Personal Blogs
Elluminate one to one
sign language and communication
An article from "The Guardian" about sign language and the importance of members of the family being able to communicate with each other:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jan/15/deaf-children-families-signing-access
This overlaps with some E852 themes such as multimodality and learning through language.
first assignment for E852
I have just finished marking the first assignments for E852. Most students did well, probably most did better than those writing the first assignments for E844 used to. Perhaps the three part structure helped and it also seems that more people are coming on to this course having had experience of previous Masters modules.
The more I look at the E852, the better I think the course is. There are some great readings coming up as well.
Poetry as the "great unsettler"
I admire her principles in refusing the prize but I also like her points that "poetry is the great unsettler. It questions the established order of the mind. It is radical, by which I don't mean that it is either leftwing or rightwing, but that it works at the roots of thinking. It goes lower than rhetoric, lower than conversation, lower than logic, right down to the very faint honest voice at the bottom of the skull."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/12/ts-eliot-poetry-prize-pulled-out
Another article critical of changes to university funding
Here is another article about changes to university funding.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n24/keith-thomas/universities-under-attack
It seems to me that the government have a flawed understanding of what universities are about and how collaboration rather than competition is the default and best mindset of academics. There are occasions when competition is appropriate (as when applying for grants) but generosity has been the main attitude I have experienced when communicating with academics from other universities.
The language of tutor group forums
There has been some discussion amongst the E852 tutors about the nature of the tutor group forums and, in particular, how formal and academic the language should be. It is a complex question and it perhaps relates to the relative importance of different aims for the forums.
One of the aims is for the students to interact and this would seem to suggest that the language should be relatively informal. Encouragement of interaction would perhaps tend to focus on frequent and relatively unreflective posting.
Another aim would be for students to explore ideas on the course. This might suggest a more academic style as students refer to experience as well as what they have been reading.
Another important aim might be for the students to rehearse the kinds of ideas and the language needed for their later work. This might tend to suggest that students should post in a relatively academic way.
I would think that it might be appropriate for the students to use a variety of different voices as they post but would be interested in what others think.
Evaluating online sources
Some useful guidelines can be found here:
http://edsitement.neh.gov/reference-shelf/tips-for-better-browsing/evaluating-online-resources
Elluminate again
Numbers again
I suppose a theme is beginning to emerge about my scepticism about numbers and thinking about education and this was reinforced by visiting my son's school this morning to meet his teacher.
The teacher had given us a profile with various numbers on that are supposed to represent his current level in various subjects. She did not really explain them but more importantly, the numbers and our discussion did not points to detailed strengths and weaknesses and strategies for development.
"Averages will be of no help"
This seems like a balanced criticism of what appears to be a naive attempt to produce a league table of English skills.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/13/languages-tefl
Elluminate session for E852
Useful site for developing academic English
A useful site for helping learners with developing English for academic purposes.
http://www.open.ac.uk/tutors/dae/
E852
Letters in The Gurdian on Language Learning
Very important points are made in these letters, especially the first.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/oct/03/languages-arabic-zapotec-michael-gove?INTCMP=SRCH
Stephen Fry's Planet word
Of course the topic is fascinating but I am rather disappointed in the programme so far, partly because it seems to be more about Stephen Fry than language. It seemed bizarre that the accents of the UK were imitated by Stephen Fry rather than authentic examples being given.
However, perhaps the programme will encourage more people to be interested in language and Fry does seem to have the right instincts in terms of preservation of languages.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b015qqkl/Frys_Planet_Word_Identity/
David Crystal on language and the internet
article on language skills and job seekers
This is a good article. I think the point about making use of languages spoken by migrants is very important. I think this happens to some extent but it would be useful for the government to acknowledge that migrants often bring linguistic skills as well as needs.
Languages and international relations
More by Stefan Collini on university funding
Another article from the London Review of Books
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v33/n16/stefan-collini/from-robbins-to-mckinsey
Two points that I think are important are:
1 that academics frequently collaborate and therefore the attempt to introduce competition is not very appropriate
2 learning is frequently hard and that student pleasure is not necessarily synonymous with learning.
A useful looking data base on accents
I have only had time for a quick browse so far but this site looks very useful for finding out about the effect different languages are likely to have on accents.
Michael Rosen and the phone hacking hearings
Michael Rosen makes some useful points about the use of language in the article below but there is much more analysis that can be done - I assume that in the fullness of time it will be.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/22/phone-hacking-scandal-language-evasion
language and football
language links
An intriguing site about how websites link to websites with different languages on the web.
Analysing Second Life interaction
I made a first go at analysing some recordings of the Second Life sessions we did in April. I was influenced by conversation analysis as described in Hutchby and Woofitt (2008) but did not do a full painstaking conversation analysis.
It is noticeable how often there is a spoken conversation going on at the same time as people were using text chat about often quite different issues. It was also quite interesting to notice that students would sometimes write comments that undermined what was being said. For example, one student was saying that speaking was quite simple in second life and a message popped up on the text chat saying "Not for me it wasn't.
Hutchby, I. and Woofitt, R (2008) Conversation Analysis Second Edition Cambridge: Polity.
linguistics in the media
An interesting article about bilingualism in The Observer today, showing the advantages of being bilingual.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/12/ellen-bialystok-bilingual-brains-more-healthy
The question about trilingualism raises important issues about the practicalities of linking this research to the configuration of the brain rather than social factors. Presumably many people who learn a third language have done so as a choice (although there are many parts of the world where three languages are used).
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