BA History and Thai Studies

Year 4

(Award available for year: Bachelor of Arts)

Learning outcomes

On completion of the year/programme students should have provided evidence of being able to:
- Communicate fluently, effectively, skillfully and appropriately, both orally and in written form, in the Thai language, maintaining a high degree of grammatical accuracy, with native or other competent speakers;
- Read Thai language newspapers, books, documents and other written materials;
- Demonstrate a sound familiarity with Thai literary writings and styles;
- Engage in complex conversations and discussions, in Thai, on a variety of topics, requiring a diverse technical vocabulary;
- Demonstrate consolidated and extended knowledge and understanding of complex structures of the Thai language;
- Demonstrate sophisticated receptive and productive language skills, and some experience of mediation language skills, in a variety of contexts;
- Demonstrate a detailed and insightful awareness and understanding of Thai social, cultural, political and developmental situations, commensurate with the experience of having lived in Thailand during the year abroad and having further studied the Thai context during the 3rd year;
- Demonstrate an ability to evaluate the appropriateness of different approaches to problem solving associated with a number of academic disciplines, and to think in an inter-disciplinary manner;
- Exercise critical analytical abilities in respect of the disciplinary modules;
- Effectively communicate information, arguments and analysis in a variety of forms;
- Proficiently use basic generic and subject specific intellectual qualities;
- Draw clear and close connections between linguistic competence and insightful understanding of the Thai and South East Asian contemporary contexts;
- Apply generic and subject specific intellectual qualities to standard situations outside the context in which they were originally studied;
- Demonstrate an ability to present a structured, coherent and sophisticated argument, both orally and in written form;
- Demonstrate an ability to work independently within a structured environment.

On completion of the year/programme students should have provided evidence of being able to:

1. Demonstrate coherent and detailed knowledge of:
- recent historical scholarship in the student's chosen historical specialisms.
- chronological continuity and change (hbp #16);
- how people have existed, acted and thought in a range of societies and cultures (hbp #12.1 and 17);
- techniques for close work on sources, both primary and/or secondary (hbp #18)

Especially through the study of a primary source-based Special Subject and a Long Essay or Dissertation (see hbp #21) involving original research,

2. Apply accurately standard techniques of historical analysis and enquiry
3. Demonstrate their conceptual understanding through sustained argument.
4. Make appropriate use of scholarly reviews and primary sources.
5. Describe and comment on relevant aspects of recent scholarship.
6. Appreciate the uncertainty, ambiguity and limitations of knowledge in history
7. Conform to professional standards and norms of ethics, presentation and communication of information.
8. Prove an ability to initiate, research and complete an extended historical project (hbp #21).

Transferable (key) skills

Students will have had the opportunity to acquire, as defined in the modules specified for the programme:
- Advanced linguistic qualities and transferable skills relevant to employment and life more generally;
- An advanced ability to draw connections between language, academic learning and context;
- Advanced contextual awareness and consolidated skills of contextual immersion;
- Advanced skills of deduction, argument and both oral and written presentation;
- Advanced skills of information retrieval and synthesis;
- An advanced ability to use information and computing technology effectively as a means of communication and as an aid to learning;
- Advanced skills necessary for the exercising of personal responsibility;
- Advanced skills of time and organisational management.

Students will have had the opportunity to acquire, as defined in the modules specified for the programme:

1. Qualities and transferable skills necessary for employment, such as independence of mind, initiative, teamwork, locating and handling information, analytical ability, problem-solving, oral and written communication, intellectual integrity, empathy (hbp #14)
2. Skills necessary for exercising of personal responsibility, including self-discipline and self-direction (hbp #14)
3. Decision-making in complex and unpredictable situations.
4. Communication of information and ideas to a variety of audiences, eg. through dissertation based on self-directed original research; class presentations; essays.
5. Ability to act as an autonomous self-directed professional through experience of independent directed research for a dissertation or long essay.

Assessment

Achievement will be assessed by a variety of methods in accordance with the learning outcomes of the modules specified for the year/programme and will include:
- Regular written, oral and aural tests during the course of the year to ascertain students' level of progress with: the Thai script; the Thai intonation system; Thai reading and writing ability; Thai vocabulary development and use; Thai grammar and syntax; the Thai context;
- Continuous assessment, essays and end-of-semester examinations in both Thai language and in students' disciplinary modules.

Achievement will be assessed by a variety of methods in accordance with the learning outcomes of the modules specified for the year/programme and will include:

- Dissertation or Long Essay.
- Oral assessment (or small written exercises)
- Assessed Essays
- Examinations

To demonstrate in all cases:

- Ability to apply a broad range of aspects of the discipline.
- Ability to produce work that draws on a wide variety of material
- Ability to evaluate and criticise received opinion.
- Work that is typically both evaluative and creative.
- Evidence of an ability to conduct independent, in depth original research within the discipline.