Faculty Information
College Supervision in Modern and Medieval Languages: A Guide for Supervisors
This guide has been prepared by the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and endorsed by the College teaching Fellows in Modern Languages, for the benefit of supervisors generally and those new to teaching in Cambridge in particular.
In Modern Languages, supervisions serve a range of functions and levels. A wide range of disciplines are represented within the Faculty, and the practice and aims of a supervision on language or linguistics, for instance, will differ from those on a literary or historical topic. The following remarks cannot hope to cover the full range of supervising aims and practices in the Faculty, but seeks to explain in general terms what the nature and objectives of a good, essay-based supervision should be.
Most undergraduates in Modern Languages are taught fortnightly, for one hour, throughout the academic year, for each paper they are taking in Tripos. While practice may vary, especially in Part IA and Part IB, students will normally receive ten supervisions per Tripos paper, although in certain Departments some supervisions may be replaced by Faculty seminars. Undergraduates may be taught individually, but the norm is two or three, and exceptionally the groups can be larger. The Director of Studies may well specify one of these options, but you as supervisor may equally propose one, as long as it is approved by the Director of Studies beforehand.
Supervisions normally take place at a regular, agreed time each fortnight. Pupils must attend. (Many colleges now fine undergraduates for supervisions missed without good cause.) If an undergraduate regularly inconveniences you, report him or her to the Director of Studies as soon as possible. Similarly, please tell the Director of Studies at once of any severe difficulties that the student is having with work: such problems may well have their roots in matters not related to work.
The general aim of supervision can be stated in two mutually reinforcing ways: to prepare the student for the appropriate Tripos examination, and to develop particular, yet transferable skills. These include: reading both sensitively and critically; learning to reason and communicate effectively; the confidence to develop an independent line of thought; the ability to engage in dialogue; the ability to discuss in a literate and articulate manner at a high level of intellectual sophistication; mining a large body of material efficiently; evaluating its significance and utility in relation to specific important cultural, historical, or literary questions; ordering one's thoughts succinctly and clearly in writing. The purpose of each supervision is to clarify, focus, and extend the work which the undergraduate has been set, with these aims in mind.
Most Colleges distribute self-assessment forms each term in which students give an account of their progress in supervisions.
When setting up a supervision it is advisable to check with the Directors of Studies of the students you are supervising to see whether the college can provide a room. The Faculty also has rooms that can be booked for supervisions by contacting the Faculty Office, Room 121 of the Raised Faculty Building. You are asked to check availability on the web first /roombooking/. If you book a room and then don't need it after all please make sure to cancel it. There is a great deal of pressure on rooms and it is unfair to leave rooms empty.
See also Faculty Policy on Plagiarism and Plagiarism notes for Supervisors.
A. Topics
It is vital to be fully aware of the specific requirements of the paper for which you are supervising. For a number of papers, for instance, the regulations require the candidate to answer at least one question from more than one section. So be vigilant.
For the purposes of wide-ranging Part II period papers, you will need to prepare a list of self-contained topics, each manageable in under a week. You might wish to produce a short handout indicating approaches to the topic, providing advice about reading, and giving examples of previous Tripos questions. Try to prepare an adequate variety of topics, since it is important to give the undergraduate some choice of study. Ideally, the selection of topics will recognise the principle of student choice but chart a pathway through the paper so as to give it some coherence. Some supervisors will give out a list of topics at the start of the year, and it is at any rate crucial to arrange topics for the Lent term before the end of the Michaelmas term.
To help with the creation of topics, it will be useful to consult the various reading lists and course guidance leaflets published by the Departments. Tripos papers of the previous three or four years are also an indispensable source of information, as are the Examiners' reports, available for consultation in the Faculty Library. It's also a good idea to get advice from a senior member of the Department experienced in teaching the paper (in the case of new supervisors, this might well be his or her PhD supervisor).
