A2 coursework 1/10/13

Now that you are really into your analysis, try and keep the focus of the headings you are using, rather than writing about EVERYTHING, but keep a note of any links you want to make - it is ideal to do this in the conclusion but might be worked into the analysis, so keep an open mind and good records of your thinking!

I will be coming around today to ask you about potential media text topics, so give that some thought.

Check back in the 'Coursework' booklet to ensure you have all the important information in mind.

Some quantifiable data is a really good springboard, so invest some time in counting. Not necessarily in lesson time, as it is donkey work and you are better writing things I can check in class time but do it at home this week.

Remember formal style, PEE(EE) plus context but add in bullet points, tables etc. because it is not an essay.

Quotes do not count towards your word limit but the word limit is really tight, so keep focussed.

A2 Child Language Acquisition theories test

Child Language Acquisition key theories test

1. Whose theory stated we have an inbuilt sense of grammar and what did he call it?
2. What are two examples of overgeneralisation?
3. Describe what is happening when children use these examples (use terminology):
4. Whose theory was that children learn language through imitation?
5. What strategies did he use to ensure the rats learned that adults use when interacting with children (the terms for praise and correction)?
6. Whose theory was that you need interaction to learn language?
7. What was the case study that supported this theory (a boy’s name and what his situation was)?
8. Whose theory was that children can’t learn to use language about something that they don’t understand?
9. What is the name of that theory?
10. What is the acronym for the way which adults speak to children?
11. Give three examples of ways in which adults use CDS:

AS Language lesson work for 30/9/13

Welcome to Monday, my clevernesses!

Since you are doing an analysis of a style model under timed conditions in class tomorrow (in the second half of the lesson - we are doing peer assessments on your Geoffrey monologue excerpts for the first part), it is important you get more practice at PEE analysis of monologues.

Before we do that, I would like to introduce another framework. It is one that is very important for monologues as it is the SOUND element of language: 'phonology'. This can be anything from techniques we already know like alliteration and onomatopoeia to the use of accent, to new terms you should check out now : prosody/paralinguistics (which can be body language but has sound-related aspects too - what are they?)

1) Find a monologue (it can be far too short for coursework for this task, so an audition piece is fine - google 'monologues').
2) Post some context (what do we need to know about the play before we read the extract/analysis), an extract you have chosen to look at closely, and a PEE analysis (remember to mention the audience and to use terminology, quotes, and a formal style). Your analysis should be two paragraphs, focussing on two different frameworks. You must look at the implicature (how we understand what isn't actually said). That is from the framework 'pragmatics' but it should never be in a separate paragraph, it should always be talked about in combination with lexis, discourse, grammar, phonology etc.
3) Read and comment on as many other blogs as possible. I do take note of the comments made by others and it is an important part of thinking critically about your own work and others' and in expressing feedback usefully and tactfully and really engaging with both the text and the analysis.
4) Work on grammar - post a comment on this blog if you find a good site.
5) Read the comments made on your blog. You could post a redraft of your analysis once you have seen some others, read the comments on yours and thought about how to improve.

A2 coursework lesson 27/9/13

Thank you to those who posted their paragraph of analysis. I have commented on these where relevant. If you have not posted it, you cannot get any feedback.

Today we will be thinking about how to structure your analysis. It is not an essay. Not. An. Essay. It is an investigation and you are reporting your findings. You must do this in a clear but intellectually sophisticated way where the structure helps the reader to comprehend your thinking and your findings. Both parts are equally important so you must continually make comments that show you have thought about your findings and how reliable/relevant they are and whether they stand up to close examination in context - what are the exceptions? What would happen if you removed some of the exceptional results? What would be the picture then? How many actual results have made up that percentage? This is evaluation and it is one of the key criteria (it is not enough to only put evaluative comments in the Evaluation, you must put them in the Methodology, Analysis and Conclusion too.

So, regarding structure, you must organise your analysis. You will probably not be looking at each piece of data in detail so this is not a good way to organise your analysis (under transcript/article/song headings). It is better to think about getting an overview and explaining your findings either under different theories and how far they are supported/contradicted; or framework headings; orquestions you wanted to answer; or the features that you used to test your hypotheseis with; or any other suitable set of headings that makes you give an overview of the data each time (you can have sub-sub-headings that show which piece of data is being discussed if that clarifies things). You should have tables/charts/graphs to show quantifiable findings where at all possible and then use quotes in context to exemplify some of those findings to show close PEE(EE) skills and contextual understanding - remember to evaluate how reliable the findings are.

