What follows is a small set of samples, exemplars and resources that is intended to suggest ways of providing meaningful feedback advice to students in a time and effort efficient way – as well as helping students to make good use of it.

It’s all too easy to assume that the only way we can help students with coursework drafts, or with mock exams, is to correct everything we can get away with (and in some cases, more than that) and therefore to show them the ‘right’ way. At the same time, we know really that getting the students to work on...

1. ‘Burt’s Chips’ Textual Analysis PowerPoint

• Burts Crisps.pptx

2. Notes to Accompany ‘Burt’s Chips’ PowerPoint

The PowerPoint and ideas contained in these notes have been used successfully to introduce students to the linguistic methods or “frameworks” needed as a part of the AQA English Language course; however, the ideas contained here and in the PowerPoint are easily adaptable and entirely applicable to other A Level language courses as well as the combined English Language and Literature courses.

Slide 1 and General Notes

The...

Overview

• Accent & Dialect starters for A Level English Language lessons
• Key Sociolinguistic Studies into Variation
• Key Linguistic Concepts

Starters for A Level English Language: Accent and Dialect

A simple UK Geography test can be a fun starter for a lesson featuring particular UK varieties. It’s worth laminating a half class set of A3 outlines of the British Isles for this. Students work in pairs and either are given place names on cards to place appropriately (possibly with Blu-tak as well, so work can be held up to show the class) or a...

Gender, Media Representation and Power

This fairly old ‘riddle’ is a brilliant starter for the topic of gender, especially if students are not aware that the lesson will be focused on gender, so that they are not thinking along those lines already.  It’s my favourite way to start a unit of work on gender!

Some students will probably know the answer.  I find they can be fairly easily encouraged to keep it to themselves so as not to spoil the fun.  It works best projected on the board, with students writing down their answers secretly onto mini...

Spoken Language

Note that some of the starters listed in the ‘Language and Power’ guide focus on spoken language, particularly referencing status differences and politeness.

It can be interesting to ask students to draft a set of rules for conversations before studying speech in any depth. These can easily be drawn up in pairs and then tested against recorded conversations or transcripts. In some ways, it’s good for students to see that they can use their existing, ‘commonsense’ knowledge of language and yet, at the same time, it...

How do we address people? is a useful starter at an early stage in considering power and spoken language. Students can be asked to think of as many different terms of address as possible in a minute, or can be encouraged to think of different contexts and relationships and the relevant terms of address for these, perhaps with a three or five minute time limit.

Who has the power? can be a very effective starter to encourage students to use their intuition to determine who is more powerful from their speech. This can be good for encouraging...

Some activities focused on specific frameworks, perhaps especially phonology and grammar, would also be appropriate starters for Child Language lessons, and in the ‘general starters’ section, some of the word game starters could be used to revise or refresh key terms for the topic.

Broad discussion questions can make great starters: simply display one on the board, or hand out a few on cards and let them think and explore. Possibilities for CLA lessons include:

• What do you need to learn in order to use language?
• Some say that language is...

What’s this? is a great starter in the early stages of studying new words.  Simply collect five very recent new words that are currently not widely used.  (Internet articles on new words are a great source of these words that are not yet in everyday usage). These can be displayed on a slide for students to note down (in a fixed time) what they think they mean.  This can easily be extended into the next phase of the lesson by selecting words all formed by a single process, e.g. all blends, to enable you to shift into teaching that process.

...

This collection of lesson starters for A Level English Literature complement the collection of ‘ice breakers’ and general English starters for broad recapping ideas, word games, creative writing starters, essay skills, general terms activities and skill builders. See A Level English Starters.

General discussion prompts are useful as broad starters once in a while. Try one of these quotations to get the class thinking:

• “Literature adds to reality. It does not simply describe it.” C. S. Lewis
• “Poetry is the best words in the best...

Many of these suggestions can work as interesting ways to introduce a concept, with the actual name or ‘label’ of the idea brought in afterwards as a follow-up; or they can be effective starters to recap and consolidate terms learnt in a previous session.

