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When a dozy lecturer didn’t show up to deliver a first year English lecture on Modernism, UoL student Joel Pearce valiantly stepped up and gave the lecture himself.

Joel Pearce fills in for a forgetful academic

After 20 minutes of no lecturer, Pearce decided to save the day, going to the front of the lecture theatre and delivering an improvised mini-lecture on Modernism.

Despite it being totally improvised, the lecture is actually fairly good – using phrases like “semi-comic, semi-tragic, quasi-philosophical text”, and waxing lyrical about “cohesive and tangible points”, it’s indistinguishable from the clever-sounding stuff that make up English lectures nationwide.

Anyone who’s been to a first year English lecture will no doubt see Joel Pearce’s effort as an improvement – speaking to The Tab, Jethro Jenkins (Pearce’s friend and cameraman in the video) said how much better this off-the-cuff lecture was than previous ‘professional’ lectures.

He said: “Joel was speaking from the heart, rather than from a powerpoint.”

“His talk was very informative, and also described on quite a human level. I think if everyone had listened and stayed they would have got a lot out of it.”

Like any students with better things to do, most of the class left after about 20 minutes – leaving only 6 people left in the lecture theatre to enjoy the improvised talk.

So, it turns out students can be better at giving lectures than academics – and during next week’s two-day strike, they might have to fill in a bit more often.

Watch the video here and judge for yourself:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnQQ9cVIXk0[/youtube]

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