Communication Modes: Exploring the Universal Appeal of Applied Linguistics
Summary
Interdisciplinarity is...
“the way it should be”
We spoke to Duncan Lees, whose varied background studying Applied Linguistics, Theatre and Education studies, has naturally led him to more interdisciplinary work throughout his career. Duncan’s experiences in China of teaching to students taking many different courses led him to a more subtle model of interdisciplinarity, mostly created by the diversity of the students themselves, which ingrains interdisciplinary teaching and learning without drawing attention to it as an academic concept in its own right.
Duncan’s module in Applied Linguistics, Communication Modes, explores questions of making meaning and understanding and applying this to various media like music, drama and even food. Through this, students address a number of different linguistic schools of thought, both quantitative and qualitative, which compliments and challenges both scientific and arts backgrounds, respectively.
Students Say
According to Duncan, the majority of student feedback has been “really, really positive”, with students particularly valuing the interdisciplinary nature of the module if they had previously tended to stick to one methodology, with comments such as: “it’s made me see things [differently]”. In other cases, feedback has shown how students’ critical thinking has developed, “starting to question things in a useful way”, which has guided the teaching on the module to perhaps explain some things differently or more explicitly. Other students have enjoyed how the interdisciplinary nature of the module allows them to relate it to other interests, like dance, which in some cases a student may not have ever been able to use in an academic context before.
Dr. Duncan Lees
Assistant Professor, Applied Linguistics
Dr Duncan Lees is an Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics at University of Warwick, as well as the convenor of the Drama and Language Education Research Group (DaLE). Before coming to Warwick, Duncan spent more than a decade working at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in China, which has fuelled much of his research, including his PhD. He is module leader for several linguistics-related BA modules as well as teaching on various MSc modules.
See Duncan’s full bio here.
Highlights
“Whether it's teaching or research, [interdisciplinarity] is kind of the way it should be.”
“There are people reinventing the wheel because they’re not paying attention, just because something's in a journal from a slightly different field or it's taught in a slightly different department.”
“When you're teaching in an interdisciplinary way, that's when you also start to open yourself up to the resources that the students have. There are loads they will know that I don't know.”
Further Resources
Curious to learn more?
You can also contact Duncan: D.Lees.2@warwick.ac.uk