Main points:
- Each week, students are asked to read one or more texts that relate to the week's topic.
- Having listened to the lectures, they should have some foundational knowledge of the content already.
- The purpose of the reading component is not so much to acquire new factual information but to learn how to navigate the different types of written text that they will encounter in their linguistics programme.
- Support is therefore provided in the form of online ‘As you read …’ notes, followed by a series of activities (from Week 4 onwards) that the campus students complete in a face-to-face tutorial, while the online students work independently using the same material with answer keys.
- The activities are intended to ease students into reading a range of texts that are generally very challenging for them.
In Week 2, students are given two very short texts: a digest titled ‘What is linguistics?’ from the Center for Applied Linguistics online digests, and a blog post by linguist Gretchen McCulloch, titled ‘What is language? 8 myths about language and linguistics’. Both are intended to be accessible to new undergraduates, and the purpose of providing two texts is to focus students’ attention on what makes a text seem more ‘academic’ and whether this necessarily makes a text more difficult to read. Attention is drawn to the more formal layout and tone of the digest, in contrast to the conversational style of the blog post. However, closer analysis shows that the vocabulary and sentence structure of the blog post is actually much more complex, making it slightly more challenging to read. The point is made that a text may be written in a style that is academically appropriate without necessarily being overly complex, and the digest is presented as a good model for student writing.
The topic for Week 3 is language myths - the type of belief that laypeople hold about language that linguists spend a lot of time debunking. The students are asked to read two texts: a position paper by Da Pidgin Coup (a group based at the University of Hawaiˈi) titled ‘Pidgin and education’, and a journal article (Heugh, 2002) titled ‘The case against bilingual and multilingual education in South Africa: Laying bare the myths’. The two texts are much longer than in the previous week, so the ‘As you read …’ activities focus on reading strategies: scanning for basic information about context, getting a quick overview of the whole text, searching for specific keywords (manually scanning a hard copy as well as using CTRL+F on a soft copy), and focusing on specific sections in detail. The rationale is that students sometimes approach pre-reading ‘prediction’ activities as though they are expected to guess what a text will be about without then having to read it, while the notes this week help them to see that prediction is more about warming their brains up to read the text in a more efficient way. Once they have tried to find information quickly from the two texts, they are asked to reflect on how efficient they were at finding this information.
We then begin a four-week unit (Weeks 4-7) on linguistic diversity. At the end of the unit, students will have to submit an assignment that summarises why it is hard to know exactly how many languages there are in the world. They are required to use ideas from three (and only three) texts that are studied in depth during the unit. This is in order to scaffold the process of identifying and using information from written texts before having to search for their own sources. Since all students are working from the same texts, it is easier to walk through reading and writing strategies in context. The rationale for the course design here is that the students will do the reading because it will help them in the assignment, and they will complete the tutorial activities because these will help them do the reading. The hope is that such a closely controlled sequence of activities will lead to success in the assignment, and thus lead to a more independent ability to keep working in the same way in the remainder of the course with less support, in other words converting extrinsic motivation for reading into a more intrinsic motivation.
In Week 4, students are given a very long text on ‘Words and worlds: World languages review’ (Martí et al., 2005) and taught to use the strategy of ‘tuning in and out’ of a text, skimming through quite quickly and only stopping to tune in when something catches their eye. Before beginning the tutorial activities, students are asked to identify the sections of the text that they think are relevant to the assignment question.
The tutorial activities then focus only on these sections, with an overall theme of attacking complex paragraphs for meaning. The first activity helps them to decide what the purpose of a selected paragraph is and pick out the key ideas it contains. The chosen paragraph is fairly accessible to the students without much prior knowledge. However, the second activity examines a paragraph that relies on quite a lot of knowledge that is not provided in the text, such as that Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are very closely related languages with a high degree of mutual intelligibility. An example is the following sentence:
“Otherwise, why are Danish, Swedish and Norwegian considered three separate languages if they have no problem understanding each other?”
