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Proposed ELTC restructure threatens student support

Dear colleagues

The English Language Teaching Centre (ELTC), a #1 University Centre of Excellence for English Language Teaching among Russell Group universities, is facing a restructure that jeopardizes the quality of language support available to your students. Following the loss of a third of our academic staff (35 colleagues), proposed changes will severely impact the tailored, student-centred support that has proven so effective.

Currently, the ELTC provides crucial services that directly benefit your students and reduce your workload. Our expertise in language analysis and learning allows us to address students’ specific language needs, freeing up your valuable class time for content delivery. These services include:

  • Departmental Language Programme (DLP): In 2023/24, we delivered 2400 hours of bespoke teaching to 7,000 students across at least 40 departments, receiving consistently excellent feedback. This programme embeds language support within academic modules, directly relevant to course content.
  • Language Support Services (Writing and Speaking Advisory Service, English Language Support lessons): These services provide targeted support, ensuring students receive expert guidance on their specific language challenges. International students who get the IELTS (English test) score they need to get into their departments (e.g. 6.5) still need to improve their skills to succeed in their studies.
  • Doctoral Development Programme (DDP): We offer PhD students six short courses, one-to-one support for writing and speaking milestones (e.g., confirmation reviews, vivas), and four workshops. Our tutors are language specialists in academic discourse with doctorates or doctoral training, uniquely qualified to support research students.

These vital services are now under threat. The proposed restructure will:

  • Drastically reduce the DLP: From embedded, tailored support, it will be scaled back to a “minimal core offer,” no longer integrated with academic programmes.
  • Severely curtail DDP provision: Support for doctoral students will be drastically cut, eliminating academic speaking support crucial for vivas and conference presentations and reducing writing support to a single short course. Critically, these limited offerings on DDP and DLP will be restricted to international students only, contradicting the University’s EDI policy and its programme-level approach, and ignoring the needs of home students.
  • Eliminate Language Support Services: The English Language Support lessons and the Speaking Advisory Services will disappear entirely.
  • Replace specialist writing tutorials with general academic skills support: Expert, one-to-one Writing Advisory Service tutorials provided by language specialists will be replaced by a single language specialist for the entire university, and PG students with no language qualifications will provide generic academic skills support. As explained above, this is not adequate for students entering the University with the minimum English language requirement.

These changes will directly and negatively impact your students’ language development, likely increasing your workload as you attempt to compensate for the reduced support. Our expertise helps students produce high-quality written work, confidently participate in seminars, and use AI appropriately. This directly benefits academics and their workload – a crucial consideration, especially if the University lowers language entrance requirements to attract more international students. Recent reports (Hepi, 2024) indicate international students desire more, not less, language support.

We urge you to support our efforts to protect these essential services. Please sign the attached petition to ask the UEB to reconsider these damaging changes. Your support is vital to maintaining the quality of education and research at the University.

Thank you,

UCU representatives at The English Language Teaching Centre

Petition to the University Executive Board (UEB)

We, the undersigned, urge the UEB to maintain and enhance the current level of language support offered by the ELTC. The proposed restructure will severely diminish these vital services, negatively impacting students and increasing the workload of academic staff. We call on the UEB to reconsider these detrimental changes and invest in the ELTC to ensure continued excellence in language support.

[Signed by over 240 University of Sheffield Staff, representing all 5 Faculties]