Case study 1: Knowing and responding to your students’ diverse needs.
Trying to overcome language and cultural barriers in teaching
Contextual background
In my first 2 years as an AL at UAL I worked mostly with postgraduate students, roughly 80-90% of whom are not native English speakers. Many don’t speak English fluently. I find it difficult to communicate with a significant part of the class. The language barrier is paired with a cultural one, as many students are not used to having conversations with the lecturer in the classroom. This results in many overseas students struggling with class material, and struggling to get help with technical tasks or not understanding formal requirements, resulting in lower grades and not meeting their full potential.
Evaluation
It is difficult to evaluate how the students who don’t speak English fluently engage (or not) with the class material. I’ve been trying to introduce some elements of group discussion to the class, or interact with students during live coding demos. I’ve struggled both to evaluate my work for myself, as well as check in with the students about their progress and any potential issues if I cannot directly interact with the class. I’m worried they’re missing out on individual support from me during the class because of the language barrier. Several students said they catch up with the lectures later after subtitles are generated, but anyone rarely follows up after the class. As an AL, I don’t get paid for tutorials outside of class time, and can provide limited help with coding issues over Slack or email.
Moving forward
In this part, I would like to refer primarily to the teaching practices of my colleagues, who I believe have come up with several improvements.
To improve in-class communication, I have learnt a very helpful “trick” from Dr Louis McCallum, who, instead of asking if students need help, encourages a more elaborate answer with an open-ended question such as: “What are you working on?”. I have tried it in the classroom and although it’s not a one-cure-for-all, it has helped me engage in more conversations with students, and let me help them with technical tasks more often. Another useful observation form Louis’ class is to ensure the references aren’t UK-specific or that there are alternatives if a task needs a reference. For example, Chinese students may not know Netflix, but can discuss the UX of other streaming platforms (McCallum, 2022).
My colleague Maria Than explained that students from South and South East Asian cultures may not be used to direct interactions with the tutor in class and may not feel compelled to answer unless addressed directly (2023). Her advice to address not more than 2 students at once during the labs as opposed to the whole table has proved really helpful.
Following the TPP module, my colleague Luke Demarest introduced elements of pedagogical theory to his classes, where the students had to learn a skill and convey it to other people (2024). I believe this approach could help the students be more mindful about their learning in a wider context, as well as let them adopt more personalised learning methods.
There is also a number of possible changes that I believe would help, but are out of my control:
- More individual tutorials / office hours: I’m not paid for this on my AL contract.
- Encouraging students to attend Language Development classes: despite constant reminders, very few PG students attend.
- Check lists and all links in one place, e.g. a Miro board. My colleague Luke Demarest has mastered this and I treat his materials as a benchmark (2024). This, however, is not accessible to me at the moment due to the limited hours of my AL contract and other commitments. I’m hoping to improve this when I get to re-teach several units next academic year. UAL GDPR policy is another factor.
References
Demarest, L. (2024). Unit 7: Experimental Practice lecture and class materials from the BA Graphic Design Communication course, Y2 2023/24. London: Chelsea College of Arts. Available on UAL Moodle.
McCallum, L. (2022). An observation made while auditing the STEM for Creatives module on the MSc Data Science and AI for the Creative Industries course 2022/23. London: UAL Creative Computing Institute.
Than, M. (2023). A conversation with Marysia Tańska about teaching experiences at UAL, held in Autumn 2023 at the Grove House Tavern in Camberwell during a UAL CCI staff social.
Image 1. Work from class. I decided to change the topic as writing about the challenges of planning classes on an AL contract felt too negative.