Lectures may or may not be closely tied to Tripos papers. Even when they are not, it is very important to urge undergraduates to attend them, since they are designed to assist preparation for Tripos. They are a particularly valuable means of bridging gaps between essay topics and of supplying general perspectives and trends which are often not available in books. Lecturers give out useful booklists and handouts. The lecture-programme is published each October in the Lecture List, a special issue of the University Reporter. It is organised on an annual, not a termly, basis, and so undergraduates should be encouraged to attend relevant courses in all three terms. The Director of Studies should have pointed these facts out, but it is desirable that you should reiterate them and inquire periodically about your students' responses to the courses. Undergraduates may well ask you to recommend particular lectures. Sometimes you will have views; sometimes you may feel that they should experiment with all those on offer. Some undergraduates give up attending before giving courses a chance, on the grounds that they do not appear 'relevant' to their work. This is usually short-sighted, and to be discouraged, since their full value very often becomes clear in revising the paper.
B. Essay Questions
Each topic is defined by a question or statement. The purpose of the supervision essay is to accustom undergraduates to distilling their reading into a clear, concise yet rounded argument. So questions need to be framed with some care; try not to make them ambiguous. This does not mean, though, that they need to be as narrowly focused as Tripos questions sometimes are. Undergraduates tend to read for the essay, so the more all-encompassing the scope of the question, the broader their preparation will be. You should make sure that your students are aware of the range of different analytical techniques and modes of presenting evidence that are needed to cope with different types of question.
C. Reading lists
Reading lists for each paper are available in the respective Departmental Handbook though you may wish to supplement these. There is no harm in setting a list longer than most undergraduates will be able to conquer in under a week; they have ample time at the end of each term and in the vacation to flesh out their understanding. First-years in particular may need reassurance that they are not expected to read everything on a long list before writing the essay. Establish clearly which are primary and which secondary texts. In the case of secondary and outline works, go through the list indicating particularly important items. Students should be strongly encouraged to use vacation time for advance reading, for which reason choosing papers before the Long Vacation is extremely desirable.
D. The Essay
This should be handed in in advance, so that you have time to make written comments in the margin and a brief assessment at the end. Most supervisors do not give marks, partly because of the difficulty of relating early work to eventual Tripos performance, but there is of course (usually) no harm in doing so, and students often welcome it. However, in the case of the Portfolio in Part IB no marks must appear on the script, though comments and indications should be given as normal. It is at all events essential to find means of conveying clearly to the student how well he or she is performing in relation to what is expected of them at a given point in their undergraduate career.
NB: essays prepared for the portfolio in Part IB should be treated in exactly the same way as the normal supervision essay without subsequent polishing. The usual gamut of the paper should also be followed.
If a student does not produce an essay in time for the supervision, you are within your rights in refusing to teach until it has appeared, though there will be many occasions on which it is better to soldier on, especially if he or she can produce a plan full enough to make discussion worthwhile. You are also within your rights in refusing to reschedule the supervision to a different day, though again it is best to be flexible about this if possible.
In general, students should be given to understand that the supervision is not a moveable feast, except in circumstances of illness or similar difficulty. One of the skills acquired by supervision work is that of meeting deadlines. Students may well need advice from time to time on how to organise their work timetable.
The Faculty has published detailed 'Criteria' for the assessment of essay questions in examinations which may be found helpful in commenting on your students' standard and progress. Copies are obtainable from the Faculty Office.
E. The Supervision
There is no single way of supervising. Different approaches and tones are appropriate for different undergraduates at different stages of the course. The intelligence, industry, self-confidence and articulateness of the student need to be considered in deciding how forceful, critical, sympathetic, wide-ranging and/or talkative you should be as a supervisor. Gender may also be a factor in this equation. Supervisors should always be aware that excessively hostile or exclusively negative criticism can do great damage to undergraduate morale, particularly in the first year. Criticism is an essential part of the supervision process, but it should always be accompanied by suggestions and encouragement as to how the work can be done better. At the same time, remember that your aim is to encourage your pupils to talk. It is easy as a supervisor to talk too much.
