English Language (Joint Honours)

Teaching

Students are taught through a combination of, lectures, seminars, practical tasks etc. Lectures provide an overview of key points on a topic presented in a concise and coherent way. Seminars enable the discussion and development of understanding of the topics covered in lectures, and practical tasks are focused on developing subject specific skills (such as interview recording or data transcription).

In addition, meetings with Personal Academic Tutors are scheduled on at least four occasions in the first year and three occasions in each of the other years of a course.

Contact time

In a typical week you will have 12 contact hours of teaching. In your final year (where there is more emphasis on independent study), you will have slightly less contact time per week. The Work Based Learning module and the final year Independent Research Project modules have 4X 2 hour taught sessions with Guided Independent Study and/or work placement time forming the rest.

The following is a breakdown of a typical week of contact time:

• 4 hours of group lectures
• 8 hours of seminars (including workshops and other interactive formats).

Group sizes would normally be 15-20 students.

Independent self-study

In addition to the contact time, you are expected to undertake around 25 hours of personal self study per week. Typically, this will involve completing online activities, reading journal articles and books, working on individual and group projects, undertaking research in the library and online, preparing coursework assignments and presentations.

Independent learning is supported by a range of excellent learning facilities, including The Hive and library resources, the virtual learning environment, and extensive electronic learning resources.

Assessment

The course provides opportunities to test understanding and learning informally through the completion of practice or ‘formative’ assignments.

Each module has one or more formal or ‘summative’ assessments which are graded and count towards the overall module grade.  Assessment methods include a range of coursework assessments such as essays, reports, portfolios, presentations and a final year project.

The precise assessment requirements for an individual student in an academic year will vary according to the mandatory and optional modules taken, but a typical formal summative assessment pattern for each year of the course is:

Year 1

• 2 x essays
• 5 x practical reports
• 1 x individual or group presentations

Year 2

• 2 x essays
• 3 x practical reports

Year 3

• 1 x independent research project of approx 7,000 words
• 4 x essays
• 2 x practical reports
• 2 x individual or group presentations

Feedback

You will receive feedback on practice assessments and on formal assessments undertaken by coursework. Feedback is intended to support learning and you are encouraged to discuss it with personal academic tutors and module tutors as appropriate.

 We aim to provide you with feedback on formal course work assessments within 20 working days of hand-in.   

Teaching staff

You will be taught by a teaching team whose expertise and knowledge are closely matched to the content of the modules on the course. The team includes senior academics, qualified EFL teachers, and associate lecturers. Staff teaching in the English Language programme have consistently very high satisfaction levels from the students with repeated nominations for student awards (e.g. Outstanding Lecturer or Outstanding University Teacher for all the previous three years).

Postgraduate research students who have undertaken teacher training may also contribute to the teaching of seminars under the supervision of the module leader.  Teaching is informed by research and (as at 01.09.2020) 100 per cent of English Language lecturers have a higher education teaching qualification and/or are Fellows of the Higher Education Academy. You can learn more about the staff by visiting our staff profiles.

Programme specification

For comprehensive details on the aims and intended learning outcomes of the course, and the means by which these are achieved through learning, teaching and assessment, please download the latest programme specification document.