So plan how you will break down your analysis and start to test your hypothesis using quantifiable aspects, picking out examples of these aspects using PEE.

Post an explanation of how you are sub-dividing your analysis and why today, please.

A couple of interesting speeches - one on gender issues, one good for power, both use good techniques

Doc Brown on sexism

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZ-pIuL4-sQ&feature=youtu.be&a


Tim Minchin addressing graduates

http://www.timminchin.com/2013/09/

A2 coursework lesson 24/9/13

You should be happy with your data now and have a hypothesis to test. Choose a framework to test your hypothesis with and select an extract from your data to do a sample paragraph of analysis on.

Post your findings bearing in mind the following information to include:

• give us some context - what is the data and what are you looking for?
• which framework/technique or theory are you looking at the data through in the paragraph?
• a polished paragraph should include PEE(EE?)
• evaluate what you have found - does it seem significant/interesting?

Please comment on one anothers' analysis with questions, suggestions and positive aspects.

Speech style model: Malala Yousafzai's speech to the UN (she is only 16)

Here is the text of the speech in an Indedpendent article. Read particularly the section where she talks about being shot. Prepare to be impressed - she is only 16. See the speech video in the second link.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/the-full-text-malala-yousafzai-delivers-defiant-riposte-to-taliban-militants-with-speech-to-the-un-general-assembly-8706606.html

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-23291897

AS Language Style models (ongoing homework for the next two weeks)

I know I haven't talked much about what makes a good style model. And I also know that people want to start thinking about it so here are a few thoughts.

To get an A or B, the text forms have to be 'ambitious' i.e. difficult to write in (e.g. difficult to get the conventions/voice/tone/lexis/structure right). They also have to show you can write for audiences other than just teenagers. Each text must be for a different APF. IT should also be of a suitable length that you can use in your coursework. The pieces should be (word-counts combined) between 1500 and 2500 words and neither piece should be shorter than 750.

The audience challenge means reading things you don't normally read - things that are not aimed at you.

You have to write your piece for the same APF/GAP as the piece you have chosen as your style model and use quite a few techniques from the style model (so you can't write your piece first and choose your style model afterwards!) so that you can explain how you were inspired by the style model and how you adapted the techniques to deal with very different content.

As I was saying last lesson, you can't, for instance, take a Guardian article about drugs and then write about drugs. You can use your reading as research of course, so if you are using a Guardian article about a flu pandemic as your style model and are writing about drugs, you can use all the research material, including Guardian articles about drugs, that you can lay your hands on to help you get your facts right! These articles (or textbooks, or whatever) mst be cited in your bibliography and you must ensure that you don't plagiarise any sources you have used for research (we will be working on that skill soon). So, your style model is not your source for research, it is good writing that you want to learn techniques from that will be suitable for your APF, because it will be for the same APF. It will teach you how to write your piece successfully.

You can start collecting possible style models now and then we can be discussing the portfolio of texts that you have collected so we can decide what you will write for your two pieces. We need to decide this in the next couple of weeks. You must find your own style models. Happy hunting!

P.S. Having said to you not to write reviews (it's film reviews that tend to be done really badly, but all reviews are a danger zone), here is one I enjoyed recently that is clever, about the right length, reasonably (but not hugely) challenging and quite accessible. Humour that works for the target audience is allowed! 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/tv-and-radio-reviews/10261852/The-bear-facts-about-The-Great-British-Bake-Off.html

Irony in practice in a gender article

Many students ask me what irony is and this article illustates the use of the concept throughout. It is also interesting in its representation of gender.

http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2013/sep/18/how-to-pick-up-women-with-science

AS Lesson Mon 23rd

Good day, Fabulousnesses! AS always, read all the instructions first to get an overview.

Please remember if you have not done your homework, you cannot stay and play. Come back and sign in late when you are done. Make sure I see you as I have to say how many minutes late you were. Also remember, lateness is factored into attendance, so we will all be in trouble with Jude and this class does not deserve that, so sort yourselves out!

Today we are going to have another chance to look at and feed back on one another's blogs. I should have blog URLs for everyone by a few minutes in.

