The module examines the techniques of process, product, context, and instruction of writing in a second language. The first deals with composing and the writer in relation to the text; the second deals with the text produced, its structure and organisation; the third with the text and the writer in relation to social context; and the fourth with the teaching, assessment, and acquisition of writing in a second language.
This module will introduce you to key issues, concepts and methods in teaching English as a second/foreign language.
This module will address the implementation and adaptation of language teaching methodologies to address the unique challenges inherent in instructed, early foreign language (FL) learning. The novel aspect of the module will lie in its systematic exploration of emerging theoretical issues and their links to developing practice. Theoretically and empirically early classroom FL learning is an emerging field. It has been problematized by both limited evidence and global assumptions which are grounded in existing evidence relating to L1 acquisition in naturalistic settings (e.g. the critical period hypothesis). However, field-specific evidence is accumulating which suggests that early FL learning is a vastly different process and therefore requires reconceptualization. Regardless of theoretical challenges, early FL classroom learning (and more specifically, English language in the primary school) is a global phenomenon. This module which combines the latest empirical evidence with regular opportunities to develop context-specific teaching skills alongside critical analysis and evaluation of existing global language education policies, curricula and resources will complement and extend current ELT postgraduate provision.
Many of our postgraduate students teach their subjects and pass on their knowledge to their peers and to students with no formal training. Using recognised pedagogical methods, this module offers you the knowledge and expertise to enable you to design, deliver, assess and evaluate teaching sessions for your colleagues, your students and your patients. The module will also enhance your ability to critically reflect and improve on your educational activities and teaching practice. Our module is accredited by the Advance HE, formerly the Higher Education Academy (HEA), and during this module, you will engage with the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) and work towards achieving Associate Fellowship of the HEA. This fellowship is recognition of the professional standing of your teaching practice and is internationally recognised and valued by Universities and across the HE sector, as a measure of your expertise and accomplishment. Our online module is delivered using a blend of live teaching and pre-recorded sessions. You are expected to attend all live sessions which allows you to engage with our expert teachers and your fellow students and benefit from rich discussions. Interactive groupwork in our live sessions will allow you to explore designing a teaching session in a supported environment. Our recorded sessions allow you to learn at your convenience within each teaching week. Most of our students continue to work while studying and benefit from this flexibility. Engaging with our blended learning each teaching week allows you to build on and synthesise your learning as you go. This module is taught once a year and typically involves approximately 10 hours of student engagement per week. The module will take place during the following weeks (exact timetable to be confirmed): •Teaching & guided learning: 20/01/26-05/03/26 •Self-directed learning: 06/03/26-25/03/26
This module can be taken as part of one of our awards (PG Diploma, MSc) or as a short course with or without completing the assessment. Many of our postgraduate students teach their subjects and pass on their knowledge to their peers and to students with no formal training. Using recognised pedagogical methods, this module offers you the knowledge and expertise to enable you to design, deliver, assess and evaluate teaching sessions for your colleagues, your students and your patients. The module will also enhance your ability to critically reflect and improve on your educational activities and teaching practice. Our module is accredited by the Advance HE, formerly the Higher Education Academy (HEA), and during this module, you will engage with the Professional Standards Framework (PSF) and work towards achieving Associate Fellowship of the HEA. This fellowship is recognition of the professional standing of your teaching practice and is internationally recognised and valued by Universities and across the HE sector, as a measure of your expertise and accomplishment. Our online module is delivered using a blend of live teaching and pre-recorded sessions. You are expected to attend all live sessions which allows you to engage with our expert teachers and your fellow students and benefit from rich discussions. Interactive groupwork in our live sessions will allow you to explore designing a teaching session in a supported environment. Our recorded sessions allow you to learn at your convenience within each teaching week. Most of our students continue to work while studying and benefit from this flexibility. Engaging with our blended learning each teaching week allows you to build on and synthesise your learning as you go. This module is taught once a year and typically involves approximately 10 hours of student engagement per week.
