In the Classroom
Strangely, I have not spent a lot of time discussing teaching at UniKin in my blog even though it is far and away my primary activity here. Perhaps that is the reason. Let me begin now (and I will do more of this in the coming weeks).
The English Department here (actually the Département des Lettres et Civilisations anglaises) is very small, with less than 40 undergraduates. The undergraduate curriculum is a 5-year program. The first three years are called 1st to 3rd Graduate. At the end of Graduate, the students write a Final Term Paper and then advance to the License level, where they complete two years of study, capped by an internship and a Memoir (or undergraduate thesis). Upon entering License, the students pursue tracks in either linguistics or literature, with linguistics being much more popular for a litany of reasons: most professors are linguists, a lack of resources including books for literature students (so that Bruce Chatwin is one of the most studied authors), and their primary interest is applied language (which includes pedagogy and what would be classified in the US as composition and rhetoric). At the level of DES (Diplôme d’Etudes supérior) or 3eme cycle (with Graduate as “first” and License as “second” cycle), there is for the first time a strong core of students in English, and here five of seven are studying literature (and they are all outstanding). I will write more about the DES students, who are the equivalent of Master’s level students, in a later blog.
I teach literature and there is only one other literature professor in the department (a second passed away last summer), so my services are of some use. I taught one class for all eight of the 1st and 2nd License students, all but one of them linguists. It was a required American Literature survey though most of the linguists are not especially interested in literature or culture. They are, however, excited to have a native-speaker as their professor for the first time in the history of the department. There have been some challenges for me in getting them to think critically about texts when they often give more attention to vocabulary than to analysis. I began the course with Frederick Douglass, then taught Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and a few others (using books that I have brought and will donate to the university). With Douglass, I began with the title’s reference to an “American Slave.” I asked them what their associations with “American” were and they predictably responded “freedom” and “liberty” and “opportunity.” My follow-up was: what is Douglass using a term with such connotations as an adjective to modify “slave”? For understandable reasons, students here look at the US romantically, rather than critically. But I am trying to teach critical thought and analysis (rather than running a marketing campaign for the US Chamber Of Commerce). Complexity makes analytical work worthwhile. The reality of the US, like the reality of the DRC, is quite complicated and rarely as simple as all-good or all-bad.
The English Department here (actually the Département des Lettres et Civilisations anglaises) is very small, with less than 40 undergraduates. The undergraduate curriculum is a 5-year program. The first three years are called 1st to 3rd Graduate. At the end of Graduate, the students write a Final Term Paper and then advance to the License level, where they complete two years of study, capped by an internship and a Memoir (or undergraduate thesis). Upon entering License, the students pursue tracks in either linguistics or literature, with linguistics being much more popular for a litany of reasons: most professors are linguists, a lack of resources including books for literature students (so that Bruce Chatwin is one of the most studied authors), and their primary interest is applied language (which includes pedagogy and what would be classified in the US as composition and rhetoric). At the level of DES (Diplôme d’Etudes supérior) or 3eme cycle (with Graduate as “first” and License as “second” cycle), there is for the first time a strong core of students in English, and here five of seven are studying literature (and they are all outstanding). I will write more about the DES students, who are the equivalent of Master’s level students, in a later blog.
I teach literature and there is only one other literature professor in the department (a second passed away last summer), so my services are of some use. I taught one class for all eight of the 1st and 2nd License students, all but one of them linguists. It was a required American Literature survey though most of the linguists are not especially interested in literature or culture. They are, however, excited to have a native-speaker as their professor for the first time in the history of the department. There have been some challenges for me in getting them to think critically about texts when they often give more attention to vocabulary than to analysis. I began the course with Frederick Douglass, then taught Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, and a few others (using books that I have brought and will donate to the university). With Douglass, I began with the title’s reference to an “American Slave.” I asked them what their associations with “American” were and they predictably responded “freedom” and “liberty” and “opportunity.” My follow-up was: what is Douglass using a term with such connotations as an adjective to modify “slave”? For understandable reasons, students here look at the US romantically, rather than critically. But I am trying to teach critical thought and analysis (rather than running a marketing campaign for the US Chamber Of Commerce). Complexity makes analytical work worthwhile. The reality of the US, like the reality of the DRC, is quite complicated and rarely as simple as all-good or all-bad.
posted by irad at 8:51 AM
1 Comments:
Ira,
your observation could not be more true! I have also found that most African students studying abroad exhibit the same level of fassination with vocabulary associated with a given discipline rather than dealing with the critical look and analysis of the topic covered. Your insistance on critical thinking is a breath of fresh air for them. I hope they appreciate your hard work. I do.
Fredirck Douglas being taught in Congo, wow! I can't wait to see the expression and reaction of our Director of the Frederick Douglas Institute, Dr. James Trotman. He will be thrilled and tickled to no ends.
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