One of our challenges is helping students to understand that the word 'otherwise' and the use of the rhetorical question imply that the reader SHOULD already know that speakers of these three languages can understand each other to a great extent - and therefore that this should be taken to be a true statement - even though they may actually not know this, since it's presented from a fairly Eurocentric frame of reference. If students miss this cue, then they miss the point that we DO need them to understand about our topic: that, sometimes, we only use different names for different languages because they are spoken in different geopolitical contexts (marking out national differences) even though they may be linguistically very similar. And, in the same way, we sometimes refer to dialects of a single language (e.g. Chinese) as a way of masking the difference between e.g. Mandarin and Cantonese, which are linguistically complete different from each other (marking out a common national identity). The difference between a language and a dialect is sometimes political rather than linguistic. So our challenge in the 'working with texts' strand is two-fold: (1) we need students to comprehend key concepts that will enable them to meet the content learning outcomes of the course, and (2) we need to help students handle elements of texts that may be obscuring their access to these concepts - due to Eurocentrism or many other issues. We can't protect our students from this type of text, so we need to show them how to deconstruct, and also critique, them.
The topic for Week 3 is language myths - the type of belief that laypeople hold about language that linguists spend a lot of time debunking. The students are asked to read two texts: a position paper by Da Pidgin Coup (a group based at the University of Hawaiˈi) titled ‘Pidgin and education’, and a journal article (Heugh, 2002) titled ‘The case against bilingual and multilingual education in South Africa: Laying bare the myths’. The two texts are much longer than in the previous week, so the ‘As you read …’ activities focus on reading strategies: scanning for basic information about context, getting a quick overview of the whole text, searching for specific keywords (manually scanning a hard copy as well as using CTRL+F on a soft copy), and focusing on specific sections in detail. The rationale is that students sometimes approach pre-reading ‘prediction’ activities as though they are expected to guess what a text will be about without then having to read it, while the notes this week help them to see that prediction is more about warming their brains up to read the text in a more efficient way. Once they have tried to find information quickly from the two texts, they are asked to reflect on how efficient they were at finding this information.
We then begin a four-week unit (Weeks 4-7) on linguistic diversity. At the end of the unit, students will have to submit an assignment that summarises why it is hard to know exactly how many languages there are in the world. They are required to use ideas from three (and only three) texts that are studied in depth during the unit. This is in order to scaffold the process of identifying and using information from written texts before having to search for their own sources. Since all students are working from the same texts, it is easier to walk through reading and writing strategies in context. The rationale for the course design here is that the students will do the reading because it will help them in the assignment, and they will complete the tutorial activities because these will help them do the reading. The hope is that such a closely controlled sequence of activities will lead to success in the assignment, and thus lead to a more independent ability to keep working in the same way in the remainder of the course with less support, in other words converting extrinsic motivation for reading into a more intrinsic motivation.
In Week 4, students are given a very long text on ‘Words and worlds: World languages review’ (Martí et al., 2005) and taught to use the strategy of ‘tuning in and out’ of a text, skimming through quite quickly and only stopping to tune in when something catches their eye. Before beginning the tutorial activities, students are asked to identify the sections of the text that they think are relevant to the assignment question.
The tutorial activities then focus only on these sections, with an overall theme of attacking complex paragraphs for meaning. The first activity helps them to decide what the purpose of a selected paragraph is and pick out the key ideas it contains. The chosen paragraph is fairly accessible to the students without much prior knowledge. However, the second activity examines a paragraph that relies on quite a lot of knowledge that is not provided in the text, such as that Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are very closely related languages with a high degree of mutual intelligibility. An example is the following sentence:
“Otherwise, why are Danish, Swedish and Norwegian considered three separate languages if they have no problem understanding each other?”