You can work together on this under one person's log-on, if you say in any comments that it is both people feeding back, and then you can discuss it. Or you can work solo. Stay logged on on your own computer as we will be doing solo tasks later.

1) Read my post on 'style models' and write down a reminder to do the homework. Then read any posts you haven't read by a range of your classmates and pick something significant worth commenting on. Ask questions, throw ideas into the mix, consider alternatives, point out subtleties other readers may not notice, or anything else that seems useful.

I really liked the posts in character that were used in response to the 'me' texts, so anything groovy like that will be welcomed.

I will be doing 1 to 1s with people about their assessed pieces. I have judged them against work I have read this year and in the past at this stage of the course but you have all come with different levels of prior experience and grades often reflect that, rather than ability.

After about 25 mins, you will move on (you decide when and/or I will remind you).

2) Do five minutes grammar work on Grammar Bytes or similar.
3) Then log into Moodle and go to our AS Language page.

• Go to ENGB2 Creating Texts.
• Then go to Original Pieces and then Coursework Materials.
• On the left-hand bar, you will see a long list of available resources for this unit headed 'Table of Contents'.
• Read the Powerpoint later, for homework
• Instead, read the section called 'Introduction to blogs' and the example blog - you will see it is quite formal, using low-frequency lexis and complex syntax.
• Find another well-written blog of your choice elsewhere on the internet. If you are not sure where to start, think of a topic you are interested in and skim-read blogs quickly to find a clever, well-written one. Go to a blogger you know and like? Or go to a reputable host-site for blogs like The Huffington Post and see what takes your fancy. Please comment on this blog if you find/know of another good hosting site for blogs or a great blogger.
• Write a post on your blog which links to the one you are analysing and give us an extract, analysis (using quotes) and which techniques you would take from it if you were to write a blog. Are there any aspects you can see which might not work so well for the apparent target audience and why?

4) Go back to commenting on people's blogs and/or grammar when you have finished. Don't forget to read all the comments on your own blog and on other peole's posts.These are often great opportunities to learn somehting extra from the texts.

A2 Coursework info for today's lesson

Now that you have evaluated your data to ensure that it is the right data (enough data, selected reliably etc.), you need to make sure you have done enough theory reading to get a hypothesis (or two or three hypotheses).

A hypothesis should be based on your understanding of what you might expect from your data, based on your theory reading. It should be in the form of a declarative that reflects a theory/research (even if that is not actually what you believe you are going to find!). You will test the hypothesis with your data and it is just as interesting to find the opposite rather than 'prove' your hypothesis.

While we are on the subject of proving/disproving, I must state categorically that you must not do either! You should evaluate how far hypotheses are supported or contraditcted based on what you find and how representative your data is. This should happen all the way through your analysis - 'evaluate' is one of the key criteria and you have already begun to hit it in your methodologies; you must also evaluate how far the data supports research in your analysis.

Please post your hypothesis as a declarative (statement) onto your blog and add underneath which frameworks/techniques you will be exploring to test it. E.g. if I were looking at a group of students (males and females) doing two different tasks (co-operative and competetive), I could use Deborah Tannen's Difference theory to hypothesise that 'no matter which task they are undertaking, males will be use more competetive language and women will use more co-operative language'. I would then need to look at some key techniques that I was initially identifying as either 'competetive' or 'co-operative' (I would evaluate whether that was actually the case in context during my analysis) e.g. interrruptions and imperatives (these could be quantified) as competetive and interrogatives and back-channel agreement as co-operative). I could also look at Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies to help me to talk about techniques used, so a secondary hypothesis might be 'therefore, men will use more on-record and positive face strategies while women will use more negative face and indirect strategies.' I could see what I find before I decide what would be useful to quantify in proving (supporting!) or disproving (contradicting!) that. I suspect that all the sentence moods would be very important. I know I could link to (and evaluate the usefulness of the flawed study by) Zimmerman and West when discussing the data, and also Tannen's other pairs (e.g. status vs support) so I could be confident of a good range of theory to help me test my data (and show off to the coursework marker/moderators). I would also have plenty to choose from when deciding what to write about in my media text (so keep that in mind).

Only when you are sure you know what your research tells you should you start analysing your data properly, so you know what to look for and comment on and you can link it all back to your hypothesis throughout, creating a cohesive analysis.

Please also check the coursework booklet for the overview of how the sections of the coursework break down. Your analysis can be broken up under framework headings, questions, techniques you are focussing on or any other way of helping to get a methodical structure that helps the reader see your scientific process in analysing your data.

