AS Coursework

Hello AS Language Students

Here is an overview of what I am expecting to see from you when you return from the break.

• You need to know exactly what you are writing about and will have done some research on the subject matter (make sure you know where you have got your information from).
• You will know exactly who your audience is, as this will match the style model you have chosen for your work.
• Your style model needs to be clearly annotated with references to grammatical, lexical, phonological, graphalogical and discourse frameworks. This is all then linked to the genre, audience and purpose of each text.
• You need to ensure that the planning grid I gave you is filled in - this gives you (and me!) a summary of what you are doing.Coursework Grid

Please feel free to start writing your pieces. The first 300 words or so of each piece would be a really good start. The more you do now the better. Basically, you need to be in a position to start or continue writing on your return to college.

Also here is the Powerpoint on the coursework - just so you have the info:Coursework PPT

Please email me if you have any concerns, problems or want me to look through anything.

Looking forward to seeing your work - there are some lovely ideas developing already!

Nina

Blog on Blogs and other things

Hello AS Language Students!

Here is the Powerpoint from today's lesson, including the links to different blogs. Hope you find it useful to jog your memory about what we discussed.

Blog PPT

So, don't forget to find a blog to share with your fellow students next lesson, outlining its purpose, audience, stylistic and language features.

Nina

A2 Coursework

Good Morning!

Now you have a fairly clear idea what you are writing about and have collected your data, it is time to think about a systematic way of analysing it.

Analysis structure

Your analysis will form the main part of your investigation and you need to think carefully about how you will structure it. This will help you to approach your analysis in an organised and systematic way.You could organise it: 

• by text - exploring, analysing and discussing your hypotheses on an individual text basis. Your conclusion will bring them all together.
• by theme.
• by method - exploring, analysing and discussing all your texts a framework at a time or a specific aspect of a framework at a time.
• by the chronology of the texts - usually you would start with the earliest text.

Analysis techniques

Ideally you will have a mixture of quantitative and qualitative analysis.

You need to be able to count and / or tabulate your analysis. This really helps with the qualitative analysis. For example:

• the number of monosyllabic words compared to polysyllabic words
• the frequency of non-standard forms
• the frequency of different sentence types /lengths
• frequency of male / female interruptions
• average length of pauses
• frequency of tag questions / fillers / weak adjectives etc

You need to be able to tabulate the data you are interested in eg listing all the noun phrases used / the phrasal verbs used / idioms used / premodification etc

This lesson you need to start your analysis: decide on the approaches you are going to take and start picking your texts apart! See me for any further info or refer to your AS /A2 textbook!

Nina

AS Travel Writing Resources

Hello!

Here are a couple of resources to help you with your travel writing work. Hope they are useful!

Remember, your homework is to place your monologue, entertaining travel piece and your persuasive travel piece on your blog by Friday 11th October.

Looking forward to reading your pieces. Aim to follow the style models as closely as possible.

Nina

Borneo Text

Travel Writing PPT

A2 Coursework

Morning!

You need to complete working on your introduction and your methodology as soon as possible. I need to have a printed copy of your work by Tuesday 8th October at the latest. You then need to do as much analysis as you can of your texts, most of you will be focussing primarily on the lexical, grammatical, pragmatic and discourse frameworks (not necessarily all at the same time) so make sure you are using appropriate terminology.

Introduction (300 words)

Your introduction must introduce your investigation (!) explaining your hypothesis (what you want to find out). You must also include the types of results you are expecting to find - be fairly specific within the frameworks here - your frameworks should help you to be more exacting about your focus. You can have two or three hypotheses - this will also help you to break down your ideas. You need to identify what the theories that will assist you in your investigation. You should also explain why you were interested in this particular area.

Methodology (300 words) -Write as if you have completed your investigation!

Your methodology has to explain exactly where you got your information from. You need to think about both your primary sources and any secondary sources. For example, where did you find any articles or research on the area you studied. You need to make sure you have explained which frameworks you used to research your data (there needs to be at least two). 

You need to explain how you made the data reliable and comparable. Most successful investigations have a focus on comparing texts with only one or two variables. Think very carefully about what your variables are. Did you manage to get a representative sample? How did you select what were going to focus on? How much data did you collect?  Have you done quantitative and qualitative analysis?

How ethical is your data? For example, any issues with swearing? Any issues with observer's paradox? Did you need to get permission to use the data? Did you have any problems with collecting the data? If you didn't, you need to show that you have engaged with these questions.

If you have transcribed, what conventions did you use to transcribe your data? Make sure you include these.

Finally, your methodology should end with a data description table which summarises the information about your data. It should include: a reference code for each bit of data / what it is / who is involved / where it came from / date it was published / word count.

Remember: I do want a copy of this handed in on Tuesday, however this is just a very first draft and I am not expecting perfection. I do expect to see a clear direction for your analysis. Next week we will go over how to do a systematic analysis of your texts and approaches you can take for when you start to write it up.

Any questions? Any problems? See me!

Nina

A2 Language Work

Hello Language People!

Today I would like you to make sure that all blog work is up to date and complete.

1. You should have an overview of the four main theory areas: Nativism (Chomsky); Behaviourism (Skinner); Cognitive Development theory(Piaget); and Social Interactionist theory (Bruner).
2. You should have a detailed response to the problems children face in their lexical and phonological development (including examples and appropriate terminology. You can refer to researchers too.
3. An analysis of the language features as a child develops - with a particular focus on grammar. Again, aim to use specific linguistic terminology. At the moment your responses are too vague!

That is plenty to be getting on with. I will be looking at and commenting on your blog work over the next few days.

If you manage to complete all that, finish your CLA overview work in the classroom!

Good Luck!

Nina