One of our challenges is helping students to understand that the word 'otherwise' and the use of the rhetorical question imply that the reader SHOULD already know that speakers of these three languages can understand each other to a great extent - and therefore that this should be taken to be a true statement - even though they may actually not know this, since it's presented from a fairly Eurocentric frame of reference. If students miss this cue, then they miss the point that we DO need them to understand about our topic: that, sometimes, we only use different names for different languages because they are spoken in different geopolitical contexts (marking out national differences) even though they may be linguistically very similar. And, in the same way, we sometimes refer to dialects of a single language (e.g. Chinese) as a way of masking the difference between e.g. Mandarin and Cantonese, which are linguistically complete different from each other (marking out a common national identity). The difference between a language and a dialect is sometimes political rather than linguistic. So our challenge in the 'working with texts' strand is two-fold: (1) we need students to comprehend key concepts that will enable them to meet the content learning outcomes of the course, and (2) we need to help students handle elements of texts that may be obscuring their access to these concepts - due to Eurocentrism or many other issues. We can't protect our students from this type of text, so we need to show them how to deconstruct, and also critique, them.
We then examine another paragraph, which we run through a vocabulary profiling tool from LexTutor, to discover that just over 80% of its words are found in the most frequently used thousand words of English (shown in blue), just over 1% are found in the second thousand (green), approximately 6% are contained in the Academic Word List (Coxhead, 2000) (yellow), and the final 13% are in none of these lists (red). This last group may contain technical terms from Linguistics, they might be names for specific languages or countries, or they might be general words that are less frequently used in English.
Students are asked to reflect on their knowledge of these different sets of words, and they are made aware of the serious challenges they are going to face with academic reading if they are struggling with any of the words in the thousand most frequent words of English. |
A general rule is that we need to understand around 95% of a text in order to follow its meaning. The extract above contains 493 words, so it will be too hard for students if it contains more than 25 words that they cannot understand. As lecturers, we need to compensate for students' challenges with reading academic texts in a second language (e.g. by providing the content in other modes such as lecture videos or short summaries), but we also need to help them become better at reading these texts, so that they build up their vocabulary in their disciplines, and ensure that they do have access to the genuine academic language used in their fields.
To help students build up their general and academic vocabulary, they are directed to resources such as the lists of most frequently used words and the 570 word families on the Academic Word List. They are also directed to a free online test through which they can self-assess their vocabulary knowledge. In other words, we do not undertake to solve all of the students’ challenges with English proficiency, but we help them to understand where their weaknesses lie, and we point them towards some resources that might help them (as might be covered on a general English course).
Finally, we focus on depth of understanding of another relevant extract. The idea of the activity is for students to rate how well they understand the point the author of the extract makes, and be aware that there may be deeper levels of understanding beyond their current level. Having read a short extract, students are asked to choose one of the following statements:
To help students build up their general and academic vocabulary, they are directed to resources such as the lists of most frequently used words and the 570 word families on the Academic Word List. They are also directed to a free online test through which they can self-assess their vocabulary knowledge. In other words, we do not undertake to solve all of the students’ challenges with English proficiency, but we help them to understand where their weaknesses lie, and we point them towards some resources that might help them (as might be covered on a general English course).
Finally, we focus on depth of understanding of another relevant extract. The idea of the activity is for students to rate how well they understand the point the author of the extract makes, and be aware that there may be deeper levels of understanding beyond their current level. Having read a short extract, students are asked to choose one of the following statements:
- I am confused about the point that Mühlhäusler is making in the extract.
- I understand that Mühlhäusler thinks there is a problem with the way Westerners (including linguists) describe languages, but I can’t explain why.
- I can explain why Mühlhäusler thinks there is a problem with the way Westerners (including linguists) describe languages.
- I can provide examples from my own experience or knowledge to illustrate the point that Mühlhäusler is making.
In Week 5, a text on ‘the exceptional linguistic density of Vanuatu’ (François et al., 2015) is given. Students are first told to use the strategies from Week 4 to identify relevant sections of the text for their assignment, and then attack these sections for meaning, using whatever tools they need to deal with unknown vocabulary and, again, using their knowledge from the lectures as a base. The aim is to reinforce these strategies, while asking students to take more responsibilty for applying them by themselves.
