Would it be rude to tell a lecturer you don’t like the way they structure seminars?

[Drin]

I’m a second year mature English lit student and I’m finding the way one of the lecturers structures his seminars extremely frustrating. He prints out a series of questions asking us to analyse certain passages or other various challenging questions and it just doesn’t flow well for me at all. It feels like an exam or something and I always freeze up and become tongue tied.

I’ve pre-planned answers twice in the past but then turned up to the seminar and he’s changed the questions entirely so I did the work for nothing. I challenged him on it yesterday and he apologised saying it was because he was expecting a bigger group and thought it would work better. I didn’t say a word yesterday as a result because I just froze up again. I always leave the seminars feeling absolutely stupid but he knows I’m not stupid because I got 80% on his assignment and I get 71%+ on all assignments so I’m heading for a first. I’ve read all of the books for that unit as well so it’s not as though I don’t know what I’m talking about.

I have two seminars with another lecturer and always leave his seminars feeling really good. It was the same with a couple of the seminars last year, they were just structured completely differently and it worked really well. The difference is they don’t have a series of set questions, instead they will ask what we made of the text and then ask various free flowing questions afterwards. It always flows well and we all bounce off one another, it opens up a lot of dialogue. I just don’t feel like the structured set up flows as well.

I was so frustrated yesterday and felt so stupid I ended up crying in the changing room cubicle at the gym. I’m now on the verge of not bothering to turn up to his seminars at all next year. Would you raise it with him or do you think he’d just think I’m a dick? For me, it’s between raising it and just not turning up so I don’t know which is worse.

For reference, my students are very aware that I have banned the word 'relatable' from any essay they turn in to me!

God, I hate that word. I tell them that if they want 'relatable' culture, then all they should study are texts, films, plays, songs or paintings about being 20 and at university.

EngLit is about critical thinking, not feelings.

I’ve pre-planned answers twice in the past but then turned up to the seminar and he’s changed the questions entirely so I did the work for nothing.

That's actually ridiculous - you must be quite a weak student. If you have done your reading and can think critically & analytically, you should be able to answer any question - or at least ave a stab at answering anything related to the text/s for discussion.

There’s also the point that even if you then didn’t need your answers for the seminar the work you’d done wouldn’t have been “for nothing”. You would have learned from that which would be good for your own knowledge.

In my experience seminars are more conversational...are you sure you're not overthinking it? I'd say it's nice to have a set of guide questions to ruminate over but ultimately the interactive part is meant to be dynamic, not scripted. Rather than asking them to change their whole approach it might be easier and more useful for you to see it as an opportunity for dialogue. Not a test, but rather a pooling of interpretations?

What stands out to me is that you view the questions changing that you did the work for nothing.It's a mentality that the only learning worth doing is the learning that an academic sees or is marked in assignments.

If you've developed a better understanding about the topic from doing the preparation then that's useful learning and should support you in answering other questions about the text.

It's not unreasonable to speak to him if you're finding the seminars difficult, but I'd try to have the mindset of "how can I develop my seminar communication skills" not "how can the university make sure I'm in my comfort zone and not asked about anything that I've not pre-prepared".

The idea of university as a safe space to feel comfortable and not be uncomfortable or challenged or hit the limits of our knowledge isn't an idea of university I like the sound of.

Can I ask how many students are in a seminar? The reason I ask is that when I did my post grad a year or so ago, our seminars usually had about 30+ students in which obviously meant there wasn’t time for everyone to make a verbal contribution. There were definitely students who never offered up answers and our lecturers didn’t seem to take issue with it, especially as we weren’t marked on our contributions outside of group presentations. If this is the case with you, could you spend a few seminars answering the questions put forward in your head? And take off some of the pressure you are feeling over contributing to the session?

Relax. There are no right answers in literature anyway

I can assure you there are.

Well, there are answers which are more "right" than others, and there are definitely wrong answers!

Indeed. Wordsworth was not an Irish poet. Virginia Woolf did not invent the ‘inferior monologue’. Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is not about ‘a man on holiday on a boat in Africa’.

Aargh.

They've got to cater for a whole group, not just you. I think you need to work on how you respond, surely that's good practice for future jobs where you have to learn to think on your feet.

There's no point, they literally don't care.

Teaching is something they agree to with gritted teeth in order to do sabbaticals and get conference gigs and write papers/books.

With one or two exceptions, the worst teaching I got was at university. They passed seminars off to PHD students to do so they didn't have to show up, invented many group projects to reduce the amount of marking (and didn't care if the majority of the group didn't do the work as long as something was handed in). We even had a multiple choice exam at one point (for an English degree). The questions had been pulled directly from lecture slides and some didn't even make sense out of context.

Some of the same topics I had been taught at A level (state sixth form college) and it was night and day. There are reams of technical linguistic things I wouldn't have understood at all had I not been taught them previously.

Yes it was a Russell Group university. Biggest waste of money for me.

Unfortunately, you can't do anything when people don't care.

Teaching is something they agree to with gritted teeth in order to do sabbaticals and get conference gigs and write papers/books.

I quite enjoy teaching actually. I have a humungous grant which would free me from teaching for the rest of my career, but I actually choose to teach. Mostly, my students appreciate that. But I find that I get back what I put out - it's a principle that works quite well for a lot of people@moomoomoo27

I taught as a PhD student and I was pretty darn good, as are my current PhD students teaching my 1st years. Much better for 1st years to be taught by people nearer to their own age & experience than this old lag of a professor.

There are a lot of people close to me who lecture but in music and art. They absolutely bloody hate it but needs must. Think it's different in the (actual) arts though

I love teaching.

Marking on the other hand...

With you on that.

I realise I miss teaching (though not associated admin) if I’m on research leave. A good seminar is really energising.

Yes, and yes.

Marking is tedious, but you do get to see how your seminar strategies landed.

Christ I hate marking, I'm so far behind.

Do you honestly think that tutor needs to make your seminar experience a comfortable one for you personally in that the structure of the lesson has to suit your personal preferences? What about if other students like this format better than the free flow ones you like?

Has it occurred to you that finding something difficult might actually be good for you?. It doesn't seem to be affecting your marks as you say you are doing very well on assessments.

I really am not trying to be mean, and as others have said you sound like a committed and diligent student but you may need to consider what it is you should be getting out of the seminars.

Is it to be able to demonstrate that you are perfectly knowledgeable about the specific area being discussed at the same time as being perfectly comfortable and having fun at all times? Or is it to make progress in how you learn. Being uncomfortable and finding something frustrating is often the first part of making real progress.

The seminars will be set to help you and classmates answer the exams or coursework. It will work for most people. Unless you get the very highest in the class you need to attend.

Speak to your university's students union for advice, they really are the best place for giving advice on how best to approach this situation, including your rights, lectureres responsibilities, and getting the most from your time studying there, because they deal with these things all the time. Much better advice than you'll get on here.