Ahmed Elshamy

Courses Taught

I. Current:

This course caters for the needs of 4^th year English Department students, who are required to produce a graduation project. They are taught how to conduct research and work independently, produce an integrated literature review, formulate informed research questions, locate different kinds of sources (articles, books, internet material, theses, lectures, interviews, etc.) to support an argument, and finally present the findings to an audience effectively. Special emphasis is accorded to originality, academic rigor and integrity. In the process, students also learn how to investigate the needs of their local community and conduct research that serves this community.

English Poetry: An Introduction: (Second Year, English Department, Faculty of Arts. First Semester)

This is a preliminary course in which students are introduced to the elements of poetry which are used to understand, interpret and respond to a selection of poems from different ages. Separate elements are discussed with relevant selections of poems for illustration. In this course, students are acquainted with the nature of poetry as an inexact art, the nature of which is not easily verifiable, with the fact that equally great poems may contradict each other and with complexity in poetry as a source of richness, not confusion.

Major Movements in English Poetry (Third Year, English Department, Faculty of Arts. Second Semester)

Students are introduced to major movements and figures and ways to approach, read and interpret poetry. Poems are works of art that should be studied as such, and are also documents that shape and have been shaped by their moment in time. They are, therefore, considered in relation to their historical, social and literary contexts. The course covers Milton, Restoration and Neo-Classical poetry, Romantic poetry, Victorian poetry, modern and contemporary poetry. Given the magnitude of this range, the course spans three academic years.

Translation is taught in the four years of the English Department. The introductory stages cover the basic concepts of the translation process, and involve application to a wide variety of texts (both English and Arabic). In the upper stages, students are introduced to more sophisticated concepts of translation, in order to be alerted to the difference between different methods that run the entire gamut from literal to free. Emphasis is placed on understanding the overall meaning as well as the minute nuances of the semantic, lexical, and metaphorical aspects of the source text, and on the appropriate strategies with which to render this text into an adequate communicative discourse in the target language. Advanced students examine cultural implications and transposition in depth. They look at different types of discourse ranging from news media stories to literary works of art, exploring in detail the concepts, problems and mechanics of literary translation.

II. Previous:

Poetry and Fine Arts

This is a course dedicated to ekphrastic poetry (i.e. poems that address visual works of art). It explores how and why poets have often turned to paintings (and later to photographs) as their subjects. The complex relations between verbal and pictorial representation will be discussed together with their aesthetic, social and moral implications. With a particular emphasis on the twentieth century, the course covers a wide range of works by British, American and Irish poets as well as authors of other nationalities who write in English. Their poems will be examined in relation to works by master painters from Da Vinci and Titian to Goya and Magritte. The course concludes with an investigation of the connections between poetry and photography as a natural corollary of the dynamic relation between word and image.  

Reading Comprehension/Academic Essay Writing

In this course, emphasis is placed on the writing process, with students doing prewriting, editing and multiple drafts. Students move from writing well-organized paragraphs with topic sentences and supporting details to full length coherent, well-organized essays, with special attention paid to argument.

Attention is paid to reading skills such as identifying the main idea and supporting ideas, intended audience, rhetorical modes, the medium and aim of the writer, as well as recognizing biases in written works.  Students practice vocabulary skills such as using roots and affixes, and using context to understand a word and when it is necessary they should consult a dictionary.

Courses Supervised

EFL (for Humanities and Literature students)

The course is designed to teach English-language skills that may be useful in real life situations. The approach is basically communicative. Following current trends in EFL, the course integrates the four basic areas of language learning: reading, listening, writing and speaking. Within these general areas, the course material covers vocabulary, structure and grammar in relation to real world contexts. Emphasis is placed on attaining and enhancing a workable level of fluency and extending the skills of speaking and writing to practical usage. A literature component (usually a selection of short stories) is also added so that students may practice critical reading skills and understand language-related concepts in texts of varying levels of difficulty. The course, which is taught in various departments in the Faculty of Arts, is customized according to the needs of each respective department.

EFL (for Veterinary Medicine students)

This is a foundation course intended to train students in basic English-language skills and to help them build technical vocabulary related to their field of specialization. By the end of this course, students should be able to autonomously access more advanced, medicine-related English reading material, communicate more easily in English, produce grammatically correct English sentences and structures in writing, and read specialized texts in their field with adequate ease and competence.