Research interests

Modern Languages and Higher education pedagogy

My current research focuses on:

• Outreach and the interface between schools and HE in MFL language promotion
• Alternative modes of assessment and student-centred pedagogy (focussing on the student as producer and student as researcher)
• Interdisciplinary and cross-curricular learning
• 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

I co-convene the core first-year culture module, the Story of Modern France, and here my teaching ranges across12^th - 21st century literature, film, and political posters and texts.

My interest in French Early Modern culture and society is reflected in both The Story of Modern France, where I teach a range of pre-Revolutionary and Revolutionary texts (Montaigne's Essay 'Des Cannibales', the Chanson de Roland, Olympe de Gouge's Déclaration des droits de la femme et de la citoyenne), 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, and Corneille.

My interest in MFL pedagogy and promotion is reflected in my teaching on the Warwick In Schools MFL Teaching module, which is delivered through the Centre for Teacher Education. Here I explore national strategies in MFL and current efforts to advocate for MFL Primary, Secondary and Higher Education.

Widening Participation and Outreach

I am the Academic Lead for Widening Participation and Outreach, and work together with Orla Whelan-Davis, our Widening Participation and Outreach officer. Our current focuses are:

• Working with the National Consortium for Languages Education hub schools in the West Midlands to build a healthy languages eco-system by developing shared strategies for language promotion across Primary, Secondary and Higher Education.
• Running regular schools events on campus and in the local community to promote MFL
• Understanding and supporting the needs of students from a Widening Participation background

University Responsibilities

• Arts Faculty Widening Participation forum
• IATL Management and Education Committee

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/

Hampton, Cathy, Ed.; Salin, Sandra, Ed., Innovative language teaching and learning at university: facilitating transition from and to higher education (2022)