Moving on from this, the ‘As you read …’ notes focus on how to take effective notes from this week’s text, and this activity is then developed further during the tutorial, as students begin by comparing sets of sample notes from the same extract of the week's text, identifying features that make them useful preparation for the upcoming assignment.
Moving on from this, the ‘As you read …’ notes focus on how to take effective notes from this week’s text, and this activity is then developed further during the tutorial, as students begin by comparing sets of sample notes from the same extract of the week's text, identifying features that make them useful preparation for the upcoming assignment.
François et al. (2015)
p.5 Methodological problems = reason for the fluctuation seen Tryon (1976) first found 179 communalects (same as wordlists). Final number 105 languages. Lynch & Crowley (2001), lower lexicostatistical threshold, fewer separate languages. Also documented many new languages (some moribund). Final number 106 languages. Tryon (1996, 2006), revised estimate 113 languages. Most frequently cited in recent decades. Tryon (unpublished) map of 125 languages p.6 François et al. 138 languages = highest number ever proposed for Vanuatu. Counts as separate languages if locally identified as separate and if linguists agree. Also incorporates surveys by other linguists - more languages than before |
Tryon (1976)
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How many languages in Vanuatu?
Different estimates over the years: Tryon (1976): 105 (179 communalects) Lynch & Crowley (2001): 106 Tryon (1996, 2006): 113 Tryon (unpublished - 2009): 125 François et al. (2015): 138 Reasons for different estimates:
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Having focused on which types of note taking are helpful (for different purposes), the tutorial focus shifts to what it means to summarise something, since the upcoming assignment requires students to summarise reasons why it's hard to know exactly how many languages there are in the world. Students can sometimes get fixated on the formal properties of different types of text, following a 'recipe'-like approach, without thinking enough about the purpose of what they are writing. So we begin by discussing the following question:
Which of the following definitions best explains what a summary is?
And then, we focus on the difference between summarising something in order to respond to the requirements of the task and summarising an original text as an end in itself, using the following extract from our week's reading:
Codrington cites as many as thirteen communalects for the sole island of Vanua Lava, where only four languages are spoken today - including the moribund Mwesen and Lemerig. This gives an idea of the drastic language loss which must have occurred since the end of the 19th century. (François et al., 2015, p.6)
Students are shown how [1] provides the best summary of the extract above, while [2] is a far better sentence if you want to summarise the reasons that it is hard to count languages.
Finally, the concept of synthesising ideas from two different texts is introduced, using the Week 4 and Week 5 readings. Students complete a table, deciding whether the points from the table are mentioned in either or both of the texts, before studying some examples that show different techniques for combining ideas from two or more texts within the same sentence:
Which of the following definitions best explains what a summary is?
- A short, clear description that gives the main facts or ideas about something
- A shorter version of a written text in your own words
- Key points from the original text without any examples or details
And then, we focus on the difference between summarising something in order to respond to the requirements of the task and summarising an original text as an end in itself, using the following extract from our week's reading:
Codrington cites as many as thirteen communalects for the sole island of Vanua Lava, where only four languages are spoken today - including the moribund Mwesen and Lemerig. This gives an idea of the drastic language loss which must have occurred since the end of the 19th century. (François et al., 2015, p.6)
Students are shown how [1] provides the best summary of the extract above, while [2] is a far better sentence if you want to summarise the reasons that it is hard to count languages.
- The reduction from thirteen to four linguistic varieties on Vanua Lava illustrates that a vast number of languages have disappeared since the late 1800s.
- The disappearance of a vast number of languages (for example a reduction from thirteen to four on Vanua Lava since the late 1800s) complicates the task of counting languages at any particular time.
