My name is Hannah Skidmore, I studied here [at the University of Birmingham] from 2013 to 2016 and I did joint English Language and English Literature.
[On-screen title] How did the skills you gained as a linguist help you in your job?
The role that I went into straight from Graduation was actually teaching with the grad scheme Teach First so I'm now an English teacher at an all boys secondary school in Birmingham. So I really enjoyed my time at the University of Birmingham and really wanted to stay in the city.
Skills that I think of really helped me from my English Language degree program in my teaching career are definitely things like child language acquisition, so thinking about how students actually develop language how do they gain the skills. Particularly a lot of the boys that I teach speak English as another language and so helping them to kind of pick up new parts of language using that kind of prior knowledge gained at university has been a huge skill for me.
Something else I think from working in all boys school, I took a module in my third year - it was language and gender and that's been hugely helpful particularly in thinking about pastoral care, to be able to teach boys about hegemonic masculinity and toxic masculinity and just being aware I think of, you know, all of these perspectives on gender and all of this research has helped me to deal with I think a lot of their views of boys and their own stereotypes.
[On-screen title] What were the highlights of your degree?
I think what stands out most to me as a highlight when I think about my three years here is probably the warmth of the department. You know, I loved the modules that I was able to take but I think what made it a particularly special experience when I look back is just how warm the tutors were and how welcoming they were. Always ready to offer help and support, whether academically, professionally or personally, and I think having that support through my three years made me a really confident student and has supported me beyond graduation even.
[On-screen title] What advice would you give to students?
If I was going to give kind of one piece of advice to a student who is attending this university and wanted to get into teaching, I think that I would say speak to your personal tutors - use those relationships. When I first came to university I knew that I wanted to be a teacher - it's been kind of a long-term career goal - and that meant that throughout you know my three years here my tutors are really able to drive my module selection to make sure that I was taking modules that were conducive to having that long-term teaching career but also being able to take other modules that just interested me.
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