A2 revision lesson 28/4/14

Good morning, treasurednesses!

Please hand in the overview you were finishing off for today and I will whip through those.

My top tip for today is to use my blog posts to look at revision tips, grammar and wider reading.

You could prioritise other things if you wish but please use the time effectively.

I will be marking throughout the middle part of the lesson but will be available at the start and in the final 15 minutes to answer questions and support you.

If you want some tasks to do:

• write a list of ideas to cover in CLA
• write a list from memory of the different terms for LC and examples of each
• visit a range of other people's blogs and use their research to learn more words/examples for LC
• Find some LC texts on the British Library Website and either write a practice essay on a single text or find a modern comparable text to compare/contrast
• watch some videos of children talking on Youtube and take note of the context
• watch some experiments on children's language development

More revising tips

This is absolute gold - all the things I always say put succinctly and convincingly:

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jan/08/five-secrets-of-successful-revising

David Crystal on prescriptive grammar tests

David crystal's blog is well worth scrolling down and dipping into but this particular entry is great for a wider readingexample or two:

http://david-crystal.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/on-not-very-bright-grammar-test.html

CLA video on why reading is hard (English having a defective orthography)

Because english does not have direct phoneme/grapheme (sound/letter) correspondance, decoding English words while reading for meaning is an extraordinarily difficult task that many have not mastered by adulthood. Many of my A2 class commented really well on the ideas from the Children of the Code video I showed you last time about the importance of maintaining children's enthusiasm for reading (Dr G Reid Lyon) and this really digs into why so many get frustrated. Six minutes worth spending and make notes of any sparkly quotes.

http://www.childrenofthecode.org/Tour/c3/index.htm

Grammar and writing style help and tests

This site by Bristol University is very useful for targetting particular problems and also has some extremely useful style tests at the bottom on pleonasm (which I call tautology) and straying from the point, which most people could benefit from.Well done, Bristol Uni!

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

Lang and Gender but also just flipping watch this, please

This is a TED talk - search these if you would rather watch a vid than read an article to get ideas about issues in Language.

This one is hugely important for human beings, I kid you not. Attitudes towards what it is to be a 'manly' man have to change and this guy, Jackson Katz, talks about how focussing on male violence only as a women's issue is missing the point.

He shows a clever grammar trick that shines light upon how these issues get shifted onto the victim that will help you appreciate the use of active and passive voice and its role in both Gender and Power study.

And he really gets to grips with what a 'man' should do when he hears another man using sexist, degrading language and how difficult it is to do that - it seems like it will take a culture shift to enable a culture shift (but small steps, right?).

He really hits his stride as he goes on, so don't let the emotion at the start put you off.

We may well watch some of this again in lesson, or we may not have time, but it could stand to be watched more than once.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jackson_katz_violence_against_women_it_s_a_men_s_issue

Language and power terms quiz - also other topics

This is a good one - you can revise the terms and then a quiz is generated - you can then generate another quiz to retest and improve - it remembers which ones you got wrong too, but sometimes you just didn't put EXACTLY what it wanted so perfectionists might be frustrated by this:

http://quizlet.com/2364811/language-and-power-flash-cards/

I is worth looking at other tests in the same program but, because they are user-generated, beware of mistakes! Double-check anything you haven't read elsewhere.

Revision ideas

Wonderfull-but-nervousnesses,

I have spoken about the little, regularly approach. Work out which skills you need to polish and set tasks to do and self-assess afterwards. Also work out what you need to memorise - plan times each week to do that and revisit each item (theory, terminology or quote) at least twice to really embed it (remember, AS, that you will need all of it next year too so it needs to go in deep!).

I have given you tips for tasks and for PEE, so work on different aspects of those each time you do a task - don't try and do everything at once - and really work on self-evaluation so that you can improve your planning and proof reading/editing - if you can assess your own work to see which skills and content it does/doesn't include, you can build skills now AND check in the exam that you have done what you need to do and edit your exam answers appropriately.

We study AQA English Language B so you can go to the website and look at past papers and examiner's reports. I have given you the criteria so revisit those too.

Don't forget Andrew Moore's website on language theory as it is really useful.

AS, don't forget you can do the rest of the moderation week work - I think most people did Power and you should look at the gender 'Dialogue between men and women' piece and we are going to be looking at some romantic fiction  so you should look at some in advance and see how language is used to show differences between the genders (especially in the represented speech but also in the transitive verbs and who is the subject and who is the object).

There is a lot more on Moodle now, although it may not all be edited and organised - A2 also go to the AS page.

Use your preferred learning styles and make it more enjoyable by doing revision sessions with others or rewriting fave songs with lyrics that have the content you need to remember etc - please post any mnemonics as replies to this if you can bear to share.

You know I think so very highly of you all and I am really wishing you the best. Take it steady and increase your skills and knowledge little by little. If you are worried, don't be! But email me and I will reassure you!

Best of luck,

Halla

Another think or another thing coming? Which do you say?

There's a big debate! I read an interesting summary of many of the points in Word Reference Forum - look at post one where the question is established and there is a green link by the moderator to post 289 which is a very interesting summary. There is a clear prescriptive attitude embedded but a fairly even-handed description of the two sides' arguments.

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=87385

I grew up saying 'thing' and when I saw it written as 'think', I thought I'd been mishearing it all my life and felt ashamed! So I was converted into a thinkist and I like the parallelism of it but the pronunciation is almost identical, so it is only a decision when using the idiom in written form.

A2, it is a great example for prescriptivism and for language change through common use and agreement. Also link to the recent semantic shift in the use of 'literally' to mean 'metaphorically' but with extra emphasis (hyperbole) e.g. My head literally exploded! - That has caused some vitriol...

labels for women advert and analysis

My AS class have seen this but it is fascinating to see some of the analysis of it too.

The Pantene advert:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOjNcZvwjxI

The articles:

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-19/pantenes-anti-sexism-shampoo-commercial-comes-to-america

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/12/09/pantene-whipit-advert-label-women-feminism_n_4411390.html

A2 The jargon buster mentioned in the hench article

http://familylives.org.uk/advice/teenagers/you-and-your-teen/jargon-buster/

Interesting the amount of hate directed at this attempt to allow parents to decode a language never meant for them. Check out some more articles by googling the topic.

A2 lesson 01/04/14

Clevernesses,

I will take in one of your moderation wekk essays to have a look at, so please choose one to hand in and I will come around and get them.

For this lesson, I have two tasks for you (please read all the instructions first).

1) Please go to the emagazine site:

http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emag/

Go to the green button in the top-left-hand corner marked 'enter the subscriber's site' and put in the logon emagazine11 with the password yx647wh

Go to 'emagpast Archive search' and click on 'Language topics'.

I would like you to choose a Language Change article. Summarise the key ideas (using short quotes if you wish) and review it for your peers, so they can see if it is worth reading - can you think of any other ideas or examples to link to (or contrast with) what you read? Spend no more than 45 minutes on this.

2) Now go to our Moodle page. In the recommended resources section you will find 'Links to a variety of language uses'. Watch two or three of these and choose one to write a blog post about, discussing issues it highlights about Power, Gender, Language Change etc. Write engagingly and use quotes etc.

Spend the rest of the lesson reading and commenting on the blog posts of your peers - I really want to see comments from everyone.