Gender revision / wider reading - year 12 and year 13

This is useful for everyone: Year 12, we have finished Language and Gender now, so it's all down to you. https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/gender-interaction-theory-%E2%80%93-holmes-tannen-cameron-defrancisco/ This is a really useful post on a blog I've recommended before. You certainly don't need to learn all of this, but it's useful background / wider reading - especially for those aiming for those higher grades.

Year 13 - this may be a nice way to ease yourself into your gender revision. We'll be coming on to this after Easter.

Year 13 Homework and wider reading

Homework due for Tuesday 28th February is to analyse the Scooby Doo texts (available in the google drive if you missed the lesson). Apply everything you have learnt so far about literacy to the texts. Create a table of AO1 features that you have found (remember, you still need to label and use terminology) and link those features to an AO2 concept that we have learnt.


Some wider reading is available on the google drive in the Literacy folder. Also, I recommend this: Michael Rosen summary for a really good overview of the issues surrounding phonics teaching in schools. It's quite detailed, but for those hoping for a really top grade, it's very valuable.


There's also this that you can watch: Phonics screening video
You don't have to watch all of it (it gets a little repetitive!) but it's a great way to understand the system of phonics at work in schools, and good revision for some key terms, like phonemes, alien words, digraphs and split digraphs.


Lastly, there will be an essay to do straight after half-term, so going over your notes would be really useful and revising some of the key terms. Get those mind-maps and flashcards sorted now. You'll be thanking me in June!

Writing for a non-specialist audience: Y13 revision, Y12 pre-reading

Here's another example of an article written about a linguistic issue, but aimed at a non-specialist audience.

Both the AS and the A-Level paper require you to write this type of article, so it's worth reading as many of them as possible. The more that you read, the more likely you are to be able to write in this kind of style.

Notice how it transforms the linguistic ideas into language that is accessible for a general audience, for example:

"How do they even begin to separate, or “segment,” individual words from the stream of language that they hear all around them all of the time?"

Year 13 have learnt about segmenting in CLD this term. They should be able to use it hand-in-hand with the term 'gestalt expression'.

Grunwell done well? (Sorry, it's been a long day...)

Y13, I came across this Quizlet that someone has prepared to learn the typical ages that children acquire phonemes from. Add it to your list of private study tasks.

Y13 Swearing... in front of the kids?

Lovely little article to accompany Miss Moody's lesson this week here. Go on - impress her by referencing this article next lesson :)

Y13 great article for Language Change

See this!

Is it semantics or pragmatics?

https://languagedebates.wordpress.com/tag/pragmatics/

One of the lovely year 12s asked for clarification on the difference between semantics and pragmatics. It's a question that's been asked many times, and one that linguists are still pondering. There's a link above to a useful blog post by someone far more knowledgeable than me. Have a read and see if it makes the answer a little clearer.

12B and 12C1 homework set Tues 27th due Tues 4th Oct - wouldn't be a bad idea for Y13 to revise too!

Homework – What do you know about Grammar?

Have notes available to check in class on Tuesday 4^th October

Note: You need to know definitions and examples.

            E.g. An adjective describes or modifies a noun, e.g. the irresponsible father.

Assumed – you must be 100% confident with the words in this column	Learn now – you should research what the following terms mean, make notes, and learn the concepts	Challenge – if you are already fairly confident with much of column 2, research some of these terms
Nouns	concrete, common, abstract, proper, plurals	Count and non-count nouns
Adjectives	Comparative, superlative
Adverbs	Adverbs of place, time, manner, degree, frequency
Verbs	Regular verbs and irregular verbs Main verb Auxiliary verb Tense (past, present, future)	Modal auxiliary verbs Primary verbs Aspect (continuous, perfect) Subject–verb agreement
Pronouns	First, second, third person	Subject form, object form, possessive, demonstrative
	Determiners	Indefinite and definite article
	Preposition	Prepositional phrase
	Conjunctions	Types of conjunction

13C Homework outstanding and deadlines

We have quite a lot going on at the moment, so here are the deadlines:


For Tuesday 27th September


- hand in the completed child language essay that we planned together in class
- annotate the text on ash trees and plan an answer to the question 'how does this text create meaning and representations'. Write your first paragraph to this response


For Thursday / Friday next week


- Original Writing. Arrive at the lesson ready to write your first draft in the computer room. You need everything with you to be able to do this, including 2 annotated style models, the completed A3 sheet that draws together your findings from your style models and a plan - yes, even those of you who don't like planning!
- Read the booklet on the acquisition of Lexis. I will give you this next time I see you. If you are eager to start this now, you can find it on the google drive (the document is called CLA Lexis and Semantics) or pop into the English office and ask for it.


I know I'm expecting a lot of you at the moment - I have confidence you'll rise to the challenge :)

Y13 Useful article for CLA

Lovely article from the BBC here - will be useful in a few weeks when we cover Grammar acquisition.

Year 13 Week 2

We have now covered phonology, so you should be starting to draw together your notes and could start making some revision materials. Use my earlier blog post to check that your notes are comprehensive. Check off the terminology you have learnt against the A3 sheet I gave you last week and start to learn it.


I have put a document about reduplication here in the google drive for those of you would like some wider reading.


Revise phonological acquisition concepts and theories for as assessment next week :)


13C - for Thursday's lesson, please make sure you bring 2 style models that match what you are intending to write. 1 of your style models should be fully annotated. Transfer your ideas onto the A3 sheet to draw together some style points that you are going to try to use in your own writing.

CLA Phonology Concepts Revision

Make sure your notes include references to all of these concepts so that your revision will be easy-peasy:

Key concepts (AO2)

-       Babies live in an auditory world - remember to think about the sounds in words and not the written forms of the words

-       Babies predisposed to discern sounds – favour mother’s voice from few hours after birth and recognise own language. Mehler

-       Phonemic contraction occurs by 10 months – sounds reduced to those of babies’ own language

-       Proto-words  and babbling follow CVCV pattern favoured by English (cooing is just vowels - easier)

-       ‘Mistakes’ that children make: Substitution, deletion, addition, assimilation, metathesis, consonant cluster reduction, weak syllable deletion, final consonant deletion, reduplication 

-       Fis phenomenon (comprehension precedes production) 

-       Cruttenden 1974 football results (intonation takes long time to reach adult understanding)

-       Stages - Phonological acquisition very varied between different children but general patterns: initial consonants easier than final ones, plosive sounds easier (p, b, k etc); David Olmstead – age of 4, some sounds still difficult: l (middle of words), th, ch, dg (judge); Grunwell stages; Phonological development generally complete by age 6 – 7. 

Welcome back! Y13 Week commencing 5 September

Welcome back everyone - it was lovely to see you all.

Work set in class this week was as follows:

• Read the chapter on the First Year from David Crystal (A3 sheet) and answer the questions in the CLA booklet (green cover)
• Sort your folders, including AS material, and get ready for new content (Child Language, Language Change)
• Read the booklet on Phonology. You don't need to complete the activities, but read/annotate/highlight/make notes
• Learn some vocabulary from the sheet. No deadline for this at the moment - this is an ongoing task but I may set some specific words at some point
• Sign up to Twitter! (see link on the right)
• 12C - start collecting style models for your coursework

Phew - that's it for this week. See you on Tuesday :)