Research interests

Modern Languages and Higher education pedagogy

My current research focuses on:

• HE pedagogy and the Year Abroad
• E-learning pedagogy; blended learning (with particular reference to student engagement)
• Bridging the gap between school and university-level language teaching
• Interdiscipinary and cross-curricular learning
• The student experience and student-centred pedagogy (focussing on the student as producer and student as researcher)
• Curriculum design

Early Modern vernacular French literature

My previous research interests were focussed upon vernacular literature produced at the French Renaissance court, and in particular the exploration of the cultural codes and rituals that governed public and private interaction between the sexes.My PhD thesis examined the figure of chastity and its significance as a cultural icon and sign.I continue to teach modules that explore these themes.

Teaching interests

Much of my teaching is centred upon first-year learners, and I am particularly interested in the processes of transition between school and Higher Education modes of learning. I convene three first-year modules: Modern French language, The Story of Modern France and Defining France, each of which is taught by a team of tutors whom I manage.

My interest in French Early Modern culture and society is reflected in both The Story of Modern France and Defining France, where I teach a range of Early Modern texts (Montaigne, Rabelais, Racine), and in my honours-level module In the Family Way: Birth, Sex and Death in Seventeenth-Century French Literature and Culture. Here I make use of a variety of texts (autobiographical, quasi-scientific, dramatic, fantastic) spanning the seventeenth-century in order to examine the notion of the family from a number of different angles. Writers treated include Perrault, Mme de Sévigné, Louise Bourgeois, Racine and Corneille.

University Responsibilities

• Arts Undergraduate Studies Committee member
• Fellow of the Warwick International Higher Education Academy
• Member of the University's Student Learning Experience and Engagement Working Group

Student as producer projects

I run the Warwick Adopt a Class scheme which links pupils in primary and secondary schools with MFL students on their study year Abroad. The student is matched with a school and engages to communicate with teacher(s) and class(es) on regular basis using a range of electronic media (blogs, skype, email, etc...) during their year. A number of schools in the vicinity of Warwick University are now involved in the project. Please see the web page for further details.

Qualifications

BA, PhD (Durham)

Fellow of Higher Education Academy

Publications

'Francis I as the chaste lover: Almanque Papillon's Nouvel Amour (1543)', in The Modern Language Review, 93 (July 1998)

‘Unpicking Female Exemplarity; or, the usefulness of body stories: reassessing female communal identity in two early modern French texts’, Modern Language Review, 2007 Apr, 381 – 96.

‘Meeting in the virtual middle: blending online and human resources to generate a year abroad community’, in Mitchell, R., Tracy-Ventura, N., & McManus, K. (Eds.) (2015). Social interaction, identity and language learning during residence abroad. Eurosla Monographs Series, 4 . ISBN: 978-1-329-43044-0.

‘From widening horizons to widening participation: transmitting the experience of global citizenship to the school classroom’ in Innovative language teaching and learning at university: enhancing participation and collaboration, edited by Cecilia Goria, Oranna Speicher, Sascha Stollhans (Jan 2016) http://dx.doi.org/10.14705/rpnet.2016.000410 and in hard copy (Research-ublishing.net, 2016) ISBN:
9781908416315.

"Cultural Discovery as a Post-Year Abroad Agent of Change", Comparative and International Education / Éducation Comparée et Internationale, vol 45 (2016) http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cie-eci/vol45/iss2/3/