This module introduces you to the concept of ‘techno-harms’ from the disciplines of sociology, criminology, and social policy, with a particular focus on zemiology, to investigate the infliction and perpetuation of technologically induced social harms. The module will enable you to think critically about the ways in which racism, antisemitism, Islamophobia, Anti-Gender politics, environmentalism, extremism, conspiracy theories, human trafficking, and border control manifest in cyberspace and how technologies can help accelerate and prevent the subsequent harms.
In this module you will examine the intersection of AI with technologically induced harms ‘techno harms’ such as extremism, discrimination, and mis and disinformation in the context of international criminal justice. You will explore AI’s dual role in both causing and combating these harms, as well as its potential for predicting future threats. Drawing from multiple disciplines, the module equips you with the tools to critically analyse AI’s impact on online harms and its use in prevention and mitigation strategies. Understanding AI-enabled cyber harms helps in developing effective countermeasures and policies, while also raising important ethical questions about surveillance, privacy, and civil liberties.
Technological innovation is increasingly recognised as one of the most important sources of sustainable competitive advantage for businesses around the world. However, building an organization which can successfully and repeatedly create technological innovation for markets is a daunting managerial challenge, with many businesses failing to deliver. This module looks at the practices and processes of successful technological innovation management. This module will be of interest to students seeking to develop their own business, or who plan on working in dynamic, technology-driven businesses. Over the duration of the module, five main aspects will be covered: the general aspects of technological innovation, the process of diffusion of innovation, strategies to effectively protect technological innovations, barriers to innovation activity and innovation failure. The focus will be on new and established companies, in addition to firms that have been successful and unsuccessful in the introduction and diffusion of new technological innovations.
This module will be first delivered in 2021/22. How can we provide clean, safe, sustainable energy for the world during the twenty-first century? This module delivers a integral treatise on the fundamental processes and theories underlying the technologies of modern sustainable energy development. The discussion and learning is underpinned by problem solving using the essential theory and engineering analysis. This module provides an overarching introduction to energy resources, energy demand, and technology for sustainable power generation.
This module offers an introduction to the scholarly study of television as an audio-visual medium and cultural practice. By the end of the module you will be familiar with a number of key themes, critical approaches and theoretical debates within television studies, as well as having developed skills in the critical textual analysis of both fictional and factual television programming. The module is primarily concentrated on theories of television as a medium and its specific audio-visual forms, but we will also touch on questions of ideology, circulation and reception. While drawing on some examples from other national contexts, the primary focus of the module is the British and US television landscapes. Similarly, while the module provides some basic knowledge of certain specific histories of the television medium, and may include screenings of some older programmes, the main focus is contemporary television.
Narrative non-fiction is one of the most exciting areas of contemporary writing. After many years of being seen as having lower artistic status than fiction, a hugely diverse range of memoir, autofiction, essay collections, and historical writing has drawn a great deal of popular and critical attention – and has decisively shifted perceptions of writers who don’t work by making things up. The awarding of the Nobel Prize for Literature to Svetlana Alexievich (2015) and Annie Ernaux (2022) is a powerful confirmation of this. Texts such as Maggie Nelson’s The Argonauts and Jesmyn Ward’s The Men We Reaped have been hugely influential on writers of both non-fiction and fiction. This module will offer you the chance to explore the world of narrative non-fiction, looking at the ways it is explanatory (often in literary journalism), exploratory (usually in memoir), and sometimes polemic (in personal essays) while at the same time looking at when each of these modes of thought are encompassed across the forms on narrative non-fiction. At the same time, you will learn how to construct a “true” story – a piece of narrative non-fiction – by looking at the fundamental techniques of telling a true story and how it steals from the craft of fiction, using ideas of character, voice and plot in order to bring these stories to life. We will also study how to conduct research (through interviewing, immersion, for eg.) and publish creative non-fiction.
