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Department of Linguistics

Student Nominated Learning and Teaching Awards 2011

To encourage the active involvement of students in the process of acknowledging and rewarding outstanding teaching, the Department of Linguistics this year introduced a system of “student-nominated learning and teaching awards“.

Nominations were requested in three award categories:

  1. Best Teacher (UG and PG)
  2. Best Unit (UG and PG)
  3. Best Assessment Task (UG and PG)

A total of 203 nominations was received: 173 for Best Teacher, 23 for Best Unit, and 7 for Best Assessment Task. Award winners were selected based on the number of nominations received. In addition, all students who submitted a nomination were put into a draw to receive one of ten $50 book vouchers.

Teaching Award Winners in each category are listed below, along with a representative example citation (as submitted by one of their students). Winners of the student draw are also listed.

Best Teacher

Undergraduate: Dr Felicity Cox
Citation: Dr Felicity Cox has been my lecturer / tutor for three units in my undergraduate degree program. Her knowledge, communication skills, consideration and empathy have been without exception highly valued. I believe the key to academic success is the capacity to understand and synthesise knowledge building critical thinking and analysis skills. Felicity has the ability to deliver key information and important and complex concepts in language that is accessible and transferable. Her expertise, passion, humour, honesty and availability have been evident in every lecture and workshop across all units that she has delivered. Felicity has simply been a fabulous teacher.

Postgraduate: Mr Wai-Hung Lam
Citation: Wai-hung has the passion and expertise in teaching and knows how to guide students to learn and explore the beauty and fun of translating.

Best Teacher (Casual staff member)

Undergraduate: Ms Michelle Donaghy
Citation: Michelle is without a doubt the most inspiring, funny, engaging teacher I have ever come across within my extensive academic career. Always prepared, and consistently engaged everyone in my tutorial class during the semester in LING110. I did not want LING110 to finish, and wished that every Friday at 3pm we had a Linguistics tutorial, (which in hindsight is not a very motivating time slot!). However, Michelle always created an amazing environment to learn. Bravo!

Postgraduate: Mr David Huang
Citation: As a successful veteran interpreter, Mr Huang also excels at teaching, whose tutorials are always informative, entertaining, and inspiring. Generous in sharing his wealth of knowledge and experience in the field of interpreting, Mr Huang never fails to provide us with a fun and rewarding learning experience.

Best Unit

Undergraduate: Dr Rosalind Thornton
Citation: Rosalind is extremely knowledgeable in the subject of Linguistics and has an effective teaching ability which allows her students to gain some of this knowledge. Rosalind has structured LING110 into a logical progression of the topics relevant for first years, at an introductory level, whilst still challenging us students. Rosalind was prompt and professional through her communication on BlackBoard website and was a representative of the students when challenged by faculty changes.

Postgraduate: Ms Heather Jackson
Citation: The unit I want to nominate is LING 960, Organisational Communications. I found this unit very interesting as it was very much related to the real world and I could see how applicable it was to my own workplace. We were always encouraged to think about how the ideas in class and in the readings resonated with our experiences and observations. Although at times our discussions seemed to wander and we were not always sure quite what the point was, Heather was always able to draw us back to what we were looking at and help us to see the picture and how it related to the topics we were looking at in the unit. There is also a desire to inspire students to actual action, based on what they learn throughout the course. I was able to see how communication problems and misunderstandings affected my organisation poorly, but I'm not in a position to do anything about that at the moment. Also, particularly in the current economic and political climate, it really was a very good unit as many organisations are trying to present themselves as "green" or socially aware and concerned.

Best Assessment Task

Undergraduate: Dr Jan Tent
Citation: The individual research project was really interesting and flexible. It was easy to be passionate and motivated about which was good, considering this unit was compulsory.

Postgraduate: Dr Jill Murray
Citation: The assessment task was for Ling 937, to analyse a published text book for how the social context is presented in the text, and how it would or would not be suitable for the teaching context I'm in. It made me open my eyes to how much ESL texts have assumed the world view of the publishers. It also made me realise that some of the things my school produces, which are supposed to be "authentic" are not really. We also had to draw on the articles that we were reading in class. So the assignment managed to pull together all the aspects of what the MAppLing (TESOL) was aiming for and force us to relate them all together.

Student winners of the draw for a $50 book voucher

  • Tatiana Prada
  • Wensi Qiao
  • Samantha Davies
  • Sam Taylor
  • Yanjun Wang
  • Josh Penney
  • Scott Smith
  • Anthony Peck
  • Jonghoon Won
  • Rachel Stafford

 

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