Jonathan Westwood

I am an accomplished and experienced instructor in advanced English studies with a proven track record of developing modern teaching methods and resources. My breadth of experience at university level extends over 15 years across a range of twenty course types, spanning British history, politics and media, American and British literature and specialising since 2011 in grammar and advanced language, translation and writing classes. During that time I have continually developed new learning materials and methods, including my pioneering of the online portal 'Project ARIEL'​ at the University of Mainz, which offered students and teachers new access and approaches to interactive as well as independent studies; an endeavour vindicated by a substantial extra-departmental grant for 'Innovation in Teaching'​, and, more critically, by the overwhelmingly positive feedback and uptake by students. I am a committed, enthusiastic, and well-received lecturer, who has enjoyed a very positive response from undergraduates, honoured in 2017 by a faculty-level 'excellence in teaching' award. The opportunity to expand my responsibility by convening all language classes in the Department of English and Linguistics at the University of Mainz provided the welcome chance to develop closer working relationships with the strong existing team of instructors, as well as to push forward with my objectives for teaching development in the broader, departmental context. I have been happy to have the opportunity to take and develop these skills at the HHU in Düsseldorf, where I had the chance to redesign foundation level undergraduate courses during a reaccreditation, alongside funding to develop new e-learning support for the students. The recent covid restrictions both vindicated many of these efforts in their facilitation of greater independent, asynchronous learning, as well as opened up new ideas for non-traditional, IT supported learning and teaching: ideas and flexibilities that I am keen to explore in new course formats to develop further learner autonomy and variation in delivery. My ambition is to continue investing my energy and enthusiasm in these fields, as it is an area I consider worthwhile as well as immensely rewarding and enjoyable.