The module will provide understanding of current (and future) biophysical products derived from remote sensing data and how they are being used in regional to global scale monitoring of current vegetation function and condition. The module will expose students to a range of advanced data analysis methods to extract quantitative biophysical information from remote sensing data and how to use them as input to ecosystem models. The module will enable students to link these methods and techniques to investigate some of the major societal challenges (e.g. food security through estimation of crop yield) and implications of changes in climatic condition on terrestrial ecosystem.
9/11; jihad; al-Qaeda; War on Terror; Osama bin Laden; Afghanistan; the Taliban; the Bush Doctrine; Iraq; WMDs; waterboarding; targeted killing and drones. America’s War on Terror, launched as a response to the terrorist attacks of September, 11, 2001 has created some of the most important and controversial themes in foreign policy in the twenty-first century thus far. This module tracks 9/11 back to its Cold War origins, answers the frequently asked question “why do they hate us?”, and explores the policies introduced by the Clinton, G.W. Bush and Obama administrations in their efforts to counter the ever-evolving terrorist threat.
In this module, you will explore one of the primary forms of data used in humanities data science - text! You will develop an understanding of text as a form of data, including what can (and can't!) be do with it. You will explore and compare varying aproaches to collecting and analysing text as data. Ultimately, you will design and deliver a project that situates the use of text as data in a humanities research context.
The (PG) Learning Curve aims to support students as they transition into postgraduate (taught) University life and as such includes both academic skills (researching, writing, referencing, etc) as well as life skills (time management, adaptability, resilience, career planning) in addition to the practical information they'll need to navigate their programme of study (University IT platforms, Student Wellbeing, etc)
The (UG) Learning Curve aims to support first-year students as they transition into University life and as such includes both academic skills (researching, writing, referencing, etc) as well as life skills (time management, adaptability, resilience, career planning) in addition to the practical information they'll need to navigate their programme of study (University IT platforms, Student Wellbeing, etc).
This module focuses on the essay as a critical practice and a literary form. The essay is fundamental to literary criticism, and basic to assessment across your degree. But the essay is also a literary and popular-cultural genre in its own right: one that marks the invention of the individual and the compulsion to, as Virginia Woolf puts it, ‘write one’s self’. During the course of this module, you will hone your skills as a literary essayist—a writer who produces and/or engages with literature as an art form. You will explore the eccentricities and paradoxes of essay-writing across history, through ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture, from its origins in the sixteenth century to popular journalism, blogs, and multi-media essays in our own time. In so doing, you will look closely at essayists’ choices of writing style, rhetoric, evidence, argument, and aesthetics and refine these elements in your own writing.
This module sets out to introduce you to the advertising process from initial client briefing, through to the generation of ideas and concepts in response to that brief and concluding with the presentation of those solutions to the client in a manner that will simulate an ‘agency pitch’. Weekly online study resources covering the key stages of this process will precede an intensive 4-day workshop comprising of a simulated client/agency roleplay activity that will engage you in a fully immersive learning environment that will enable you to experience the various aspects and challenges of the client/agency relationship. During the workshop, you will work within small student groups, undertaking the role of an advertising agency. In this role, you will learn how to interpret a client brief, develop it into a creative brief, generate creative ideas that are strategically sound, and present those ideas to the client. The workshop will provide a ‘safe’ environment to experience the challenges of working with a client and producing creative work to a deadline, together with the responsibility and accountability, that accompanies your role as part of the advertising agency. The module will prepare you to reflect on the workshop experience, together with the knowledge and understanding you have from gained from the learning activities overall and considerations that have been given to achieving advertising and branding solutions that are ethical and sustainable.
