Sangeen Hassan Khan

About

Hi! I'm Sangeen, a university lecturer in English Linguistics (MPhil, 6 published papers). I teach Grammar & Academic Writing with real research-backed methods. Tell me your goal.

Introduction Video

I Can Teach

English History POLITICAL SCIENCE

Teaching Philosophy

My approach to teaching English Linguistics is built on one core belief: language is never neutral. Every text — a newspaper report, a grammar exercise, a student's essay — carries assumptions, power relations, and choices that can be analyzed. My role as a teacher is to make these hidden patterns visible to students, rather than just teaching rules to memorize. This belief comes directly from my research background. My work in corpus-assisted discourse analysis has trained me to look for patterns across large amounts of text — repeated word choices, collocations, and framing strategies that reveal ideology. I bring this same analytical habit into the classroom. When I teach Grammar and Syntax, I do not stop at correct versus incorrect structures. I ask students why a writer chose a passive voice over an active one, or why one newspaper uses "alleged corruption" while another uses "proven scandal." This turns grammar from a dry rulebook into a tool for understanding real communication. In Discourse Analysis and Corpus Linguistics courses, I push students to move from impression to evidence. Many students start by saying a text "feels biased." My job is to teach them how to prove it — using frameworks like Fairclough's Critical Discourse Analysis, van Dijk's ideological square, and basic corpus tools to count and compare word frequencies. This shift, from opinion to evidence, is the most useful skill I can give them, whether they go into journalism, academia, or any field involving written communication. For English Composition, my priority is clarity over decoration. I have little patience for inflated academic language that hides weak thinking. I tell students directly: if an idea is good, it can be expressed in simple sentences. Complicated phrasing is often used to disguise the absence of a clear argument. I apply the same standard to my own writing and expect students to revise drafts until the structure of their argument is obvious, not buried. I also believe teaching should be honest about weaknesses, including my own. If a student's argument has a gap in logic or unsupported evidence, I say so directly and explain why, rather than softening feedback to protect feelings. Vague praise does not help anyone improve. Specific, evidence-based correction does. My long-term goal — building a corpus linguistics research group after completing my PhD — shapes how I teach now. I treat undergraduate and postgraduate students as future researchers, not passive recipients of information. I assign small corpus-based projects even at the composition level, so students practice forming a question, finding data, and drawing a conclusion supported by that data. In short, my teaching philosophy rests on three commitments: treat language as evidence, not just rules; demand clarity over jargon; and give honest, specific feedback rather than comfortable but useless praise. These are the same standards I apply to my own research, and I see no reason the classroom should be held to a lower one.

Languages

English

Education

Level

Master Degree

Degree