Finally, the concept of synthesising ideas from two different texts is introduced, using the Week 4 and Week 5 readings. Students complete a table, deciding whether the points from the table are mentioned in either or both of the texts, before studying some examples that show different techniques for combining ideas from two or more texts within the same sentence:
- Martí et al. (2005) and François et al. (2015) both provide several examples in which a variety is considered a language by one group of people and a dialect of a larger language by another group of people.
- Speakers’ own judgements often conflict with those of professional linguists (François et al., 2015) or with those of language academies (Martí et al., 2005).
- Mutual intelligibility does not always mean that two varieties should be considered dialects of the same language (François et al., 2015; Martí et al., 2005).
In Week 6, the final text on which the assignment is based is given: ‘Historical linguistics and Oceanic languages’ (Kikusawa, 2017). The ‘As you read …’ notes remind students to start by using the strategies from Weeks 4 and 5, before adding the next step, which is to synthesise information from the three texts that they have read so far. A table of notes is provided, with columns completed for the first two texts, and students are then asked to look for details in the Week 6 text to complete the final column with related information.
Again, the tutorial picks up from this point, as students should by now have some fairly detailed notes about a range of issues that make it hard to know how many languages there are in the world. The tutorial activities then focus on deconstructing some model paragraphs that use information from all three of their texts, examining how the ideas are integrated with one another differently, depending on whether they make similar or different points. The focus then shifts to referencing, with a small amount of attention paid to technical elements, but primarily looking at the different effects created by author-prominent and end citations, reasons why direct quotations should only be used very sparingly in this type of assignment, and ways to put forward a viewpoint indirectly through the words used to introduce a citation.
The first referencing activity asks: Which of these statements best sums up your own reasons for using other sources of information when writing assignments?
Again, the tutorial picks up from this point, as students should by now have some fairly detailed notes about a range of issues that make it hard to know how many languages there are in the world. The tutorial activities then focus on deconstructing some model paragraphs that use information from all three of their texts, examining how the ideas are integrated with one another differently, depending on whether they make similar or different points. The focus then shifts to referencing, with a small amount of attention paid to technical elements, but primarily looking at the different effects created by author-prominent and end citations, reasons why direct quotations should only be used very sparingly in this type of assignment, and ways to put forward a viewpoint indirectly through the words used to introduce a citation.
The first referencing activity asks: Which of these statements best sums up your own reasons for using other sources of information when writing assignments?
- I can’t think of a good answer to the question, so I use other ideas to help me think of something. I then rephrase these other ideas because it’s important to use my own words. Other students may be able to answer the question by themselves, but I need help.
- I decide what I think about the question first, and then I look for ideas from other sources that can back up my opinion. I use the references to show how much I have read.
- I read around the topic first, and gradually build up my own answer to the question once I’ve read enough. There is no single right answer to the question, but I use references to show the reader how I have arrived at my particular answer.
Only then do we move to the formal mechanics of referencing (including punctuation and format) and how to interpret similarity indexes on Turnitin software, before a practice task in which students have to insert references into a paragraph that is based on the week's readings. By the end of the tutorial, students should be able to synthesise information from the three prescribed texts in order to support their answer to the assignment question, providing correctly-formatted references in the appropriate places.
The assignment is thus extremely tightly scaffolded, as we walk students through exactly what to do. In this course, we see the assignments as part of the learning process through which students learn to write as linguists, rather than as a post hoc activity through which we can later assess what has been learnt. The task is also a stepping stone towards the later assignments in which students will have to repeat broadly the same process but with new texts that they have found themselves.
The assignment is thus extremely tightly scaffolded, as we walk students through exactly what to do. In this course, we see the assignments as part of the learning process through which students learn to write as linguists, rather than as a post hoc activity through which we can later assess what has been learnt. The task is also a stepping stone towards the later assignments in which students will have to repeat broadly the same process but with new texts that they have found themselves.
