Tutorial Action Plan (Pano Acción Titorial)

Informative talk by Joaquín Gairín (UAB) about the importance of the Tutorial Action Plan in the context of the present university reform. I also refreshed when I was listening to him what I had learned in a previous course by Neves Arza Arza during the first term.

It is quite evident that the present system of tutorials is not functioning, at least in some subjects. Besides, normally they are reduced to dealing with bureaucratic aspects such as certificates, recommendation letters, changes of dates of exams and so on. Of course all this has to be done in tutorials, but the number of students who ask for a formal appointment to talk about their learning difficulties is almost inexistent. About eight or ten years ago, many students came to my office to go over exercises, ask for some extra work or explanation and so on. This is not the case anymore. The new tutorials performed by a team of teachers of each center must be made effective as soon as possible. The new degrees start next course. If it is always the case that there is a lot of disorientation in a first year, the situation may be much worse in a moment of complete change. This means that the universities must make an effort to help and orient their new students about, subjects, resources, requirements to avoid having an early high number of failures.

Joaquín Gairín stressed that the TAPs --meant to make the system as efficient as possible by helping the students to organize themselves and make sensible use of their time and work at university-- are closely connected with the new and important methodological and structural changes of the new system. Even though the traditional system based on the transmission of knowledge had positive aspects, the new goals set for education at university stress the need to achieve a satisfactory level of practical and appliable knowledge. Students must acquire a practical competence on the subjects they study. As a consequence, the activities in the courses are distributed in different areas: class as such, personal supervised projects and extra activities based on the students' initiative. It is in the context of this new framework that the TAPs become operational. It demands a hight degree of coordination among the members of the staff. It presupposes a high level or responsibility, motivation and sense of initiative on the part of the students. Now, of course, if they are interested in working hard, their universities should provide them with as much help as possible. Unfortunately, not even the most efficient tutorial system can guarantee success in all cases, but these TAPs may reduce the potential cases to its lowest, unavoidable, level.

In what way is all this relevant to our English course? This year's students must get used to getting organized and work both personally and in group in projects that spring up from their work in class.They should also ask their teachers for supervision in case of need. Nowadays courses based on the mere transmission of knowledge are superseded. What does practical, communicative competence in English mean in our course? How can we try to attain it? This is the challenge.