Project Leader: Leah McCue, Peer Support Team, Students Union

This project, which was awarded funding by the Teaching Development Fund (TDF) Seed, aims to to investigate how best to support students with accent comprehension by building and trialling a hub of tips to help students who are struggling. The hub will be comprised of video clips and other resources to help them practise listening to different accents, including signposting to TV shows, films, and podcasts for further exploration, and to learn about different cultures. This will be housed on Moodle. This first phase of the project will explore and evaluate if this is the correct approach to accent comprehension.

Feedback from international students and other language learners is that they often struggle to understand native English speakers, or those who also have English as an additional language. This makes it difficult for them to follow lectures, interact with their peers, participate in SU Groups, etc.

After completing the course, students will be encouraged to attend English PAL sessions, where they can practise conversational English with other learners and native speakers. The content of PAL sessions is led by the attendees, so they can focus on different accents or other aspects of the language or UK culture.