I started teaching French at Birmingham University in 1992 as a Lectrice in the Department of French. I had just qualified as a teacher of French as a Foreign Language and welcomed the chance to apply my -largely theoretical- knowledge. I mainly taught undergraduates who were quite reluctant to talk in the foreign language and came up with all sorts of ideas and tricks to help them along the way. A couple of years later I started working for the Centre for Modern Languages (CML), experiencing working with older adults this time, who could be members of staff or members from the general public, as well as UG and PG students from the university.
As I am not someone who enjoys standing in front of the class, talking, I always carefully plan my lessons so that the students do a lot of the talking themselves, often in pair or groups. I believe that students should be active during a language class, using their imagination and having fun. I try to give my students ideas on how to manage their learning outside the class. I have taken an interest to Distance Learning and developed three courses with the French Team in CML. It is only with the pandemic that the value and usefulness of these courses really came to the fore and since 2022 we have been revamping them, incorporating more online tools to help students with their learning before getting to the face to face class. This academic year (2023-24) is the first time these courses are offered to our student population. We are closely monitoring the impact on their learning and level of competency in order to improve our offer in subsequent years.