Software for Teaching English Language & Literature and its Assessment

‌‌‌

The principal aim of the STELLA project is to develop teaching software which can be incorporated into courses and enhance learning in tutorial and self-access modes. In many cases, the material is introduced to students at timetabled sessions, but we also work in blended and on-line learning contexts. When we use our packages as part of timetabled activities, students are also encouraged to return to the STELLA lab and use the materials during free access sessions either as part of their course, out of interest, or as revision.

As English studies encompasses a wide range of subject areas and techniques, the interests of teaching and research staff involved in the STELLA project therefore range from language teaching and linguistics to the formal and conceptual properties of texts in English and Scots. Hard choices have had to be made between packages which can be produced relatively quickly and transferred to different datasets, and more pioneering work in uncharted areas. We concentrate on the former, while at the same time bringing into use in teaching already existing research databases such as the Historical Thesaurus of English.