Linking Teaching and Research in English: An Overview

Teaching English Literature and English language have always been intricately linked with research in the subject. So much so that it would be impossible to say where teaching ends and research begins. The teaching approach taken by English lecturers across the discipline has always been to develop in students the methodologies that we ourselves practice. With the advent of digital technology it is becoming increasingly possible to present the students with primary materials and introduce them to original research at the undergraduate level. In fact, the two most predominant trends in teaching English drive the subject even more forcefully towards an inextricable link with research.

The first trend which is allowing English students to become involved in new forms of research is the increased availability of resources on the web which help to contextualise both the writing and publishing processes at various times throughout history. Material on cultural, social and political history is now readily available to students helping them to understand, in a much more wide reaching way, the range of influences on writers working in different periods. The ability to illustrate for students the processes of publishing and printing through history helps to broaden an understanding of meaning-making structures and strategies. The availability of large corpora of texts and dictionaries from a range of periods help to create an understanding of the development of language and its relationship to society. The evolving area of performance history helps students to understand both the creative process of writing but also the creative process of performance for dramatic texts. In fact the movement towards an increased desire to recreate for the students both the period and place of creative expression has been hugely supported by the advent of a wide range of research materials on the Internet.

The second trend that is emerging in English Departments is the development of practical experiments in writing and research. The increasing use in teaching of practical experiments to explore dramatic literature demonstrates one aspect of this important trend in teaching the subject. However, an increased interest in practical research in the classroom can also be demonstrated by the increasing popularity of creative writing courses and programmes. Digital technology is again making its presence felt in both of these areas of practice. Interaction with professional theatre companies is made more possible through the Internet and access to a range of new tools for the study of theatre are available digitally. New Media writers are developing new kinds of means of expression that the students can both study and replicate. The Internet allows students access to a new form of publication as well as to new ways of working.

Therefore the dominant trends in the development in teaching English language and literature seem to be on the one hand contextual, supported by the exponential increase in the availability of material online, and on the other hand, experimental or practical, again often supported by the simulation of advanced research methods through digital technology. These two trends in teaching, moving towards the increasingly contextual and the increasingly practical, have been well received by students. The aim of both trends is to include students who have formerly felt excluded from the discipline either culturally or intellectually. The success of these approaches can be seen in the steady enrolment figures in the discipline.

The Case Study: King's/Globe Shakespeare MA - Text and Playhouse

To illustrate an example of the inventive ways in which English Departments are approaching the subject of linking teaching and research a single case study has been selected. This particular programme focuses on the ways in which editorial practices are increasingly concerned with performance history and practical experimentation. The programme combines two areas of scholarly research, textual studies and performance practice, to give students a very practical experience of these two subject areas. By working with a leading theatre company in London the students have a chance not only to learn from practitioners but are given the opportunity to test their own textual theories on the Globe stage. Not only do the students learn from the experimental workshops but the convenors of the course, who are themselves established Arden Editors, have carried away insights that they have used in their own research and publishing.

This programme, while unusual in terms of the extent to which it has involved an external organisation, is not the only one that has developed a practical approach to learning in this area. There are a range of Shakespeare MA programmes both in English and Drama Departments which to a greater or lesser extent include a practical approach to staging the texts. Similarly there are many practical creative writing courses across the country that encourage students to write their own work as well as analyse the work of others. What this programme offers, however, is a very good opportunity to show the recent development of such a programme and the rapid impact this programme has had on all of its participants in terms of their approach to the study of English.

The content of this example then focuses on the move towards a more creative approach to the analysis of dramatic texts. The form, a digital archive, has been chosen to try to illustrate the impact that digital technology can have both on teaching and on research in this field. As a case study of a single programme it will provide an example of the ways in which digital technology can be used to archive teaching practice as well as research practice. The example put forward in the case study of a London-based course that is dependent on location both for resources as well as staff is hopefully mitigated by the fact that the form shows how information online can overcome the barriers presented by geography. While an increase in live practical approaches in the discipline is desirable, it is not attainable for all Departments; digital resources and tools make it possible for Departments of any size and in any location to participate in a practical approach to bringing research into the classroom.