Student Perspective: Fostering peer-to-peer interactions via a Student as Partners project 

Talia Omac: When Catherine first introduced the Compañeros de Camino project, I was really excited about it and really intrigued. I'd been part of roles where it was student communication between teachers and representing a peer group before, but I hadn't had the chance to do that in university yet. So I was really excited to be a part of it and also really intrigued because she let us know that it hadn't been done before and that it was very student-run.

I was excited to have the chance to work with my other compañeros and take action and use our creativity to mould the activities and all the little bits and pieces of the role. The feelings of excitement developed during the semester progressively. I don't think that it ever really died down. All the students were quite excited and very willing to take part, especially the compañeros. We worked really well as a team.

As the semester progressed, different opportunities came to light, which helped the excitement and intrigue kind of stay there.

Faiaz Muhammad: At first, I was very amazed, honestly, when Catherine introduced the Compañeros program. It was a very new concept for me. I was interested from the beginning. And I thought it would be a really good opportunity for me to engage with the subject and learn a lot. And it would be really important and helpful for my personal development too.

Matilda Kaylock: When Catherine introduced the Compañeros de Camino project to our tutorial class, I was really excited about the opportunity to be able to help improve the course experience for the students by being able to have a project that was student-led. Working with a group of other students who were interested in helping our peer group within SPAN 241 to find ways to improve their experience of learning Spanish.

The sense from the class when the Compañeros project was first introduced was quite positive. They were quite interested and excited collectively, whether they were interested in being a compañero or just participating as a student. I've also seen that some students experiencing the benefits of the program were quite interested in how it could serve to improve the course experience, especially as it was the first time running it in our cohort.

Matilda Kaylock: As a compañera, I feel that the ways that I was able to contribute positively to the Spanish cohort this semester was through being able to talk to students and connect them to resources and changes that we could make in the course that would help them and providing them an opportunity to be able to talk more freely about their concerns and connecting their concerns with our lecturer to be able to get changes implemented that helped with their experience.

Talia Omac: And on like a selfish level, I think as well, it just feels nice to be able to help people who are struggling and who tend to be quieter in the class and maybe not putting their hand up.

Faiaz Muhammad: If you miss out one week, two weeks or slightly fall back, you are very awkward or very shy to email the teacher. Personally, I am too. So you would think that the teacher would say, "Oh, you didn't catch up, you fall back, why didn't you do this, why didn’t you do that?"

So in order to get out of that awkward situation, I think compañeros are very helpful because other students can email the compañeros easily, like, "Oh I didn’t get it, can you help me out with this or can you at least figure some ways for me?"

And then the compañeros can talk with the teacher and we are very confident and like very comfortable with the teachers and we can find a solution, and then either the student and the teacher talk directly or we can pass down the solution for the student. So I think that's a really, really good solution for both the student and the subject.

Matilda Kaylock: The students have had great requests for things that may be small changes but have made a big difference to their experience of the subject, such as clarifications around homework problems and solutions and learning and finding ways to find out what they need to know in a format that's more effective and beneficial for them.

Talia Omac: And I feel like, I think a lot of people felt really heard because it can be so intimidating saying to a teacher, "I know we did this six weeks ago, I still don’t understand," or "This thing that I was meant to know last year, I've got no idea what you're talking about," and I think it really helped people with the revision aspect a lot, being able to speak to us and get some extra notes or get some extra help on it.

And she made some very practical changes, like one of the big ones was the homework exercises that used to be due at 5 pm and then she moved them to be due at midnight because a lot of students were saying, "Well, I work until 5 pm, I have uni until 5 pm," and so weren’t able to do that and those exercises make up 10% of our grades so people were quite worried about it but they didn’t think it was a change that could be made because they were like, "Well, it's just the time that they're due."

But then we were like, "Well, maybe we ask Catherine," and the next week she was like, "Done, they're due at midnight now, hopefully everyone's got enough time," and I've gotten such good feedback about that change. So I think that those like very practical changes made us feel like we're in this together, like she's going to work hard if we work hard in talking to the cohort.

Talia Omac: So the original idea for the coffee catch-up was Catherine's idea. She kind of suggested, “Maybe you guys should, you know, have a little casual meet-up where you students can speak to one another,” and we all thought that was a great idea. That's probably one of the things we’re missing the most—a casual environment for us to all speak specifically about Spanish and maybe test out a bit of our Spanish too.

Faiaz Muhammad: A lot of them have questions, and a lot of them can't pose some questions. So we thought about that, that we should get together and have something just to talk, just to relax a little bit.

Talia Omac: We had a pretty good turnout for our first coffee catch-up. We had probably seven or eight of us there, which seems small, but when you’re all there for coffee, it felt like a pretty large group. And it was good because you could tell the nerves were there a bit when everyone first got there, especially because most people didn’t come with a friend—they came alone. It was great to see as well that people felt confident to come there on their own. But as the time started moving on, everyone was in their own conversations. We went from having one big group conversation of maybe Matilda saying, “Hey, is anyone having problems with this?”

Faiaz Muhammad: It wasn’t targeted for educational purposes; it was targeted more at relaxing and chilling out. So we decided that we were going to have a coffee catch-up because that’s the easiest way, rather than, at that time, doing anything bigger—it was exam period. You can’t do much bigger stuff, and the schedules were very tight.

Talia Omac: There wasn’t really any preparation involved because, you know, we’re students too. So, for us, it was going to be helpful regardless. We just had in our minds what people might want to speak about, which was the homework exercises, which people were tending to have some issues with.

