by Martha Partridge and Agnieszka Tarnowska

Introduction

At the very beginning of the 2022 pre-sessional course, a colleague I had not previously worked with – Agnieszka Tarnowska – shared an idea for encouraging students to engage with reflection. She used Flipgrid – a free video-sharing platform – as a space in which students could record reflective videos throughout the course, to which the teacher would respond with written comments (read her explanation below. This had worked very effectively with her class last year, she explained, with her students choosing to regularly use it of their own accord. My own attempts at incorporating Flipgrid had consistently been far less successful; I was impressed, and curious. (more…)

by Debra Jones

This is a question I asked my postgraduate research students in the first session of the REAL (Research English and Academic Language) course last term. I can’t take credit for the idea – it was from a colleague – but I’m glad I tried it. Despite being overwhelmed initially, after a few minutes preparation, the students were all able to introduce their research and the impact it will have. (more…)

by Catriona Johnson

Introduction
For IFP students, the advantages of participating regularly in peer review are widely acknowledged. Developing learners’ ability to give and receive feedback has far-reaching benefits beyond their foundation year as it enables them to evaluate and improve their own work more effectively, develop their own internal perception of ‘quality’, and build confidence with the skill of reviewing, useful for their future academic and professional lives. However, encouraging students to engage actively in the process is not always straightforward, as there are a number of barriers which can inhibit participation. I decided to investigate these challenges through an action research project with my Academic Writing class this year to explore how to improve engagement. (more…)

by Maggie Boswell

Initial hurdles

Reflective practice seemed to be a new and difficult hurdle for some international Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) pathway foundation year students. It seemed as if these students felt reflection was something they weren’t used to doing, something they had not encountered in their educational journey. Some openly questioned its quantifiable validity. This raised questions in my own mind.

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by Cathy Faulkner and Fiona Hartley

A lack of student engagement as a result of less interaction in online lessons during the Covid pandemic is documented (Aljahromi, 2020). Less has been written about the continuing lack of oral participation upon return to the physical classroom, although anecdotally this legacy would seem to be very real. Perhaps enforced periods of isolation have affected young adults’ ability to collaborate in the co-construction of knowledge with their peers. (more…)

by Martha Partridge

Introduction 

Corpus Linguistics (CL) appears to intrigue people. Associations of forensic analysis and archaeological investigation seem to abound: examining collocates; digging for words; mining language. CL studies often refer to indecipherable statistical measures and linguistic abbreviations, too: n-grams, LogLikelihood, T-score, chi-squared test, lempos, KWIC – the list goes on. CL could therefore seem a little intimidating, and perhaps curious teacher-researchers are deterred from trying some corpus-based experiments themselves. Approached systematically and with curiosity however, CL offers an accessible and adaptable method of language study.  (more…)

Hello everyone, 

We’re pleased to announce the relaunch of the CALD Teaching and Learning Network blog to coincide with the CALD Individual and Centre Development Week (23-27 May 2022).

The new URL for the blog is https://caldteachingandlearningnetwork.wordpress.com/. [Update: it is now https://teachingandlearningnetwork.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/]

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by Deb Catavello and Grant Hartley

When we set out to research teachers’ feedback practices, we had a very vague idea of how to go about it. What we knew was what we did not want to do: we didn’t want to end up making qualitative judgements on what individual teachers do when giving feedback. Instead, we wanted to 1. find out what influences our (like the participants in our study, we’re first and foremost teachers) practices and 2. avoid oversimplifying things. (more…)

by Maxine Gillway
Director, Centre for Academic Language and Development,
University of Bristol

As a Centre we review our policy and practice on teaching observations annually, when we attempt to standardise the behaviour of those who will be going into classrooms as ‘formal’ observers, and their interpretations of our observation criteria. Everyone who teaches in the Centre is observed annually – including me as the Director – as we see it as an important part of our ongoing development as teachers. We have also invited professional services colleagues into our classrooms so that they are more aware of what is going on in our Centre. (more…)

by Claire Brett

‘The color, the grace and levitation, the structural pattern in motion, the quick interplay of live beings, suspended like fitful lightning in a cloud, these things are the play, not words on paper, nor thoughts and ideas of an author…’

Tennesse Williams

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