During Week 7, we are conscious that students are focusing most of their energy on completing their assignment that is due at the end of the week, so the texts this week (Daniels, 2017; Fenlon & Wilkinson, 2015) are used simply to consolidate the content covered during the week's lectures on spoken, signed and written language. The 'As you read ...' notes help students reflect on how they are finding the amount of reading they have to do on the course, and whether they feel they are getting better at handling long texts and complex vocabulary. The tutorial activities practise explaining key points from the texts concisely and in their own words - skills that are also needed in the assignment but with the different texts.
During the next section of the course (Weeks 8-10), there is quite a lot of new content covered (in the area of language acquisition and language teaching), which sets the foundation for the remaining assignments of the course: a group oral presentation, followed by an individual essay plan and final essay on a related topic. The tutorials focus on some very practical assignment-driven preparation, as well as the oral presentations themselves, so the 'working with texts' strand comprises only the reading plus the 'As you read ...' notes.
The Week 8 reading (Yule, 2010) is a textbook chapter that introduces the new topic of first language acquisition, and students are advised to take comprehensive but concise notes that will help them review its key points at a glance. The difference is highlighted between note-taking for a specific assignment and note-taking for a general overview. As with the pre-listening activities, the ‘As you read …’ component this week then focuses on reviewing these notes using a checklist to help them reflect on their effectiveness.
In Week 9, a reading is given that is deliberately too challenging for the students: a research-based article that presents new findings on the critical period for second language acquisition (Hartshorne et al., 2018). The week’s lectures have, as usual, covered the key concepts that will provide them a ‘way in’ to the reading, but the text is challenging in terms of both layout and technical detail. The ‘As you read …’ notes therefore provide a lot of guidance, and begin by stating:
The Week 8 reading (Yule, 2010) is a textbook chapter that introduces the new topic of first language acquisition, and students are advised to take comprehensive but concise notes that will help them review its key points at a glance. The difference is highlighted between note-taking for a specific assignment and note-taking for a general overview. As with the pre-listening activities, the ‘As you read …’ component this week then focuses on reviewing these notes using a checklist to help them reflect on their effectiveness.
In Week 9, a reading is given that is deliberately too challenging for the students: a research-based article that presents new findings on the critical period for second language acquisition (Hartshorne et al., 2018). The week’s lectures have, as usual, covered the key concepts that will provide them a ‘way in’ to the reading, but the text is challenging in terms of both layout and technical detail. The ‘As you read …’ notes therefore provide a lot of guidance, and begin by stating:
This week's text is the most difficult reading you will have to do on the course. The goal is not to understand everything as it is extremely technical. The goal is to learn how to handle this type of technical research article. As you read ... Don't give up! I am not expecting you to understand everything, and that is okay. Just use the notes to guide your reading as far as you can and then, when you've had enough, just skip to the bottom of the page, where you will find a summary of the key points from the study.
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In Week 10, a relatively short text is given: If you don't understand, how can you learn?, a global education monitoring report policy paper (UNESCO, 2016). The text puts forward arguments in support of mother tongue education, which is a topic that many of our students hold negative views about (following widespread assumptions that English is more important than the mother tongue, and therefore should be prioritised at all costs). The ‘As you read …’ notes, this week, therefore focus on evaluating information from the reading, comparing it with prior knowledge or ideas about the topic, and weighing up the evidence.
The final section of the course (Weeks 11-13) returns to the more familiar pattern of students reading an article by themselves, using the ‘As you read …’ notes for support, before completing the tutorial activities that help them work with the text in more detail. During this part of the course, students are working on their final essays, in which they have to put forward and support an argument about an aspect of language acquisition. They are expected to do their own research on the topic, so the readings do not relate to the topic of language acquisition at all but are chosen for the models they provide of written arguments.