All-purpose terminology revision starter: students have a fixed amount of time, e.g. one minute, to note down as many terms as they can recall within a particular linguistic ‘framework’ category. A level of challenge can be added by having students mark their own or each others’...

This collection of suggestions includes ice-breaker or ‘getting to know you’ ideas which are especially suitable for a new class and some broadly ‘English’ lesson starters suitable for either English Language or Literature (or the combined English Language and Literature A Level) lessons, and some specific topic-related ideas. The focus here is on suitable starters for A Level classes, as starters for lower levels and younger ages are more readily available.

Ice Breakers

Human Bingo is an old favourite which can be quite easily given...

Teacher’s Note

Even a poor essay is the result of a substantial amount of time and effort; and the chances are that the student knew all along that their writing was ‘going wrong’ – but press on they must, on to what must at times seem like the bitter end. How frustrating and even belittling this process must be and how much it must reduce the student’s chances of enjoying this wonderful subject.

This guide results from many years of teaching essays in a way that seems to make writing them far more enjoyable and productive. The...

Associated Resources

• 1. Shelley - Frankenstein Walton’s Letters 1-4.pptx
• 2. Shelley - Frankenstein Allusions and Victor Ch 1-4.pptx
• 3. Shelley - Frankenstein The Birth of the Creature Ch 5-8.pptx
• 4. Shelley - Frankenstein Families Ch 15 Focus.pptx
• 5. Shelley - Frankenstein The Trial Ch 16-17.pptx
• 6. Shelley - Frankenstein Female Characters Ch18-20.pptx

Associated Resources

• A Student’s Guide to ’Much Ado About Nothing’ by Mandy Lloyd
• Much Ado Guide.doc

‘Much Ado about Nothing’ in context: ‘Comedy’ vs. ‘Tragedy’

Much Ado About Nothing is technically considered to be a Shakespearean ‘comedy’ of the classical kind; indeed, it’s even frequently taught at KS3 owing to its frequent comic tone. The witty and entertaining exchanges between the main protagonists Beatrice and Benedick have been the subject of much literary criticism and are often considered to be the most...

Associated Resources

• A Guide to Much Ado About Nothing by Steph Jackson
• Much Ado About Nothing - Student’s Guide.doc

This brief study guide focuses on the themes, language and issues of the play relevant to the current A-Level Literature specification AO2 requirement of form, structure and language: ‘demonstrate detailed critical understanding in analysing the ways in which structure, form and language shape meanings in literary texts’.

The guide also explores some areas of the historical context of the play which will assist you with...

Associated Resources

• Transcripts Pack
• Guide to Conversation Analysis.doc

This guide is intended to support teachers preparing students for tasks involving the analysis of transcribed conversation at AS and A2 level, although teachers of the new GCSE unit on Spoken Language may also find some helpful information here, especially in the “Key Issues” section.  Just don’t get carried away with the technical terms or theories at this level!

The advice and information given here is relevant to many specifications, both Language courses and...

Associated Resources

• A Guide to Conversational Analysis

Introduction

This collection of transcripts has been produced with A Level Language and combined Language and Literature teaching in mind, although some of the transcripts may also be suitable for use with the new Spoken Language GCSE unit.

• Never Mind The Buzzcocks.doc
• David Beckham and Jonathan Ross.doc
• Paxman and Cooper on Taxes.doc
• Husband and Wife - Nan and her Fruit Pies.doc
• Student and Teacher.doc
• Jeremy Kyle.doc
• Hugh F-W - Beer Batter.doc
• Loose Women.doc
• QI Daniel Radcliffe.doc...[ read full article ] »
  

There’s an interesting debate at The Economist.

http://www.economist.com/debate/debates/overview/190

Definitely good for people teaching the A spec (ENGA2 or ENGA3) and anyone interested in seeing a style model for a debate on a language topic.

Language Investigations

This is a guide to preparing students for the various ‘Investigations in English Language’ units that form part of many A Level English Language courses. It has been written to cover the A2 coursework requirements for the following examination boards:

• The basic requirements for the investigation are broadly similar across all boards but where needed, specific advice for a particular exam board’s specification is shown and clearly identified.

Assessment Focus (Assessment...