I think the lectures could have been a lot better.
For spoken and written, I think they could have looked through past exam papers and pulled out some poorly answered questions. Perhaps they could have then shown us how they would have answered the question to get full marks. A lot of the theory is stuff we can revise on our own time. Lecturers need to recognise this and gear their lecture towards information we are unlikely to find on our own or by presenting stuff that isn't just in our textbooks (Such as interpreting exam questions and then the best strategies to answering them).
The handout for written text was comprehensive and contained some new terms that I have never seen before. The problem I found was that the lecture component didn't really add anything to the notes. A lot of the time I found she was just reading out what were on the handouts, which is again something we can do in our own time.
No suggested responses to the set questions is also a bit of a bummer. It's difficult to tell if your answering questions correctly without an example to check afterwards.
This wasn't so much of a problem in written text. The lecturer kept things a bit more interesting although his notes were no where near as comprehensive.
The essay component was a huge disappointment. This was the section I was most looking forward too and it was so shallow and basic you could basically get the same thing from reading exam reports/exam guides. It would have been much more interesting and valuable if she took a look at some exam questions and listed some of the ways you could address the question - what to bring up in your essay etc. Perhaps she could even mention some specific contemporary issues that are relevant to the essay topic or have elements which could be incorporated into the topic.
Overall I really wasn't that impressed by the lectures. If you haven't studied all year and know very little about the course, then I could see them being useful to you. Otherwise, it would be much better value to just write practice essays/do practice exams.
The spoken language lecturer was fantastic - he reignited my waning interest in the area of study.
The essay section was a bit disappointing though - I'd rather have spent more time breaking down essay topics and discussing the facets of each outcome than talking about how to tackle the exam.
Out of curiosity were you the girl that said hi at the written lecture (Session1) sitting in the 4th - 5th row in the middle section? If so, I was the Eurasian guy from Box Hill High.
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