What ended up happening at the coffee catch-up was everyone sort of brought out their laptops, and we were discussing specific homework points that people maybe were getting wrong frequently and just didn’t understand why they were getting wrong. We all kind of helped each other. So whoever was kind of the most experienced or the most educated on that specific grammar point was like, “Oh, I can explain that,” and would explain that to the people who didn’t understand.

And that was non-Compañero people as well. That was people who had just showed up to the coffee catch-up who were helping people with the homework. So it felt very community-based, like we were all helping each other out, but also just casual conversation too about how we’re feeling about the course.

Matilda Kaylock: Some of the highlights of the project for me personally would definitely include getting to know the other conveners that I worked with. It was a great opportunity to meet people both within my tutorial class that I hadn't gotten to know so well and to connect with students from the other tutorial classes and being able to organise coffee catch-ups or let them know about events locally that would help them with their Spanish learning.

Talia Omac: Some of the highlights for the Compañeros project for me was the social connections I made, not just with the Compañeros but with the whole cohort. I think that in sort of like an internet age it's hard for everyone to stay connected or feel connected to your peer group even when you are seeing them every week because a lot of people they leave straight away because either they've got no one to speak to or they've got to rush off. But what the Compañeros kind of created was an environment where students felt more comfortable talking to one another and wanted to talk to one another because they felt that if they spoke to the Compañeros or even to fellow students who could then communicate that to the Compañeros that some of their worries, their fears, things that they thought could be done differently even in just a positive way would actually be listened to and then through that communication it kind of created friendships because that initial moment then was like oh well we can relate on something and then that kind of just blossomed.

And then especially with the Compañeros I feel really grateful because this is a group of people that I probably wouldn't have made close connections with otherwise. I feel like we've got such a range of people like Faiaz being an international student, he speaks so many languages. He's not someone that I would have made friends with because our lives are quite different but through Compañeros I think Faiaz is great and I've made such good friends in the little group so I'd say that's definitely one of the highlights is the social connections this semester that I haven't felt in other classes.

Faiaz Muhammad: Firstly I would say that Catherine, in the Compañeros project, they did offer some very interesting stuff. As an example Catherine offered that Compañeros will get one hour of consultation from Catherine before exam. To be a little selfish I thought those things are really important for me, for my career, for my experience in study abroad. I am an international student so without a second thought I applied and I did do the consultation with Catherine last week and it was amazing. It was totally worth it and I could revise everything and that one extra hour could be a big difference in my exam results.

As an example I did realise this, I did notice about this that I actually talked with all the students in my course this semester which I did not do in the last semester and the semester before. So I do find it a little different as I am a Compañero. Either they are very soft to reach out or I am very confident to reach out to them, that I have a strong ground. I am a Compañero, I can reach out to them and they won't be like, oh it's awkward. So I did realize that I talked with almost all the students in my class and it's a big class and that's an achievement for me too.

I think I met people, although I am not friends with everyone, but at least I talked with everyone and it's a good relationship, student, colleague, sorry classmate relationship. When I wasn't a Compañero last semester I was like, okay it's a subject and I am a student, I need to do this subject and whatever I do it's on me. But when I became a Compañero it became a little more slight pressure that Catherine will expect a little bit better than me since I am selected as a Compañero among all the students and other students will also expect that he is a Compañero, he can say as a representative, he should at least do a little better and that's why I studied a little extra.

I felt that extra responsibility in my shoulders you can say. And the other thing is I am technically a voice of the other students so I needed to keep my eyes and ears open and try to help the other students as well as I tried to contact and communicate with Catherine a little more which made the relationship between me and Catherine a little better. It was a little more than teacher and student, she was like a partner and it made me really comfortable and it was really amazing.

Faiaz Muhammad: When Catherine comes to class or Catherine has meetings with us, she prioritised our opinions. She asked about, do you think this is right or do you think that's right or wrong, instead of like forcing her opinion on us. So that part specifically felt really comforting and the other thing is whatever opinion we had we could express it and she would respond in a good way.

Talia Omac: And she was so open and receptive to hearing our points and would write every single one down and then would let us know what she can do about each one of them and would follow up with an email either the next day or the next week depending on what the issue was with what she could, what she has done or what she could do in the future about that issue or point or struggle of a student.

I think that how good she was at you know addressing every one of our concerns made us feel as compañeros so heard and so much like this wasn't just like a project for us to kind of do on our own but one that she was like I'm willing to you know put in place extra things I'm willing to you know go the extra mile for you guys if you're willing to you know help me go that extra mile.

Matilda Kaylock: I feel that having regular face-to-face interactions with Catherine external to my classes and lectures provided me an opportunity to feel more comfortable engaging as a student with a lecturer and I feel that will serve well for other courses and opportunities to feel as though the compañeros project is a bridge between students and the lecturers.

I was able to feel that even for myself the project by having the project I felt that it in itself was a bridge between students who were compañeros and Catherine as a lecturer as well making the course feel more close-knit and making it feel more approachable the student-teacher interactions.

Talia Omac: So Catherine herself would bring up points that she's been thinking about so she'd have a list of things she'd want to talk about with us and we'd as compañeros prepare for that meeting by speaking amongst ourselves and deciding what points we'd want to bring up in the meeting.

Faiaz Muhammad: It doesn't matter if the response I mean if our feedback is good bad she would give a good positive feedback response to it. The other thing is regarding assessments and regarding other subject projects and stuff Catherine when we need to announce it Catherine will ask us do you think that it's time to announce instead of saying that just announce it right now so she was prioritizing our comfort and our opinions too that's why it felt more like a partner rather than working for someone.