Djamel Eddine

I can teach a variety of subjects such as ICT, cyber safety education, media studies, mass communication, languages (English and Arabic), and Geography. I always tend to focus on the main idea by having activities rather than talking for one hour.

While being a PhD student, I was asked to deliver some workshops to PhD students and Journalism and Media production undergraduate students on how to conduct academic research. I used my PhD experience to facilitate the workshops. Also, I used some parts of my PhD research, especially the ones related to ‘digital literacy’ to develop a programme for year 9 students (in schools). The lecturer needs to establish the habit of using the findings of the research for the purpose of inspiring students’ learning.
My teaching experience started in 2013 when I was doing MA in the University of Tlemcen (Algeria), where I had the opportunity to deliver some lessons in theoretical linguistics, sociolinguistics, phonology, English for specific purposes, and Teaching English as a Foreign Language. I was teaching students by giving a presentation about a concept or a theory, and then giving then homework (assignments), students were asked to do some research in order to discuss some concepts or theories by finding more examples to support the discussion of these. In the classroom, students had to discuss their examples, and then I used to discuss critically their examples and to provide guidance how to relate theory to practice. In this way, students learnt how to deal with concepts and theories as well as develop their critical thinking. This experience has enabled me to have self-confidence which is needed for teaching. It also helped me to broaden the horizon of knowledge about applied linguistics through the research I was doing to teach students, to develop some teaching skills, and to learn about classroom management.
In addition, I worked as ‘research assistant’ in one of the Institute of Learning and Teaching funded projects (University of Northampton/2018-2019). I was successful in applying for funding for this research project. This project focused on the ethical implications within students:staff partnerships. My duties were to collect and analyse the data for the research project and to facilitate some dissemination activities. I facilitated two workshops, and I obtained feedback from lecturers in the Open University and University of Northampton concerning the teaching model involving students as fully collaborating partners. Nowadays universities are moving towards a more inclusive approach for learning and teaching. One of the findings obtained in this research project is that students were used to collaborate with staff to design a programme, and that could demotivate students from attending their classes as they feel they are not learning but just helping staff. One of the recommendations I made in this research project is that the inclusive approach of learning and teaching still can be suitable for learning and teaching, but needs some adjustments in order to correlate it with students’ positive experiences. That is, students need to feel that they are learning and having a positive experience while being in the university. Any programme designed for students, be they undergraduates or postgraduates, should be tailored to students’ needs and aligned with the recent trends within UK higher education. Additionally, I have become ethically sound for how to conduct academic research. While being a research assistant, I learnt how to impact positively on academia by bringing useful findings that can be used to improve the way academic affairs and teaching being undertaken. Also, I had a thorough understanding of the situation of learning and teaching at the university level.