Difference between seminars and tutorials? (1 Viewer)

[katharinetat]

I'm doing ARTS1630 (Japanese) in first semester and I have seminars and tutorials, what really is the difference?

Also another question, can you walk out of a seminar early even if you get to class on time? I read that you need 80% attendance minimum [according to this], but I'm not sure if this relates to attendance in whether you get to class on time [since it says that you will be marked absent if you're 30 mins late] or the % of the total hours you attend, so if someone can clarify for me, that would be great. Problem is I need to leave to get to work on time in the middle of one of my seminars which lasts 2 hours :/ I tried swapping my timetable around but I didn't have many options since most classes are full by now, the School of Chemistry wouldn't let me change my lab so I'm stuck with this :/ I'm not even sure if you're allowed to walk out of it halfway or you're forced to stay, but if no one knows I'll contact the Japanese coordinator for the course ASAP. Thank you!

 

[Kittikhun]

Dunno about seminars and tutorials, but I have a funny feeling that seminar=lecture. If so, basically during the seminar the lecturer speaks most of the time with some interaction with the students since the class size is usually large. During the tutorial though, the tutor will focus on each of you and will strive to get you talking and doing the prescribed exercises since the tute class size is small. There is no escape from it.

Depends, but from my experience, yes. There were a couple of people in my language classes who had previously talked about their situation over before with their lecturer and were allowed to leave class halfway during the tutorial or seminar. You're only missing an hour or so, so it shouldn't be a big problem, and there should be an understanding over this with you and your lecturer. Lecturers are usually nice about this, but the experience mentioned here is with a small class size that was not of introductory language course level.

The attendance recorded is done by signature. There is no one who is observing and counting the hours each person does in the course. What happens is that the lecturer passes the attendance sheet to the person closest to her/him and that person signs off and passes it to the next person and so forth. There are two sheets, but there may be a catch. Sometimes, the first attendance sheet is handed out during the first hour and the second during the second hour, but some lecturers hand out both sheets during the second hour for you to sign. So, some people get friends to forge their signatures for them, some people don't. It's up to you to decide what to do here. You can do the former and not tell the lecturer about your situation and hope that s/he won't notice, or you can tell the lecturer and risk being told, 'Sorry, but you have to decide either work or study.' In the end though, if the class size is big, the lecturer just wants to see the signature, which means that you were present and attended the whole lecture for all the lecturer knows. However, if the class size is small the lecturer will probably notice and will talk to you to ask you why you haven't been attending the second hour.