The Age of Discovery explores the maritime expansion of Europe from c.1350-c.1650 through the experiences of four European states: Portugal; Spain; England and the Netherlands. It therefore covers the transition of these states from medieval polities to Renaissance powers. The history of the Age of Discovery is a story of two halves. The first part (c.1350-c.1580) is told through the endeavours of the Portuguese and the Spanish. Here we encounter famous names such as Henry the Navigator and Christopher Columbus. This first phase saw the rapid enrichment of Spain and the end of great civilisations such as the Aztecs and Incas. The second phase (c.1580-c.1650) witnessed the growth of England and the Netherlands as maritime powers. England focused on North America and the Indian Ocean; the former as an area of colonisation and the latter as a place to trade. The Dutch initially concentrated on the Indian Ocean and in doing so competed with the Portuguese and the English in this area. The course begins by examining the reasons for European expansion and the tools and technology that permitted the ‘European Breakout’. Seminars will be supported by lectures and be based around discussions of primary and secondary sources. A study of contemporary works not only offers an opportunity to learn about the history of European maritime expansion over this period, but also provides encounters with people directly involved in all aspects of the Age of Discovery. Early Portuguese voyages along the West Africa coast and into the Indian Ocean will be examined through contemporary narrative accounts such as the writings of Gomes Eanes de Zuara and the anonymous author who described in vivid detail Vasco da Gama’s 1497-99 voyages to the Indian Ocean (A Journal of the First Voyage of Vasco da Gama, 1497–1499, ed. E.G. Ravenstein). The Spanish voyages and the impact these had on indigenous cultures can be explored through the writings of Columbus (Felipe Fernández-Armesto: Columbus on Himself), Bartolomé de las Casas (A Short Account of the Destruction of Indies) and Bernal Diaz del Castillo (The True History of the Conquest of New Spain). English maritime expansion is told through a series of texts collected by Richard Hakluyt (Principal Navigations), which include contemporary narratives of Sir Francis Drake’s circumnavigation in 1577 and Sir Martin Frobisher’s search for the Northwest Passage in 1578. The Dutch experience is partly told by Philippus Baldaeus and Dutch voyages to Asia can be explored through the use of an on-line database (Dutch-Asiatic Shipping in the 17th and 18th centuries).
This module introduces you to the history of the American Musical and examines some of the issues connected with race, exoticism, gender and national identity as they were articulated in this multimedia entertainment between the late nineteenth century and today. The module will take a chronological but also issue-related approach. Beginning with an overview of the main features of the musical and its relation with opera, operetta and the revue, we will go on to explore the social, cultural and political contexts in which it emerged, developed, and flourished, as well as the ways in which the genre became a crucial cultural arena for the articulation of contemporary social and political concerns and the formation of national identity. We will also follow the trajectory that brought the musical from the stage to the movie set, and the synergy between Broadway and Hollywood, discussing the ways in which music and text engaged with dance, lights, and costumes on stage and on video. This module is offered at two levels that will be taught together. (N.B. Students who take the module in year 2 cannot take the year 3 version)
This is a practical module in handling and interpreting stone tools and developing behavioural interpretations to explain the patterns seen. Stone tools remain the most significant part of the Palaeolithic cultural heritage. This course provides training in their analysis, bridging the gap between the simple recognition skills received at undergraduate level and the need to confidently engage with your data at PGR level, where time constraints are always at a premium.
In this module you will consider the relationship between the ancient world and the modern world. We will consider how new approaches to ancient societies have been developed in response to modern social and political developments. We will also look at examples where the ancient societies have been used in modern political contexts such as the ideology of the nation. We will also consider the ancient world in popular culture, and how this might distort popular perceptions of the past.
The impulse to adorn the body is as old as human history. This module explores the extraordinary variety of ways in which people have adorned their bodies in a range of archaeological and anthropological contexts, from body painting and tattooing, to the elaborate Yemenite costume and silver jewellery of the Arabian Peninsula. Teaching and learning will draw on a series of case studies from across the globe in order to explore key themes in the archaeology and anthropology of adornment including the role of the body in display, the social role of ornamentation and dress, and technologies and materials of transformation and adornment. In addition, students will participate in a museum field trip and practical sessions during which they will plan and design an object to ornament a body. These activities will facilitate students’ theoretical and practical understandings of the relationship between the body and the material culture of adornment.