In Week 11, the text is 'False Fronts in the Language Wars' (adapted for this course from Pinker, 2012), which weighs up the perceived dichotomy between prescriptivism and descriptivism and argues for a more moderate position in which it is acknowledged that prescriptive language rules are conventions that can aid communication in certain contexts without invalidating the usage of other non-standard variants in others. Attention is drawn to the fact that this text does not present new factual information about the topic, but it creates an argument about the week's key theme. As a result, students cannot skim through for key information, since the argument builds up gradually throughout the article, so a more productive strategy is to read the whole text through quickly without stopping to take notes, before reading through a second time to highlight any keywords or points that seem important. Having read the text twice, the students are advised to try and write a summary of the main point expressed by the author in one or two sentences only, using their own words, before evaluating what they think of this argument.
The tutorial uses extracts from the reading to focus students’ attention on the vocabulary and syntax used to build up the argument and refute counter-arguments. The first activity looks at chains of keywords (in this case 'dichotomy' and its derivative forms) that are used so frequently throughout the text that we know the concept of a dichotomy, or binary, must be key to the whole argument. The second activity looks at the environments within which the word 'dichotomy' and its derivatives occur throughout the text, as a way of understanding what the author's point is about the two opposing positions:
In Week 11, the text is 'False Fronts in the Language Wars' (adapted for this course from Pinker, 2012), which weighs up the perceived dichotomy between prescriptivism and descriptivism and argues for a more moderate position in which it is acknowledged that prescriptive language rules are conventions that can aid communication in certain contexts without invalidating the usage of other non-standard variants in others. Attention is drawn to the fact that this text does not present new factual information about the topic, but it creates an argument about the week's key theme. As a result, students cannot skim through for key information, since the argument builds up gradually throughout the article, so a more productive strategy is to read the whole text through quickly without stopping to take notes, before reading through a second time to highlight any keywords or points that seem important. Having read the text twice, the students are advised to try and write a summary of the main point expressed by the author in one or two sentences only, using their own words, before evaluating what they think of this argument.
The tutorial uses extracts from the reading to focus students’ attention on the vocabulary and syntax used to build up the argument and refute counter-arguments. The first activity looks at chains of keywords (in this case 'dichotomy' and its derivative forms) that are used so frequently throughout the text that we know the concept of a dichotomy, or binary, must be key to the whole argument. The second activity looks at the environments within which the word 'dichotomy' and its derivatives occur throughout the text, as a way of understanding what the author's point is about the two opposing positions:
Euphonious
phony the sadly standard The thoughtful as the no match for a good |
dichotomies
dichotomies dichotomy nondichotomous Dichotomizers dichotomists dichotomizing dichotomy |
position have difficulty grasping this point fear mindset imagines |
In Week 12, the text is ‘A recurring decimal: English in language policy and planning’ (Bamgbose, 2003). Students are directed to focus on a series of keywords relating to ‘recurrence’, ‘choice’, ‘power’ and ‘exclusion’, which collectively build up an argument that it is not really a choice to learn English but an inevitability that excludes those with lesser power. The ‘As you read …’ notes help students to deconstruct this article by following the keywords and their synonyms, showing them how they can build up their own arguments in similar ways.
The tutorial then looks at different ways to use sources to support and refute arguments, using extracts from the text as well as other texts on the same broad topic. In the first activity, students dissect a sample essay question (How true is it that people choose to learn English in order to improve their prospects?) and then skim through four short extracts looking out for points about choice (or a lack of choice), and improvements in prospects (or a lack of improvements). In the next activity, they then discuss which of a list of possible thesis statements is easiest to support using the extracts they have just read, before analysing components of some successful essay introductions and conclusions on the topic.
In Week 13, the text is ‘The great English heist in African studies’ (Mugane, 2018), in which the author puts forward an argument that tries to mediate between Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who argues that English is not an African language, and Biodun Jeyifo, a literary critic from Nigeria, who argues that it is. The other two articles from the same journal issue are also given to students as additional optional reading. Once students have understood the key points of the text, they are asked to reflect on the way that Mugane deals with the two opposing arguments – whether he chooses one or the other, or whether he finds a more nuanced way to respond to both. Key sentences from the text are selected for close reading to help them analyse the approach. The key point made in the 'As you read ...' notes is that a clever way to deal with an argument is to redefine the terms of the argument itself, rather than attempting to choose between two opposing positions.
