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Departmental Language, Literacies and Skills

What is Departmental Language, Literacies and Skills (DLLS)?

DLLS offers staff the opportunity to embed academic language and literacies learning at subject and modular level. We will work with you to identify areas for learner development and work in partnership with you to plan and deliver learning and teaching activities to meet the needs of your students, drawing on your subject knowledge and our particular expertise in teaching academic literacies.

Academic literacies development is most effective when delivered in subject-specific ways but it takes time to prepare. Deadlines for DLLS requests are:

  • the last working day of June for Semester 1 requests 
  • the last working day of November for Semester 2 requests. 

We will do our best with any requests that come in late, but without significant prior notice, we cannot guarantee that we will be able to help.

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How does it work?

We would like teams to work as strategically as possible to target resources where they are most needed and will have the most impact. Ideally, subject co-ordinators should nominate one member of staff to act as DLLS/Subject link and who would be willing to collect and collate requests for DLLS support in line with learning outcomes for the programme.

If you would like an informal chat about what might be possible as part of our DLLS offer, please email Martha O'Curry at p0010242@brookes.ac.uk.

Make a DLLS request (form)

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What do you offer?

We offer embedded or adjunct support. We can work with you to develop teaching materials for you to deliver, we can co-deliver, or we can deliver on your behalf. You may want to plan for the whole group, or you may want to develop something to target a specific group of learners.

Here are a few examples of what we already do:

  • Reflective writing workshops
  • Critical reading activities for Moodle
  • Assignment brief group tutorials
  • Academic writing support classes
  • Seminar skills activities
  • Presentation skills workshops
  • Critical writing classes
  • Assignment planning workshops
  • Digital organisation for learning sessions
  • Numeracy for specific purposes  
  • Introduction to statistical analysis.

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When do I need to make the request?

Ideally we would like requests for semester 1 each year to be in by the beginning of July and semester 2 by the end of November.  

We cannot guarantee that we will be able to accept any requests received after the deadline but we will try our best. Please contact us at academicdev@brookes.ac.uk to discuss any requests you have.

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Who will deliver the session?

All requests are received by Martha O’Curry (Deputy Head of Centre for Academic Development) who will then decide which member of the team is most suited to deliver the session. We will then put them directly in touch with you in order to start planning.

Please don't hesitate to get in touch with Martha at p0010242@brookes.ac.uk if you have any more questions.

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Departmental Languages, Literacies and Skills is one part of what is on offer through the Centre for Academic Development. For an overview of the work of the department, visit our Information for Staff page.