Today's Lesson

Afternoon everyone,

For your homework and revision, here is today's lesson PPT.

See you Wednesday, and a reminder that I'll be taking in your Q3 comparative responses in Wenesday's lesson.

Meanings and Representations PPTs

Hi all,

Please see below the PPTs from this week's study of the meanings & representations analytical approach. Read over these if there's anything you're still unsure of. Next week we will start looking at how to write the comparative response. Please finish your analyses of Texts A & B over the weekend ready to hand in on Monday.

Meanings and Reps Intro & Mumsnet

Mirror Money Intro

Mirror Money & Mark Scheme

Post-It Questions

Hi everyone,

In the list below I've provided a definition for the elements of the course people aren't quite confident on based on your Post-Its from Thursday's lesson. Hope this helps!

• Parenthesis - This is a word or a phrase that is inserted into a sentence or passage, and the sentence would be grammatically correct and complete without it. It's usually marked by brackets, dashes or commas. Basically, it refers to the phrase which is in brackets.

• Colloquialisms - This is the term for slang, informal language and dialectal words. 

• Lexical field - This refers to a group of words in a text which all relate to one particular word or subject. For example, the Mumsnet text we are looking at in class has a lexical field of proms.

• Discourse structure - This is the term used to describe the way in which an entire text is organised (i.e. how its parts are assembled). For example: a question and answer format; problem – solution structure; narrative structure; adjacency pairs in a spoken interaction.

• Discourse markers - This refers to words, phrases or clauses that help to organise what we say or write (e.g. OK, So, “As I was saying…, However, In Addition, Subsequently” etc.).

• Pre-modified noun phrase - This refers to an adjective coming before a noun in a noun phrase. As soon as we modify a noun, it becomes a 'noun phrase'. A noun phrase usually begins with a determiner ('a' or 'the') and usually has the noun as the most important word. The usual word order in English implies that an adjective should go infront of the noun, as in 'The brown dog' etc. This is known as pre-modification. But we can post-modify noun phrases too, e.g. 'The dog, which is brown, ran down the street. 

• Grammar - This term refers to sentence structure, function and word order (syntax) and verb tense. Any time you analyse these things, you are analysing the grammar of the text.

• Pragmatics - This refers to language in use and the contexts in which it is used and the inferences a reader makes from a text. It refers to what the author is implying, and not directly saying, and what prior knowledge and understanding the reader would need in order to understand the text and its meaning. It also refers to: the implied meanings of words, utterances and speech acts in their specific contexts, how attitudes, values and ideologies can be signalled through language choices, how language is used to enact and reflect relationships between people, aspects of culturally-based routines that are founded on shared assumptions and tradition

• Semantics - This refers to the meanings of words and the relationships between them. It can be applies to entire texts or single words. For example, 'destination' and 'last stop' technically mean the same thing, but semantically they have subtle differences in meaning. 

• Lexis - Very simple, lexis means words and vocabulary!

Computer Room Lesson 2

Morning all,

Today I want you to read through your Ode to the Hoody essays and the comments that I have made.

On reflection, please type up your essays onto your blog, ensuring that you are making the corrections identified in the comments. Remember to follow the Point-Evidence-Explanation-Develop structure in your paragraphs.

After this, type up your text message analysis paragraphs you wrote on Monday, ensuring that there are some comments referencing John McWhorter's TED Talk to hit AO2. Click here to access Monday's PPT with a link to the TED Talk.

Please also revisit your notes from the induction period (as tomorrow is our last induction lesson before we start exam topics properly) and ensure you are confident with your understanding of how we approach texts with a linguistic focus.

If/when you finish this, let me know and I'll give you the extension task.

1st Computer Room Lesson 19th September

Morning everyone,

Welcome to our first computer room lesson. We will be in here every Wednesday completing work set on this blog and doing research when we start our sociolinguistic topics. Please complete all computer work on your blog, and ensure your blog is always up to date.

2 tasks to complete today. Firstly if you haven't emailed me the link to your blog please do this now as a matter of urgency. Send the email to cal@stbrn.ac.uk . Then:

1. Please ensure that your transition task is all completed, along with the challenge task of writing a PEE response to one of your articles. If you haven't done this, use today's lesson to complete it. If you already have completed this, revisit your PEE with the linguistic and analytical skills you have learned over the past 2 weeks - what improvements can you make to your writing on reflection? Add in some GRAMPS commentary, discussion of frameworks, ensure you are using the word classes and make sure your terminology is specific.

2. Next week we will be starting to think about the use of language in social groups, and tomorrow in class we will be watching a documentary on language & identity. With this in mind, I want you to think about how our language use contributes to the identities we construct for ourselves, and your 'linguistic fingerprint'. We will be beginning with some discussion about accents and dialects and the prejudices that come with this.

Write a PEE paragraph on each article below, discussing how the author presents ideas about attitudes to accents.

An article on 'accentism', with a focus on the Brummie accent

An article about trainee teachers being told to modify and change their accents

Any issues let me know!

First week of lessons - PPTs

Afternoon everyone,

I hope we've all recovered from our whistlestop tour through Grammar this morning!

As promised, here are the PowerPoints from our first 4 lessons so far. Please read over them and make sure your notes are detailed. (click the links to access)

As a reminder, your Ode To Hoody initial analyses are due tomorrow.

See you tomorrow

Claudia

Lesson 1 - Intro

Lesson 2 - Frameworks

Lesson 3 - Extended Analysis

Lesson 4 - Word Classes

Welcome to my new Year 1 Language Class!

Hi everybody,

Welcome to St Brendan's, welcome to English Language, and welcome to my Language Blog!

This blog will be an incredibly useful resource to support your study of English Language. Check this blog regularly to find homework tasks, lesson resources and revision materials, as I update weekly with all of these important things. I will be asking you to use your own blogs you created as part of your transition tasks in a similar way - you will be uploading notes, completing homework tasks and recording your research on your blog so it's all there for you to reflect on when it comes to revision.

The first post on your blog should be your transition task. If this is not completed, please do so before our next lesson. Click here to download the transition task if you can't find it.

Please sign in to blogger now and comment below this post with the URL of your blog. It should be something like 'claudialanguageblog'. Please also email me at cal@stbrn.ac.uk with your blog URL a with the subject line 'Link to my English Blog' and sign the email off with your name.

I hope you enjoy the course!

Claudia