Teaching

Experience

University of Edinburgh

Teaching Philosophy

I am a big proponent of the Socratic Method in the classroom and believe learning in advanced studies works best as a dialogue and co-operative endeavor between the teacher and student. This involves fostering an environment where students feel not just permitted to ask questions, but appreciated for it. I believe that in order for a teacher to maximize their lessons, it is important for them to know what the class understands, what they struggle with, what interests them, and what bores them. I think, as much as possible, a course should be tailored to the class: this means spending more time on problem areas and areas of interest. Questions and student participation are the most evident way to access this information.

While I do not think that at university level it is the instructor's responsibility to force students to pay attention and study, I do believe a good teacher is one that teaches with passion and animation, so as to stimulate the students' own passion for the material. Likewise, a good instructor assigns reasonable, doable, and useful homework and readings: assigning a gigantic and difficult reading that students are certain to not read is in practice the same as assigning no reading at all. 

I believe in making a course as inclusive as possible, which means avoiding implementing policies that perpetuate institutional inequalities, and trying to accommodate different learning needs. I think a component of inclusive linguistic pedagogy is including data and examples from various languages around the globe; by only including European and over-studied languages you both give students a narrow understanding of what's possible and normal for language, and otherize students who don't come from the communities of these over-studied languages.

When it comes to assessing students, I am in favor of basing grades primarily on whether students show an understanding of the core concepts of the course, rather than creating an environment where students must compete for good marks. Additionally, I believe in allowing students to reattempt their homework and assessments when possible. What matters is that the students learn the material and demonstrate proficiency, it should not matter whether they do this on the first try, just that they do it eventually. Of course real world considerations will always limit this, since their are deadlines for when students' marks are reported and limits on how much time a teacher can spend on grading.