled
use of organisational patterns, connectors and cohesive devices
Stage 6: At this stage students are expected to:
• Understand with ease virtually everything heard or read whether live or broadcast
• Summarise information from different spoken and written sources, give critical
appreciation of relevant material, reconstructing arguments and accounts in a
coherent presentation
• Exploit a comprehensive and reliable mastery of a very wide range of language to
formulate thoughts precisely and maintaining consistent grammatical control of
complex language; express him/herself spontaneously and very fluently using an
effective logical structure and differentiating finer shades of meaning, even in more
complex situations, in order to eliminate ambiguity
Marking criteria for undergraduate work
Since the criteria used in judging language modules are rather different from those used in
judging non-language work (modules on literature/culture, linguistics and film), they are
outlined in separate sections below.
Criteria for marking modules on literature/ culture, linguistics and film
Examiners bear in mind a number of different criteria when determining what mark to award.
One relates to the coverage of the particular topics or questions addressed: relevant issues
should be identified and implications addressed. You are expected to display an
understanding of relevant criticism. Argumentation is expected to be clear, consistent and
balanced, and should be supported by relevant evidence and exemplification. Depending on
the nature and difficulty of the topic, an appropriate level of originality, imagination, insight or
ingenuity in exemplification, argument, approach, problem statement or solution is expected.
From a presentational point of view, work should be neat and tidy, clearly structured, well
written, precise and directly relevant to the topic, without unnecessary digression or errors in
spelling or grammar, with proper attention to presentation of examples, citation and the form
in which bibliographical information is presented. Technical terms should be used correctly.
Conciseness is important (e.g., length restrictions should be adhered to).
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