A TED talk about experiencing life and finding it different from what you are told

People are raised in households full of their family's views. Some of these views can be extreme, some can be just thoughtless prejudice. Few children grow up without being exposed to some judgemental comments about areas such as gender, social class, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, politics etc. We are being advised here to see the good in people and steer ourselves away from the damage that hate and condemnation and even judgement can do. He doesn't speak much about how he was persuaded to follow in his father's footsteps but you should read widely on how judgemental language dehumanises or demonises other groups so it becomes natural to exclude, hate and hurt them - this is the power of language to control thought and emotion and, to be protected against its effects, we should know how it works.

Whose voice? Race/gender issues

This is interesting in content and form. Try and see why the convention they have used of continuing with the 'silent speech' while the other voices their story is important. Read up on privilege to extend this through wider reading.

English as a world language - key topic for A2 and the new A-Level

This infographic is really helpful in conceptualising how important English is globally. Look underneath the main one at how many people are learning each of the most popular languages at the moment (I presume as a second language). Try and read up on what accounts for English's popularity (get used to developing study skills by doing independent wider reading).

Language change - double entendres (dodgy double meanings!) in literature

Due to diachronic language change, some woards broaden (acquire more meanings) and some undergo semantic shoft (come to mean something different). Here is an article exploring how modern readers can giggle at literature written before some words acquired ruder meanings.

Fascinating article about how emphasis and punctuation can change meaning

The seven different interpretations of the sentence "I never said she stole my money" is doing the rounds but it's explained in detail here with some other related examples. Most interesting.

Preparing for A2 Summer task (compulsory)

Studiousnesses,

over the summer, please complete the following two tasks:

• your own, personalised IPA sheets for use next year, ready in a new folder that has summary notes for the AS units (e.g. theories and key terms) and room for the A2 units of 'coursework', 'LC' and 'CLA'

• a reading log that shows you have read at least five sources on your coursework theory area and/or the A2 units. Include the Harvard referencing information and a very brief summary of key ideas in each source e.g.

Ross, A (2011) 'Technonanny - Language acquisition in older children', emagazine 54 online, accessed  23/06/15 Available from (with logon): https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15360 (In this article, Ross in her role as Technonanny explores an 8-year-old's uses of the word "like", especially in its non-standard uses, e.g. as a filler, which she notes younger children don't use and which she has a dislike of. She explores the 8-year-old's sensitivity to her audience and her conversational strategies, explaining how she (Ross) has adjusted to the non-standard use of "like" after seeing how it is part of a sophisticated set of conversational skills.)


To summarise, please come back to the first lesson with your folder ready, the IPA sheet ready, and a reading log with at least five sources on it (hard copy if you have a new teacher or on your blog is fine if you are coming back to my class). The reading log should be fully Harvard referenced - there are sites to help you with this - and the notes/summary should show that you have learned something from the source. You could use some of my blog posts to help, emagazine (there's a login for you in the top box of our Moodle page, both AS or the A2 page you will be automatically enrolled on by the end of August), library, Google Scholar, Jstor or any other reputable sources. More than five would be good and it is vital you get ahead with both the content and the skills required to research effectively if you are going to do well at A2.

Email me if you want to start collecting data for your investigation - I am away 11-19th July but will be picking up my emails periodically outside those dates.

Language and Technology article about email sign-offs

Did you see Humans? Will any job that requires sensitivity to another person soon be done better by technology? Such as creating the right tone and sign-off in an email in this article...