Independent

Below are seven suggestions for deepening your knowledge about English Language concepts in preparation for starting this course!

1.Read language articles in the archives section of The English and Media Centre site www.englishandmedia.co.uk (Username emagazine123 Password english123). These articles are all written exclusively for A Level students on English courses. Go to the Language section for relevant reading. Note and learn the key ideas.

2. Watch Steven Pinker's 50-minute video 'Language as a window on the brain'. This talk deals with concepts we cover for children's language development (Paper 1 Section B). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-B_ONJIEcE&t=1008s

3.Read some articles from The Conversation about language issues https://theconversation.com/uk/search?q=linguistics+english+language. This is useful practice for your Paper 2 Language Discourses where you are asked to evaluate journalistic arguments about language topics. Note and learn the key ideas and note how language is used to engage the reader.

4.Listen to some Word of Mouth programmes https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtnz (this is a BBC Sounds site so you’ll need BBC iplayer username and password)This BBC Radio 4 radio programme presented by Michael Rosen has a fantastic archive of half-hour episodes on language topics. Useful for lots of different aspects of the course particularly generating Language Investigation ideas.

5.Watch and make notes from the eight-part series The Adventure of English which traces the language from its origins up to the current century. Very useful for the Language Change section. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1XQx9pGGd0&list=PLbBvyau8q9v4hcgNYBp4LCyhMHSyq-lhe&index=1&t=7s

6. Listen to and make notes from the Lexis podcast designed for students and teachers of English Language A Level. https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/lexis-lexispodcast-Jc0IA_BbH-r/ There are recently more than 85 one-hour episodes. Recent interesting episodes include : digital rhetoric (85), Americanisation of young people’s language (77), prescriptivism (70) and accent stereotypes (69).

7. Read some English Language books. We highly recommend the following :

•  ‘The Story of English in 100 Words’ David Crystal

• ‘You Just Don’t Understand’ Deborah Tannen

• ‘The Language Wars : A History of Proper English’ Henry Hitchings

• ‘Women Talk More than Men.. and Other Myths about Language Explained’ A. Kaplan

• ‘The Life of Slang’ J. Coleman

• ‘Modern Tribes : The Secret Languages of Britain’ S. Dent