\n\tMy second semester subjects begin tomorrow and I\u2019m nervous in anticipation. Yes, I\u2019ve been a university teacher for almost twenty years but I still have trouble sleeping the night before a new semester begins. The first lecture is always important to set the tone for the whole subject and my nervousness springs from this need to hit it right from the beginning. To this, which is common to all my semesters at UAB, I must add two novelties, one a problem, the other a challenge. <\/p>\n
First, the problem. I\u2019m used to teaching smallish groups of 50 students at the most, which is already too big for a second language Literature class which has to learn a language as they learn the content of a particular subject. My 20th century English Literature was last year already too big at 68 students, which is funny considering this time I\u2019ll have 87. Since my usual teaching practice is not based on lecturing but on interacting with students, my main worry this time is my possible lack of methodological tools to give such a substantial class the quality teaching they surely expect. I don\u2019t think I can, at least, not at the same level I usually work. Why the sudden increase? Well, easy: the Facultat has offered new degrees without hiring new staff; the degrees, combining two languages, have doubled the demand for English and, as you can see, increased my workload to absurd limits. Will the students learn as much as promised by the new degrees? No, of course not. I\u2019ll do what I can and explain this to them.<\/p>\n
Second, the challenge. I\u2019ll be teaching a subject on Contemporary British Theatre and I have decided to make dramatised reading the main activity in the classroom. This means that students will be asked to prepare particular scenes from a selection of plays for classroom performance (within reasonable limits… we\u2019re reading Sarah Kane\u2019s Blasted<\/em> among others…) and discussion. With 33 students last time I counted, this seems feasible enough though it turns out only 5 of them are men. The 28 women should be ready, therefore, for plenty of \u2018cross-dressing\u2019 I hadn\u2019t anticipated \u2013not to this extent. This might be fun, as it\u2019ll give us a excuse to produce some truly radical versions of the scenes selected. I can\u2019t wait to see Freud in Hysteria<\/em>, played as a woman…<\/p>\n My great expectations are now at its highest and after months of planning I\u2019m ready to see the faces of my new and old students. I do hope all goes well and that the mood is not spoiled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My second semester subjects begin tomorrow and I\u2019m nervous in anticipation. Yes, I\u2019ve been a university teacher for almost twenty years but I still have trouble sleeping the night before a new semester begins. The first lecture is always important to set the tone for the whole subject and my nervousness springs from this need […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":98,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-teaching-tools-and-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/98"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webs.uab.cat\/saramartinalegre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}