PoLIS

Dr Ainius Lasas, from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, reflects on the importance of knowing yourself as a teacher and where that may be an advantage or a disadvantage.

Dr Ainius Lasas, from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, reflects on the useful and sometimes unexpected little ideas gained from additional feedback from different sources, even when one thinks things are going...

Dr Ainius Lasas, from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, discusses some ways in which the different cultural and academic backgrounds of his students lead to different approaches, which may be at odds...

Dr Ainius Lasas, from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, discusses how he views he role as a guide leading students to see connections and through a path of concepts he wants them...

Dr Ainius Lasas, from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, debates the balance of adding creative elements to teaching, whilst keeping an eye on the rationale and asking how much this helps student...

Dr Ainius Lasas, from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath, discusses the balance between ones own personal style as a teacher, the specific learning goals you have for a course and the students...

Summary This 2014-15, international, cross-university, collaborative, student-led project promoted and enhanced the learning of foreign languages through multilingual and multicultural interviews and case studies using social media. 5 students from the University of Bath studying Spanish as a foreign language were...

This 2014-15 project worked with students to develop a framework for supporting students in designing their own learning activities. Focussing on role play activities in a third year PoLIS unit (PL30548) as a test bed. The project began by upskilling the project leads through engaging in knowledge exchanges (conversations and workshop) with external academic experts in role play design. Following this a schedule and outline plan for the unit was developed and refined through peer review from our external expert.

Dr Wali Aslam from the Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies at the University of Bath discusses how and why he uses and combination of skype and twitter to engage his classes in conversations with students, academics, aid workers and journalists across the world. He then describes some of the lessons learnt in organising international conversations over skype for his classes, and some things to consider in advance.

This 2013-14 project supported a one-day languages event for local sixth form students. The students and teachers attended a lecture in the morning facilitated by an educational consultant. They learned about independent study, motivation, presentation skills and learning in a multi-cultural context. Afterwards students had a campus tour facilitated by Student Ambassadors in the target languages of the day (French, German and Spanish). This was followed by afternoon sessions in which they worked in groups on different topics that then they had to present in the foreign language. The afternoon sessions were facilitated by language staff (Emilie Poletto, Astrid Forsyth and José Carlos Cirera).