All research students at Sussex are encouraged to make use of the Doctoral School, a valuable central resource which provides a wide range of training opportunities specifically tailored towards research students.
The Doctoral School works closely with the Research Hive in the Library to run training and development courses in areas such as improving your academic writing, developing your online profile, preparing for your viva, and getting your research published.
Doctoral students in the School of English also have access to the English Lecturer Training Programme. This unique scheme combines the experience of co-teaching an undergraduate course with members of the English faculty, with workshops on the theory and practice of seminar teaching in the humanities.
The English Lecturer Training Programme runs throughout each academic year and is open to all doctoral students from the second year of their study onwards. It is designed to offer discipline-based but generic skills to those wishing to gain theoretical and practical experience of teaching at undergraduate level, and to support postgraduate entry into teaching careers in higher education. Through a series of fortnightly seminars led by members of faculty and invited guests, ELTP participants study a variety of ways to define and create an effective learning environment, and through a co-teaching placement with members of faculty in Teaching Block 2, they gain practical experience of the classroom environment.
Topics on the programme include:
- syllabus design and planning
- lecturing skills
- seminar leadership: approaches and styles
- essay-marking skills and effective student feedback
- professional appraisal, feedback and self-evaluation
Following completion of this programme, our students are eligible to apply for paid teaching in the School. We also work closely with the Careers and Employability Centre to identify opportunities for career development and training for our students.