Paul Owens
"Since
graduating from York St. John in 2005, I have gone on to train as a
Basic Skills / Skills for Life tutor in the PCET sector.
Currently, I am on placement in an FE college in West Yorkshire,
where I am teaching literacy to a group of adult learners. At
the risk of sounding like a Miss World contestant, I have found the
work challenging, yet extremely rewarding: knowing that I've played
my part in helping an adult to spell key words or to recognise
where to place a capital letter has given me tremendous
satisfaction and a real sense of achievement. Eventually, I
would like to work in prison education, on exciting projects such
as 'Fathers Inside' and 'Audio Books Dad' (this particular project
gives inmates the opportunity to improve their reading skills and
record themselves reading children's stories. The audio CDs
on which these stories are recorded are then given to the inmates'
families for their children to
enjoy).
The skills
and knowledge I have acquired through studying linguistics at York
St. John have helped me greatly in my chosen career. As well
as obviously providing me with a sound understanding of how the
English language works, my undergraduate degree has helped me to
become a far more confident person. The different assessment
methods used on the programme and the encouragement from the
eclectic mix of friendly tutors who make up the linguistics
department have played no small part in
this.
For my
dissertation, I combined my two main interests, namely the English
language and football (though not necessarily in that order), by
analysing the language of match reports. The study focused on
uncovering bias and ideology in texts, and was one of the most fun
and satisfying projects I have ever carried out. Although I
am enjoying my work as a literacy tutor, I would, in an ideal
world, be combining my two main interests in paid employment and be
working as a sports journalist (commitments and a lack of money
mean that undertaking the further training required to become a
journalist is not really an option). Nonetheless, the tricks
of the trade I learned through analysing football reports have not
gone to waste: I am the reporter for my wife's football team – and
I've learned it's so much better to write The ball was given away
than Carol gave the ball away when Carol weighs more than you do
and has been given a four-match ban for punching an opposing player
who had upset her."
Paul received his BA (Hons) degree in 2005, he is now a full
time literacy tutor.