When the Students Become the Teachers: A Practical Pedagogy

Abstract

In 1999, the BA in English Language and Literature was launched at the University of Sheffield by a team of staff spanning two of the autonomous departments which make up the School of English: the Department of English Language and Linguistics, and the Department of English Literature. The programme’s bridging position within the School was, to a great extent, the impetus behind the formulation of the fundamentally interdisciplinary philosophy which underpins the degree. From the outset, the staff responsible for the delivery of the programme were determined to ensure that the key skills of stylistic enquiry acquired by our graduates on their core interdisciplinary modules would be transferable to their study of individual areas of English literature and linguistics, explored elsewhere on the course. More importantly, we wanted to ensure a further transferability of skills beyond the students’ graduation into their future workplaces.