Start your analysis when you are confident you are ready.

Good luck!

A2 lesson work - data analysis

Now is the time to evaluate your data. Use these questions to help you and post your thoughts to your blog.

1. Do you feel it is a representative sample of the whole data pool?
2. Does it offer enough data to analyse/test your hypothesis with/write 1500 words about? Is there too much data to handle and how will you select from within that data pool if so (you don't have to closely analyse each piece of data - just the significant aspects of the whole data sample in context - but you will have to be able to go through it all to count whatever it is you need to count/quantify).
3. What can you quantify/tabulate?
4. Are there any more useful aspects of your data that you were not originally going to look at? Do you need to change the focus of your investigation as a result (- see me urgently)?
5. How does the theory you have read so far illuminate your data (what does theory tell you to look for that you have found or found the opposite)?

Choose which frameworks and/or other sub-headings will be most useful for testing your hypothesis e.g. for examining sociolect you might use lexis and grammar.

Start annotating your data but keep a clean copy. Annotate it with what jumps out at you as interesting/unusual/significant first of all, then go through it again with theory in mind, again with frameworks in mind and then again with your hypothesis in mind. Get to know your data really well. Then revisit questions 1-5 again before you start to write up your analysis.

I will want your introductions, methodologies and analysis drafts in on Monday the 4th November. These need to be redrafted and polished several times before I see them. Use test readers, read it aloud, check any grammar you are not sure of. If I get something shoddy in, I will not mark it and you will forfeit your chance to get detailed feedback. You need this feedback to do well, I assure you. Sometimes big changes need to be made, once we can see how it is all working together. This, I am afraid, is part of the process and why the draft deadline is so early. We will start the media texts when the analysis is well underway and I will set the deadline for the draft of that when I know what is reasonable. After the October holiday, we will be writing conclusions and evaluations, so I can see those and get them back to you before Christmas. I will give the investigations and media texts together a final check over before the fixed deadline for coursework submission of 20th Jan.

AS lesson work 16/9/13

Alright, you gorgeousnesses - time for some terminology use! You should take about 35-40 minutes for the first task and 35-40 minutes for the second. Write down the homework as soon as you have read all the instructions (which you will obviously do before you start task one!).

You have been learning some key terms to prepare you for doing some A-Level analysis, so here is your first opportunity. Try and use as many of the terms as you can, so I can see if you are using them correctly (and applying them will help you to remember them).

1) Watch the Youtube clips, pick one and comment (using quotes and terminology) about how the writer of the comedy plays with language (write 2-3 paragraphs). Decide what is interesting, decide what terminology you can use to describe it, plan your analysis and then post it to your blog. Don’t forget to do any preparation work on your post in Word in case of random shut-downs etc.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt--2ASTg7k (Armstrong and Miller RAF pilots 'D-Day' - please note that the characters are very politically incorrect while claiming to be well-versed in "diversity" issues)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNEWatD0viw (Bill Bailey parody of 1300s poetry by Chaucer using some modern language)

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOSYiT2iG08 (Blackadder - Prince George meets the writer of the first really comprehensive English Dictionary, Dr Johnson)

2) Then look back at your text about yourself. Just as you will do in your coursework, I want you to write a commentary explaining what techniques you used (and how and why). As you did with the analysis of the comedy, think about what is interesting/significant and then select two points (from two different frameworks) to explain. Plan it then HANDWRITE it - I want to see your handwriting, spelling and grammar (as you would use it in the exam if you took one now). Crossing out and editing is fine: please do proofread it and edit it before putting your name on it and handing it in to me this lesson. If you handwrite your plan, I would like that too. Really think about the APF/GAP and what I need to know.

Homework for next Monday (don't forget to check you've done tomorrow's homework on changing the register of a text of your choice and posted it in a large font): choose a text that you like that plays with langage and post some explanation/analysis (using quotes as well as giving us an extract/link). It could be a comedy sketch, a song, a poem or anything you like (edit any taboo language where possible unless you are specifically and tactfully discussing it). Post it BY Monday's lesson not at the beginning of Monday's lesson, please. 

Wow! I work you hard! Please don't be afraid to tell me if you are struggling but really try to manage your time.

AS Language work for today

Mondays will now be our 'computer room' lesson that will allow us to do in-class research, grammar work and coursework preparation.

