Activity 29

There is a lot of general information available on setting, supervising and marking student projects and dissertations (see, for example Race, 2001: 76-78; Marshall, 1999; Henry 1994). This section will highlight a small number of important points which are especially relevant to languages:

1. Since the project or dissertation is likely to be the largest piece of FL writing students will undertake, it and they need thorough preparation.
2. Students should have as much freedom as the course permits to choose their own topic, since they are then more likely to engage productively with the material they use.
3. Be sure to review potential sources with students before they start and indicate those which are more accessible linguistically. The weakest language students, in particular, tend to struggle in their use of resources, often leading to plagiarism (see Module 13, section 13.1.9).
4. It is very good preparation to show students samples of how they should integrate FL source material without plagiarizing it, and how they should acknowledge and reference sources. Though this is a general academic skill, it is often not given sufficient attention when preparing for FL projects since students (and tutors) are more concerned about linguistic issues.
5. Students will need support along the way, so, if possible, have intermediate deadlines - eg first for a plan of the project, then for the first draft of section 1, and so on. This will ensure students are proceeding along the right lines and are integrating source material appropriately with their own language, thus avoiding large-scale plagiarism which it is difficult to do much about at final-draft stage.
6. Arrange tutorial slots for students to discuss the project; or, if the student is abroad, arrange a regular e-mail exchange. Experience suggests these need to be compulsory if you want to maintain contact with the majority of students.
7. A good check on plagiarism, or on writing by friendly natives abroad, is to involve students in an oral presentation or interview linked to the project. It is a useful exercise to include here, perhaps by way of introduction, an element of reflection or self-evaluation by students on what they feel was successful in the process and where they encountered difficulties. It is especially important for such orals or vivas to feature broadly comparable questions and linguistic complexity, so that, for example, students who have chosen a challenging topic are not disadvantaged by the ensuing linguistic complexity.
8. In marking a project, the same applies as to all other assessment tasks: make sure criteria are clear, shared with students and understood by them. It is especially important that projects do not just assess those aspects of FL writing that other parts of the course assess, but also features that are specific to project work, such as information retrieval, exploitation and adaptation of FL resources, citation and referencing.
9. Finally, be careful that you do not overvalue a piece of fluent and accurate FL writing that is very weak in other areas. This is where sub-categories in criteria are important; such headings as quality of ideas, originality of thinking, coherence of argument, etc, need to be assessed individually. Conversely, don't allow a morass of linguistic error to blind you to positive features of content. This applies to any FL essay, of course, but is a particular danger on longer pieces of writing where the cumulative effect of errors can be quite depressing.