K-Link Widening Participation Scheme

(Originally posted on 24 April 2014)

As a firm believer in the importance of widening access to Higher Education, I was very happy to be asked to take part in K-Link recently. K-Link is King’s widening participation programme, which gives children from less privileged schools throughout London a taste of university education. Through the programme, I had two – very different – opportunities to teach secondary school children.

Firstly, GCSE students from the three schools that the SPLAS department is partnered with came in to King’s for a full day: a Q&A with current students, a translation workshop, tour, and finally a taster seminar. One of the school groups – 16 boys and girls, plus two teachers – had an introduction from me to studying culture as part of a language degree. I began by explaining what a seminar is – ask lots of questions, try out new ideas, do lots of practical exercises. We then broke up into small groups and brainstormed definitions of culture, before looking at some Frida Kahlo paintings and an extract from a short story by the late great Gabriel García Márquez.

The students were clearly tired after such a demanding day, and many of the boys were too cool to show enthusiasm, so it was challenging to get them to participate, but I succeeded in the end (I’m very grateful for much needed help from their teachers in this). After the session, one teacher told me that although they were reluctant to speak, he could tell that they had gained a lot from it. He said he was really happy for the children to have had the chance to experience cultural studies when the demands of GCSEs allow no time for anything like this, which made all the effort worth it.

The following week I went into another of our partner schools. This time I was extremely lucky to be teaching four of the most gifted, enthusiastic girls I could hope for. We covered similar material but the small group size and eagerness of the pupils meant we could go much more in-depth. I was hugely impressed, as they were more engaged than some of my final year students! I felt privileged to teach them and really pleased to learn that they all plan to continue to language study at university.

Being a Graduate Teaching Assistant

(Originally posted 14 February 2014)

Last night I was one of the speakers at a training session for potential Arts and Humanities Graduate Teaching Assistants, which has prompted me to finally write the blog about teaching I’ve been promising for a while now.

I began teaching – leading seminars for a final year module about the Latin American ‘New Historical Novel’ – five weeks ago now and I absolutely love it! Since October I’ve been taking a teacher training course run by King’s Learning Institute called Enhancing Academic Practice, so it’s great to put all of my theoretical learning into practice and this experience has confirmed to me that university teaching really is my dream career. I get such a buzz from sharing my passion for literature with the class and getting them to really engage with it.

I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much freedom I have been given to design the class around the set source material. I can come up with my own activities and choose  my favourite extracts for the class to analyse. I’ve also been given a lot of scope to bring my own expertise to the module, and was even asked to lead the lecture last week based on my research. The trust my lecturer has placed in me and my students’ appreciation of the knowledge I bring to class has been an invaluable boost, and I’ve also learned or revised a huge amount that will directly help my thesis too.

One of the main concerns potential GTAs expressed last night was about how time consuming it is, particularly with the ever-increasing pressure to finish your PhD within three years. However, all of the speakers – myself from SPLAS, and others from history, classics, English and Film – said that we spend no more than one day a week preparing and all agreed that this was a valuable use of our time. We would all certainly recommend taking the opportunity if it is available in your discipline.