Language Centre courses in the autumn term 2010

In the autumn term 2010 the teaching offered by the Language Centre of the University of Tampere will be reduced from the present amount by about one third due to reductions in the funding available.

Factors contributing to this include the changes occasioned by the funding allocation provisions of the new Universities Act, and, indeed, the overall financial situation in the University. The necessary savings will be implemented by reductions in teaching, in point of fact by discontinuing all teaching paid for on an hourly basis in the autumn term.

In the autumn term 2010 the Language Centre will provide the teaching in Finnish, Swedish and English forming part of the degree requirements in such a way that no faculty or student sector will be entirely deprived of language studies, and that as many students as possible will be able to complete the language studies required by their degree programmes in a reasonable time. However, since clearly fewer groups than before will be offered, more students will be left waiting in line.

Two Finnish courses for exchange students will be offered (Survival and Follow-up); exchange students will be included in other courses only if there is space and the minimal quota of degree students has been filled. Priority on other courses will be given to degree students of the University of Tampere.

Six languages offered

The languages offered will still include Spanish, Portuguese, French, German and Russian and also Finnish as a foreign language because these are taken care of either by teachers with permanent employment or then are funded by external sources. In these languages, too, there will be fewer parallel groups, but almost all course levels will be offered so that it will be possible for students to go from one level to the next.

Due to co-operation planned with the Confucius Institute it may be possible to ensure teaching in Chinese, and information on this will be provided at a later date when the matter is settled.

Courses not to be offered at all in the autumn term 2010 are those in Italian, Japanese and Intercultural Communication.

New selection criteria for degree students

The Language Centre is adjusting the principles according to which degree students will be accepted for language courses and selection criteria for the respective courses will be announced not later than 10 August 2010, when electronic enrolment begins.

It will be possible to avoid queuing for English courses by selecting German, French, Russian or Spanish as the compulsory foreign language, always assuming that the student has sufficient proficiency in the language in question. Those students who began their studies in such a language in the upper level of comprehensive school are generally able to go straight onto courses forming part of the degree requirements, and those who began such a language in upper secondary school may have sufficient proficiency. Course descriptions will be found in the Language Centre Study Guide at https://www10.uta.fi/opas/.

The Language Centre teaching programme for the autumn term 2010 will be published in May at http://www10.uta.fi/opetusohjelma/. The teaching to be offered in the spring term 2011 will be announced later.

Further information

Language Centre Director
Antti Hildén
050 569 6981
antti.hilden@uta.fi

Amanuensis Hanna Nurmi
03 3551 6460
hanna.k.nurmi@uta.fi