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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 14. July 6 1981

Engl 214 — A Course Critique

page 13

Engl 214

A Course Critique

The nature of Middle English literature suits it to tutorial teaching; it consists of poetry written in a language which, while similar to modern English in many respects, is a little difficult for individual students to master. In addition, it is a good idea for stage two students to have a course where, rather than sitting mutely in awe of both the lecturer and the work in question, the emphasis is on what they do with it, how they interpret it.

On paper, the idea of teaching the course by four tutorials a week for a half year and then internally assessing it looks terrific, and yet, at least as far as this writer is concerned, the course is largely a failure.

The four tutorials, usually at nine in the morning are, for many students, sheer drudgery; and since it is necessary to do either this course or the linguistically more difficult Old English, they are more or less compulsory drudgery. Some students would blame this on the actual works studied; it is something of a shock to the system to move back six hundred years from the Modern lit most stage one students do, to fourteenth century love lyrics. But most seem to enjoy the set works.

HOW GOD WORKS

Boring and Slow

The problem seems to lie in the teaching method. Classes are boring and slow because students and staff make them boring and slow. On the part of many students the attitude seems to be that, as this is an internally assessed course with a 75% attendance requirement, you go to 75% of the tuts whether you are prepared for them or not, in order to get that tell tale tick on the register. (This is not only common among students of ENGL 214; I've been in a tut where only two out of seven had read the set work for the day.)

What is disturbing is that staff seem to be loth to do anything about this. If students have not read the work, fine, the tutorial turns from a discussion into an impromptu translation session or a glorified plot summary; how can this sort of thing help but be boring? How can this be of anything other than minimal help when it comes to writing essays on the set works? A tutorial, to be successful, should involve an exchange of ideas about the subject, not a one man or woman demonstration of knowledge (or lack of knowledge) about Middle English vocabulary.

What is to be Done?

Perhaps the tutors could take a few leaves out of the law department's book and make very clear to all concerned at the beginning of the course
1)that students must attend 75% of tutorials
2)that students who have not read the text are extremely unwelcome and should stay at home rather than hold everyone else up
3)that tutorial contribution will be taken into account in assessment of the student's performance.

Perhaps the tutors could make a greater attempt to attack the text critically and in depth, dealing with some of the theories held by critics that students are going to have to wade through if they intend to do any secondary reading for the course. (As it is, it would be well nigh impossible to write an essay without critics, despite the department's recommendation that students do so.)

Exam Criticised

Apart from the tedium of the course, many students complain about one particular aspect of the assessment process, the 'context test'. This paper must be one of the few at Victoria that includes such a test, where students are expected to recognise two line snippets from among the thousands of lines of poetry dealt with in the course, and to be able to detail 'who is saying what to whom'.

No doubt some of these quotations come at crucial points in the action, but if your familiarity with the text consists of one through reading and four tutorials spent translating odd passages, you are almost inevitably going to fall on your face. The only successful way to swot for this test would seem to be to learn every set text by heart, which is a little much to expect when a course has a reading load that is not exactly light.

It is perhaps a bit unfair on the department to offer such criticism through the pages of Salient rather than at a more personal level; I do this for two reasons. Firstly, I've got to stay on good terms with them if I intend to complete a degree there. Secondly, everyone I meet says 'Salient doesn't have enough student based articles in it.' Here is a student based article. Why not write one yourself?

Hende Nicolaus