An undergraduate will usually come away from a good supervision with a clearer sense of at least two things. First, the worth of the essay submitted. You should give an indication of this by commenting on content, range, depth, structure and, if necessary, style (clarity, syntax, spelling). You may well need to give general advice on how to improve essay structure and presentation, especially in view of the fact that some examiners are very severe about shortcomings in these areas. It is important to encourage undergraduates to make a full plan. Students whose first language is not English, and some mature students, may need special help with essays, but you will quickly become aware that the writing skills of home-grown school-leavers also vary enormously. Undergraduates often learn techniques (and gain reassurance) by reading each other's essays. Refer them also to useful paperback books on academic writing, such as:
Gordon Taylor, The Student's Writing Guide for the Arts and Social Sciences (Cambridge University Press, 1989)
Kate Williams, Study Skills (Basingstoke: Macmillan Education, 1989)
William Zinsser, On Writing Well: an Informal Guide to Writing Non-Fiction (6th edn., New York : HarperPerennial, 1998).
The second thing a student should take from a supervision is a sense of the coherence of the topic as a whole. You will want to test pupils' understanding of what they have written. You will probably also ask them about matters not covered in the essay, and make connections between what they have written and what they could have written with more thought and/or reading. In other words, you will want to clarify and broaden their understanding. Encourage them to contribute and to ask you questions.
The supervision is an excellent medium for conveying the truth that very few of the questions discussed will admit of only one 'right' answer.
In general, these goals are best pursued by discussion; a supervision is not a lecture. Do not be embarrassed if you reduce a taciturn student to silence from time to time while forcing him or her to think. Students should take some notes in supervision. Encourage them also to collect their thoughts and commit them to paper immediately afterwards.
If you are new to supervising, ask a senior member of the Faculty whether you may sit in on a supervision given by him or her.
F. Supervising in Twos (and Threes)
Most supervisions in Modern Languages nowadays are in twos or threes. There are obvious attractions and drawbacks to joint supervisions. Do not hesitate to change a pair or group to achieve a better balance of ability or personality. It might be prudent to announce at the outset that you may want to re-arrange groups later. Do not let one student dominate the discussion, and do be aware that male undergraduates can sometimes be more talkative and ready to speculate than women. Great care may be needed when criticising written work in groups; and it may be desirable to talk to each pupil individually about his or her progress from time to time. Supervising undergraduates together encourages the swapping of ideas, can lighten the atmosphere, and is often enjoyable for all participants. In particular, it may cheer up students who lack self-confidence to discover that their more articulate peers are not necessarily more acute.
G. Supervision Reports and Payment - Camcors
The University uses an on-line reporting and payment system (please see http://www.camcors.cam.ac.uk/) This gives you all the information you need, including Guidance for Supervisors and Frequently Asked Questions. You will need a Raven password (see http://www.cam.ac.uk/cs/docs/faq/n5.html). If you experience difficulties entering particular students, and you have followed the advice in FAQ, please contact the college concerned, since they are responsible for entering student data. For college contact Emails see http://www.camcors.cam.ac.uk/contact/.
H. Part II Dissertations
Supervision for Part II dissertations, Translation Projects and Linguistics Projects is arranged through the Director of Studies and you should consult the Dissertation Booklet, Criteria for the Marking of Dissertations and Translation Projects and other relevant material available both on the web and from the Faculty Office.
I. A note about grades
It has been drawn to the attention of the Faculty Board that predicting grades on supervision report forms for the Portfolio of Essays in Part IB and the Year Abroad Project and Optional Dissertation in Part II could prove problematical should the grade predicted subsequently not be awarded in Tripos. At their meeting on Monday 10 March the Board therefore agreed to advise Senior Tutors, Directors of Studies and supervisors that the prediction of grades for these exercises is inappropriate since the work to be assessed has been seen by the supervisor, although (s)he is not allowed to comment on it in its final form.
Revised January 2007