In the tutorial - the final one before they submit their final argument essay on a topic from Section 3 of the course - the first activity revisits the 'pre-listening activities' about signposting language, comparing the way a lecture might put forward an argument with the way this is typically done in a written essay. The second activity focuses on defining the terms of an argument with the introduction, using the Mugane article for context. The third activity uses a keyword search (using CTRL + F on the soft copy) to search for a number of keywords and synonyms from the title of the weekly reading within the rest of the text, with the suggestion that they should do the same thing with the draft of their own essay, checking that they are building up their argument gradually through the use of lexical chains. The fourth activity uses the same search approach to count how many times different linking phrases (moreover, furthermore, in addition, however, first, this and such) have been used by Mugane. The point is made that the 'obvious' linking phrases like 'moreover' are not used very often, and that very few paragraphs start with such a phrase. Again, students are reminded to edit the links within their own essay draft using Mugane as a model. Finally, extracts from the reading are used to show how Mugane incorporates references to other sources within his text to move his argument along (rather than leaving the reader to work out how they are relevant!). Again, this is used as a model for students to use in their own final essay drafts, checking that all references to other sources are incorporated effectively.
By this time, students have received written feedback on an essay plan (incorporating an annotated bibliography, a thesis statement and a bullet point plan), and they have one further week in which to submit the final draft of the essay.
The tutorial then looks at different ways to use sources to support and refute arguments, using extracts from the text as well as other texts on the same broad topic. In the first activity, students dissect a sample essay question (How true is it that people choose to learn English in order to improve their prospects?) and then skim through four short extracts looking out for points about choice (or a lack of choice), and improvements in prospects (or a lack of improvements). In the next activity, they then discuss which of a list of possible thesis statements is easiest to support using the extracts they have just read, before analysing components of some successful essay introductions and conclusions on the topic.
In Week 13, the text is ‘The great English heist in African studies’ (Mugane, 2018), in which the author puts forward an argument that tries to mediate between Kenyan writer Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, who argues that English is not an African language, and Biodun Jeyifo, a literary critic from Nigeria, who argues that it is. The other two articles from the same journal issue are also given to students as additional optional reading. Once students have understood the key points of the text, they are asked to reflect on the way that Mugane deals with the two opposing arguments – whether he chooses one or the other, or whether he finds a more nuanced way to respond to both. Key sentences from the text are selected for close reading to help them analyse the approach. The key point made in the 'As you read ...' notes is that a clever way to deal with an argument is to redefine the terms of the argument itself, rather than attempting to choose between two opposing positions.
In the tutorial - the final one before they submit their final argument essay on a topic from Section 3 of the course - the first activity revisits the 'pre-listening activities' about signposting language, comparing the way a lecture might put forward an argument with the way this is typically done in a written essay. The second activity focuses on defining the terms of an argument with the introduction, using the Mugane article for context. The third activity uses a keyword search (using CTRL + F on the soft copy) to search for a number of keywords and synonyms from the title of the weekly reading within the rest of the text, with the suggestion that they should do the same thing with the draft of their own essay, checking that they are building up their argument gradually through the use of lexical chains. The fourth activity uses the same search approach to count how many times different linking phrases (moreover, furthermore, in addition, however, first, this and such) have been used by Mugane. The point is made that the 'obvious' linking phrases like 'moreover' are not used very often, and that very few paragraphs start with such a phrase. Again, students are reminded to edit the links within their own essay draft using Mugane as a model. Finally, extracts from the reading are used to show how Mugane incorporates references to other sources within his text to move his argument along (rather than leaving the reader to work out how they are relevant!). Again, this is used as a model for students to use in their own final essay drafts, checking that all references to other sources are incorporated effectively.
By this time, students have received written feedback on an essay plan (incorporating an annotated bibliography, a thesis statement and a bullet point plan), and they have one further week in which to submit the final draft of the essay.