Thank you for posting your homework tests for today*. You will be reading each others' and getting to know each other better and there are some tasks I would like you to complete as well.

1) As you read someone's text, think about how it could be responded to in character (an angry/love/fan letter, a twitter comment, a review, an academic study etc. etc.) Pick a couple to respond to in character using the features/conventions of a particular form (e.g. a headline for an article or a salutation for a letter). Post the response as a comment - be tactful as people will be sensitive about such a personal piece. You can also post a comment if you want to respond as you - something that you have in common, something it makes you wonder, something you thought was especially clever.
2) Start work on grammar - keep it short, sweet and often - chip away at grammar confusion! Try the website 'grammar bytes', which has lots of interactive activities (but beware, it is American) and 'Grammar Girl' is very useful to dip into. If you find any other good sites, let me know via email and/or a comment on this post.
3) That reminds me, keep an eye out for comments on any post and be sure to read them. If someone has made a comment that offends you, please raise the issue with them or me.
4) Have a tab open with a dictionary on to quickly look up any words you are not entirely (or at all) familiar with.

*If you have not posted your text, you need to see me urgently.

English is - quite frankly - bonkers

We have in English what is known as a 'defective orthography' i.e. the written version doesn't correspond directly to the sounds that you need to produce (how many pronunciations can you think of for 'ough' that exist in different words?). This poem that I found on The Poke a while back illustrates the difficulties of English pronunciation:

http://www.thepoke.co.uk/2011/12/23/english-pronunciation/

accessed 23/12/2011

If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labour to reading six lines aloud.

Dearest creature in creation,

Study English pronunciation.

I will teach you in my verse

Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.

I will keep you, Suzy, busy,

Make your head with heat grow dizzy.

Tear in eye, your dress will tear.

So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.

Just compare heart, beard, and heard,

Dies and diet, lord and word,

Sword and sward, retain and Britain.

(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)

Now I surely will not plague you

With such words as plaque and ague.

But be careful how you speak:

Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;

Cloven, oven, how and low,

Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.

Hear me say, devoid of trickery,

Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,

Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,

Exiles, similes, and reviles;

Scholar, vicar, and cigar,

Solar, mica, war and far;

One, anemone, Balmoral,

Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;

Gertrude, German, wind and mind,

Scene, Melpomene, mankind.

Billet does not rhyme with ballet,

Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.

Blood and flood are not like food,

Nor is mould like should and would.

Viscous, viscount, load and broad,

Toward, to forward, to reward.

And your pronunciation’s OK

When you correctly say croquet,

Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,

Friend and fiend, alive and live.

Ivy, privy, famous; clamour

And enamour rhyme with hammer.

River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,

Doll and roll and some and home.

Stranger does not rhyme with anger,

Neither does devour with clangour.

Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,

Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,

Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,

And then singer, ginger, linger,

Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,

Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.

Query does not rhyme with very,

Nor does fury sound like bury.

Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.

Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.

Though the differences seem little,

We say actual but victual.

Refer does not rhyme with deafer.

Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.

Mint, pint, senate and sedate;

Dull, bull, and George ate late.

Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,

Science, conscience, scientific.

Liberty, library, heave and heaven,

Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.

We say hallowed, but allowed,

People, leopard, towed, but vowed.

Mark the differences, moreover,

Between mover, cover, clover;

Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,

Chalice, but police and lice;

Camel, constable, unstable,

Principle, disciple, label.

Petal, panel, and canal,

Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.

Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,

Senator, spectator, mayor.

Tour, but our and succour, four.

Gas, alas, and Arkansas.

Sea, idea, Korea, area,

Psalm, Maria, but malaria.

Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.

Doctrine, turpentine, marine.

Compare alien with Italian,

Dandelion and battalion.

Sally with ally, yea, ye,

Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.

Say aver, but ever, fever,

Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.

Heron, granary, canary.

Crevice and device and aerie.

Face, but preface, not efface.

Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.

Large, but target, gin, give, verging,

Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.

Ear, but earn and wear and tear

Do not rhyme with here but ere.

Seven is right, but so is even,

Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,

Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,

Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.

Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)

Is a paling stout and spikey?

Won’t it make you lose your wits,

Writing groats and saying grits?

It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:

Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,

Islington and Isle of Wight,

Housewife, verdict and indict.

Finally, which rhymes with enough,

Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?

Hiccough has the sound of cup.

My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité