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This chapter examines the responses of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to assessment-related challenges introduced by the Covid-19 pandemic. The sudden move to online teaching and assessments required institutions to re-think their approaches to current practices and provide alternative solutions almost overnight. Our survey aimed to gather the perceptions of language teaching practitioners on how the languages sector dealt with the move to digital assessments, with particular emphasis on the delivery of online assessments, the impact on different language skills, as well as academic integrity. Results show that, whilst different institutions adopted varying practices, they seem to share similar concerns in addressing the fast-changing environment and ensure that academic integrity remains at the forefront in the move to the digital world.

This chapter examines the responses of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to assessment-related challenges introduced by the Covid-19 pandemic. The sudden move to online teaching and assessments required institutions to re-think their approaches to current practices and provide alternative solutions almost overnight. Our survey aimed to gather the perceptions of language teaching practitioners on how the languages sector dealt with the move to digital assessments, with particular emphasis on the delivery of online assessments, the impact on different language skills, as well as academic integrity. Results show that, whilst different institutions adopted varying practices, they seem to share similar concerns in addressing the fast-changing environment and ensure that academic integrity remains at the forefront in the move to the digital world.

This book informs and encourages aspiring lecturers and teaching staff in Modern Languages who prepare students for using their language skills in and out of the classroom. Drawing on pedagogical, psychological and language-specific concepts of learning, the book illustrates how such concepts can enhance students’ experience of transitioning from school to university to residence abroad, and beyond. A key feature of the study is an investigation of students’ fragility as they transition from school to university and, only two years later, from their home institution to their placements abroad. Interventions intended to «teach» transition are shown to be unsuccessful, as the learning through such interventions tends to remain superficial. First-year students are shown to benefit from trust-building between students and teachers and early networking among their peers to build self-confidence. In contrast, prior to studying abroad students benefit more from intercultural awareness training, including linguistic, cultural, social, academic and/or emotional aspects. The book serves as a useful basis for discussion in Modern Languages departments about curriculum change and university policy with regard to resourcing the Humanities.

Based on the thorough examination of French archival sources, this book examines in detail two industries in which women formed the majority of the workforce in France between 1890 and 1914. The choice of the tobacco and hat industries is particularly relevant in the sense that the tobacco industry, unlike the hat industry, was a state monopoly in which women were in the majority and held meaningful responsibilities in unions at a time when women were generally in the minority and under-represented in the labour movement. The main aim of this comparison is to assess and qualify differences between both industries in terms of workforce and work organisation, trade unions’ attitudes to women and women’s membership and participation in order to get a better understanding of the factors that could have had an impact on female workers’ attitude towards trade unions. By making women’s presence more visible, therefore more apprehensible, this book contributes to a better understanding of the way in which women perceived themselves, and were perceived, as workers, women, union members and militants in French trade union history prior to 1914.